Holy moly this was bad. I lost any sense of interest in this book about 1/3 of the way through. I think that Stewart did the best she could. She wanted to keep the legend of Arthur and his Round Table on point as much as possible. However, the characterizations in this whole book were off for me. Arthur pretty much is not that smart. Mordred is just misunderstood. And Guinevere is not bright at all, and is only wanted by every man it seems due to her beauty. I don’t read any of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s books anymore, but I still like her look at the King Arthur legend much better than this series because she ties things up a lot better by looking at the growing conflict between the pagan religions and the growing spread of Christianity. She also managed to make every woman and man in the story three dimensional.
The Wicked Day follows a lot of Mallory’s story about the final days of Camelot. Unlike with previous books I just found myself bored since I have read the poems and other books about it. I was hoping for a different spin, but besides a few details that Stewart changes here and there, everything is the same.
I think the thing that threw me a lot though is that this book was more detached than the other three. I think not having Merlin as a narrator in this one hurt the book. I didn’t get a true sense of anyone this time through. As I already said, everyone felt very one dimensional to me. No one had a brain in their head either. Morgause and others who have been causing problems in the last two books are pretty much done away or put aside in a few sentences or two.
I think the ending was supposed to have me feel pity for Mordred, but I didn’t. We just have him laying with a fatal wound knowing that his father was being taken away to be healed. Considering that he was doing what he could to be crowned king and to take Guinevere as his wife I felt meh towards the guy. I think what gets me is that Mordred falls in “love” with Guinevere and Stewart makes it that he is doing everything he can to have her. I hate story-lines that have it that some poor man had his head turned by a woman and if not for that maybe Mordred could have been a good person.
I read these books a million years ago in high school. I remember that I loved the Crystal Cave and was increasingly less enthusiastic about each successive book. I have been reluctant to re-read them as an adult, especially after last year’s Dragonriders of Pern experience.
Dragonriders of Pern was odd, but I heard how the other books just went on and on and you lose interest. The Crystal Cave was definitely the best of this lot.