Guest Post - Mediavilla on Legendborn

Deonn, Tracy. Legendborn. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2020. The Legendborn Cycle 1. 501 pages. Hardcover: $18.99, ISBN 9781534441606.

 

Bree Matthews, a Black sixteen-year-old high-schooler, is about to start a pre-college residential program at UNC-Chapel Hill when she becomes embroiled in the machinations of a secret society, called “Legendborn,” made-up of students who are all blood descendants of King Arthur and his most trusted Knights of the Round Table. The Legendborn are on the verge of fighting an epic good-vs.-evil battle, known as Camlann, coming soon to campus. But not all is as it seems. The more Bree learns about the Legendborn, the more she suspects a connection to her mother’s recent death and so, with the help of Nick Davis, Arthur’s heir apparent, begins to investigate the group’s darker magical side. Along the way, she discovers her own magical powers, called “rootcraft,” which she traces back to her enslaved ancestors.

 

To become more familiar with the Legendborn ethos, Bree decides to train as a squire and, in so doing, becomes romantically involved with Nick. She also suddenly finds herself strangely attracted to Selwyn, Nick’s “Merlin” and protector, who recognizes in her a kindred spirit. Could Bree be destined to play an important role in the upcoming battle of Camlann even though she is not Legendborn?

 

Though overly complicated, the majority of the story is conveyed through dialog and so moves rather quickly. Nevertheless, the nearly 500-page book is too long by half, especially whenever Bree is tutored on the history of the Legendborn. Too much extraneous detail that, in the long run, has little to do with the plot. Furthermore, unlike other recent young adult novels set in Arthurian times, Legendborn takes place in the present-day, which demands more than a passing suspension of disbelief. Do the residents of UNC truly not hear the climactic battle that occurs on campus at the end of the book? And how does Bree find time to study between falling in love with Nick and training to become a squire?

 

Still, the novel remains compelling thanks to the author’s mostly subtle nods to the racial disparity Bree encounters as she struggles to become part of Nick’s all-too-White world. Ultimately, this is a contemporary—and extremely timely—parable about White privilege, told through the first-person eyes of a Black teenager descended from slaves. As Bree is acutely aware, the only people of color she sees at the Legendborn’s lodge are the servants who work for the students. Though she does not try to intentionally shatter the group’s color barrier, this is exactly what she eventually does. Looking gorgeous in a borrowed gown, she approaches the upscale club where a posh Legendborn gala is being held. “All right, sis,” the appreciative Black doorman says. They then knowingly smile at each other as Bree triumphantly enters the event (p. 401).

 

An “Instant New York Times Bestseller,” Legendborn was named to several “best books” lists of 2020/21, including YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association), School Library Journal, Bookpage, New York Public Library, Indigo, BuzzFeed, and Amazon. Plus was named the winner of the American Library Association’s Coretta Scott King “John Steptoe Award for New Talent” in 2021. This book is recommended for all readers who enjoy contemporary adaptations of the Arthurian canon. A Legendborn sequel is in the works.

 

Cindy Mediavilla

 

Cindy Mediavilla is a retired public librarian who has collected, read and written about Arthurian fiction for more than 40 years. Her publications include Arthurian Fiction: An Annotated Bibliography (Scarecrow Press, 1999), "From 'Unthinking Stereotype' to Fearless Antagonist: The Evolution of Morgan le Fay on Television" (Arthuriana 25:1), and an article on Arthurian romance in Encyclopedia of Romance Fiction (2018). Cindy's MLS and PhD are from UCLA, where she also taught as a lecturer for 16 years.

 

 

Guest Post: Dan Nastali Reviews By Force Alone

Tidhar, Lavie. By Force Alone. Tor/Tom Doherty Books, 2020. 416 pages, $27.99. ISBN: 9781250753458.

This is a dark fantasy novel that retells the traditional Arthurian story, from Uther Pendragon’s taking the kingship of Britain to Arthur’s final battle at Camlann, with incidents and characters drawn from a wide range of medieval sources. Here you will find new treatments of the familiar figures at every turn, but unless your tastes run to the grim and gory, you may have some difficulty digesting this version. The story is set in a post-Roman Britain more fully conceived than that of most Dark Age historical and fantasy novels, and the action shifts, not always smoothly, between the natural and supernatural worlds. Both offer more than a little gratuitous ugliness in the form of mutilation, murder, cannibalism, general bad behavior and rather too much excrement.

The McGuffin in this story is the grail—here a skystone or UFO that fell to earth in Uther’s reign and which somehow became both the source of gold and radioactive mutations, but that’s just one of many original takes. The sword in the stone, the Lady in the Lake, the Questing Beast, the Green Knight, even Glastonbury Well are given new and typically perverted twists, because this is not a novel that loves the tradition. It is basically a series of incidents hung on the bare bones of the legend. Britain and Fairyland coexist uneasily here. Londinium, the setting for much of the early story, is a mess of Roman remains, crime-ridden slums and mob-ruled trades—a sordid, cheerless place. The castles of the other world are not much better.

Arthur, when we meet him (and who never develops much distinctive character) leads a teenage protection racket and a round table of petty thieves and drug dealers before taking charge of the city and dealing with rival kings. Merlin, the offspring of a human and some unidentified unhuman, is a major figure throughout, but one whose powers and motives are never well-defined or of great consequence. The same is true of other supernatural creatures—Nimue, Morgause, Morgan, Cath Palug—who interfere with the mere mortals apparently by whim.

Guinevere is here a leader of a girl gang, Sir Kay the obligatory gay, Owain and Agravain are thugs, and so on. Lancelot has perhaps the most developed character through an elaborate back story which has him serving his master, Joseph of Arimathea, but there is little that distinguishes even Lancelot as a distinct personality. The dialogue of all of them, as well as the voice of the narrator, is in the naughtiness mode of teenage boys. The obscenities are so plentiful that any shock value has been wrung out of them by chapter two, so thereafter there’s little effect at all.

Tidhar is a cut above the writers of most modern fantasy in his descriptive abilities and understanding of the historical background of his tale, and he is a writer of solid prose. He incorporates, often unobtrusively, allusions not only to obscure medieval material, but also to Greek and Roman philosophers, Biblical writing and early Christian apocrypha, and even, if you’re attentive, to T.S. Eliot and Kurt Vonnegut. The book has its admirers—the back of the jacket is covered in favorable quotes—and when the writing is good, I tend to become a slow reader. I’m also always interested in new treatments of the legend, but with By Force Alone, I found myself rushing to its end.

Dan Nastali

Independent scholar

Kansas City, MO