The Winter King

A gritty historical fantasy tale, more concerned with describing the geopolitical scene then with story or characters.

After having read The Skystone, the beginning of this book gave me a breath of fresh air. Its is much better written, there is more characterization and the elements of the Arthurian Fantasy were actually present here. Arthur, Merlin, Morgan, Uther and many others. The characters introduced were very different from what you would expect. Merlin is a vicious old men, who enjoys raping and torturing children for his experiments. There is no real magic in the world, but the magical wielders are able to fake it, so that most people believe in them. All of this contribute to an air of realism to the story.

However, the book pacing is atrociously slow, the author spends most of the time naming and and describing all of Britain's kingdoms and rulers, and how they relate to each other.

Read 3:21 / 19:55 41%

Very Good book and very different from what I was expecting. I enjoyed it but can see why it might not be to everyone's taste.

Warning it is told/written by narrator “who was their” I know sometimes books like this arent to everyones liking

Also it is about king Arthur but is more about narrator, and starts when Arthur is grown up and it does sort of spin the story in a historical context so dont expect the usual Arthur style story.

Sorry not very good at explaining and tried to avoid spoilers.