Perilous Times

3.5

Future dystopian Arthurian fantasy appears to be a thing at the moment as this is the second I have read this month (after Salt in the Wounds)! Not that I am complaining as this strangely seems to be an excellent combination. Perilous Times adds climate disaster and satire to the mix, with an almost Pythonesque absurdist take in places. Often I find these more politically focused ones can get a bit preachy but this one tempers it with just enough humour and is frankly brilliant.

In this universe, Arthurs famous Knights of the Round table have been put into magical slumber to awaken whenever there is a dire threat to England. What could be a more dire threat than uncontrolled climate change? The focus is on two of the knights, Kay and Lancelot. Those familiar with the myth should be familiar with these two knights at least and the story certainly follows in their established roles. Add into this mix feminist eco-terrorists and a fascist squirrel and you certainly get an interesting mix of characters! Oh, and Arthur is a bit of a knob.

There is a serious message behind everything here, but it is so well livened with the humour and action. A thoroughly enjoyable read!

This was a fun read.

It had a dash of humor that made this story for me. I loved seeing the knight blunder around the world, not understanding that the times lave changed and Le can't wave a sword to solve problems. The other knights of the round table while horrible characters were interesting. And Merlin! I love the way the author portrayed him.

The other characters were good people with large hearts and while I don't usually like characters life that it worked here.


A entertaining story. I had so much fun reading.

2.25 Stars.

King Arthur and his knights in the modern era? Sounds intrigueing....too bad we never really got to see it. Too much time spent lecturing on climate change, most of the knights don't even appear, and Arthur, Lancelot, and Merlin are unrecognizable (Arthur as a Trump wannabe? Make Britain Great Again? Seriously?) Would be nice if heroes could just be heroes—they don't have to be perfect, but there is no need to make them complete jerks, for lack of a better word, either. Main protaginist is just an eco terrorist and has no real redeemin qualities other than she likes trees.

This was almost a DNF for me....and I cannot remember the last book I DNF. 2.25 Stars for the snappy dialogue and potential the premise had...too bad the lecturing, politics, and bad charcterizations of a classic King and his Knights got in the way.

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Thank you to Netgalley and Ballantine for providing an ARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I love the Arthurian Legend. I have since I was little and first watched the miniseries with Sam Neill as Merlin. I gobbled that show up, and then Camelot the musical, then Disney's Sword in the Stone, then Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and well, you see where I'm going with this. Any opportunity to dive into a different version of this tale, and I'm all in. Perilous Times seemed like it would be right up my alley, and yep. It totally was.

Perilous Times borrows familiar characters from the Arthurian legend, but definitely isn't a retelling or spinoff or anything like that. You see, a long, long time ago, the original Arthurian Legend happened. And then Merlin did some magicy-things, and made them all immortal. All the knights would never permanently die — instead, they would sleep under their trees, and awaken when the realm was in peril. This means, of course, that they've been woken up quite a lot over the course of their thousand plus years of existing. But this time, this time something is seriously different.

Our three main characters are Sir Kay, Sir Lancelot, and Mariam, an eco-terrorist. That sounds scary, but really what she's trying to do is save the environment. And if that means blowing up a few oil rigs, than dammit she's going to do it. Mariam was willing to do what needed to be done, and she was really tired of all the talking, organizing, and meetings. You will spend most of this book frustrated because it feels so real. It's not a bad frustration — it's one that will remind you of how the real world is. How irritated you get when you see your government actively working against moving forward, against changing for the better. Lee did a fantastic job weaving in the reality of our world with the fantastic of this world.

The Britain that the book is set in is dying. It's a wasteland, a polluted, horrible mess. People are dying, starving, sick, and tempers are now hair-trigger. It's not a nice place Lee has set his novel in, but wow does he put this to the best possible use. He does an absolutely excellent job describing how awful everything has become, and putting us in Kay's eyes as he sees how the world has changed is just perfect. Kay is tired. He's over a thousand years old at this point, and he's damn tired of having to wake up and kill people again. He doesn't want to. He wants to sleep his eternal rest, and see his wife again. Mariam gets frustrated with Kay, because he's so wishy washy about wanting to help. Understandable, but really what is a Knight of the Round Table supposed to do against global warming?

Lancelot was fascinating. Lee writes him as a gay man who would rather follow orders than question them. He's a bit smarmy, a bit egotistical, and a lot totally over his head. While I really disliked him almost the entire novel — I think you're supposed to — I enjoyed reading his chapters because they were always interesting. He was always doing something that you didn't want him to do. It felt like watching a car crash.

And then there's Arthur. Whatever preconceived notion you have of the King just gets thrown out the window. I wasn't the biggest fan of his characterization in Perilous Times, but it really worked for the book. I prefer my Arthurs Good with a capital G, but this one wasn't. He was a brute. A cruel, brute who thought he was better than everyone else. Not my preference, but again, it really worked here. We also see Morgana, Nimue, and Merlin, but I'm not spoiling when they show up.

I don't want to spoil the main plot, because it's more interesting to just sort of fall into it. But it's done well, and it's rather easy to follow. Perilous Times would have ranked a full 5 stars for me, but the ending felt a little rushed, and not in a good way. It just felt short — I would have liked a little more explanation of what exactly was going on, but instead it was extremely vague. Overall, though, Perilous Times was fantastic.