Mordred, Bastard Son

by Douglas Clegg

Overview

I was born during the fires of Beltane. My mother was called the Witch-Queen and my father, Arthur, King of the Britons. From New York Times bestselling author Douglas Clegg comes a spellbinding novel of Arthurian historical fantasy.

Conceived in violence, born of royalty, and raised in exile, Mordred grows to manhood torn between his powerful mother's desire for revenge, his own conflicted feelings towards the father who betrayed him, and his passionate coming of age into first love with one of the greatest knights of Camelot.

Reviews of Mordred, Bastard Son
*Starred Review* "Riveting...Clegg puts an inspired wrinkle in the hoary tale of Arthur and the grail by casting Arthur's kindred enemy, Mordred, as a gay man. An injured stranger in a cloak and odd, paganish mask, is captured and held in a monastery, igniting wild speculation among the locals, who believe him a notorious traitor. And so he is. He is Mordred, the bastard son of Arthur Pendragon and his half sister, the witch-queen Morgan Le Fay, and he now awaits trial for murder and treason...How excellent." - Booklist

"Douglas Clegg's stunning Mordred, Bastard Son will inspire and refresh..." - Michael Rowe, Advocate Magazine

"Clegg (The Priest of Blood) maintains a nice balance between the human and mythic dimensions of his characters, portraying the familiar elements of their story from refreshingly original angles." - Publishers Weekly

"Well-crafted. Written in lyrical prose with colorful characters and historical depth. Lovers of both history and fantasy will discover...an enchanting read." - Edge Boston

"Clegg beautifully skewers the Arthurian legends, weaving a compelling story, single-handedly reinventing Mordred's sexuality. He is no longer the betrayer of Arthur, the knight Lancelot, and Guinevere, Queen of the Britons; he is now the seductive and passionate hero, a lover of men given the almost insurmountable task of finding the cauldron of rebirth..." - Michael Leonard, Curled Up with a Good Book Blog

"...Magic-true magic that really works-takes center stage in...Mordred, Bastard Son...a refreshing return to the myth and magic of the legends...Clegg's approach recalls Sir Thomas Mallory, Chrétien de Troyes, and even Edmund Spenser at times; his setting is never made temporally explicit but rather melds Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and high medieval British elements." - Strange Horizons

Discover Douglas Clegg's fiction
Lights Out Neverland The Children's Hour The Halloween Man You Come When I Call You The Hour Before Dark Nightmare House MischiefThe InfiniteThe AbandonedIsisThe NecromancerGoat Dance Breeder Afterlife Purity Dark of the Eye The Words Wild ThingsBad Karma Red Angel Night Cage Naomi The Nightmare Chronicles The Attraction Night Asylum The Priest of Blood The Lady of Serpents The Queen of Wolves Dinner with the Cannibal SistersMordred, Bastard Son

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781944668099
Publisher:	Alkemara Press
Publication date:	10/16/2016
Series:	Chronicles of Mordred , #1
Pages:	330
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.74(d)

About the Author

Douglas Clegg is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 30 books including The Hour Before Dark, Neverland and Bad Karma. He lives near the coast of New England and is working on his next book.

Date of Birth:

April 1, 1958

Place of Birth:

Alexandria, Virginia

Editorial Reviews

Though usually portrayed as the worm in the bud that was Camelot, Mordred, the illegitimate offspring of King Arthur and sorceress Morgan le Fay, gets sympathetic treatment in Clegg's revisionist Arthurian fantasy, the first in a projected trilogy. Born into exile on the Isle of Glass, the young Mordred knows his father only through the stories bitter elders tell of Arthur's theft of Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. Mordred flourishes under the instruction of his mother and the wizard Merlin, but he's distracted from his education in druidic mysteries by his adolescent passion for a hermit living in the nearby wilds. That hermit's identity, coupled with a transgression that alienates Mordred from his community by the novel's end, all point to the inexorable destiny that shapes the tale's events and tinges them with pathos. Clegg (The Priest of Blood) maintains a nice balance between the human and mythic dimensions of his characters, portraying the familiar elements of their story from refreshingly original angles. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Best-selling horror novelist Clegg (Afterlife) reinvents Arthurian legend with this first book in a planned trilogy. When Arthur's illegitimate son Mordred is pursued by his father's soldiers, a monk offers Mordred assistance if he will narrate the story of his life. Mordred obliges with a tale that turns the traditional Authurian heros into villains. Power-hungry Arthur is willing to kill anyone-even his own kin-to build an eternal kingdom that Merlin has foretold as his destiny. Arthur's soldiers hunt Arthur's pregnant half-sister, Morgan le Fay, who with Merlin's help escapes into the Lake of Glass, the magical world where Mordred was born. Under the tutelage of Merlin and the Druids, Mordred learns to understand his supernatural powers while at the same time struggling with his physical attraction to other boys. His infatuation for his athletic friend Lukat is not reciprocated, but eventually Mordred and Lancelot share an immediate attraction that develops into love. A plodding plot and occasionally insipid dialog, combined with the sentimental portrayal of Mordred's relationship with Lancelot, detract from both the magic and the adventure central to any Arthurian tale. Readers of Clegg's horror novels may not follow the author into this new genre, and traditional fans of Arthurian legends may not be enchanted. Recommended only for comprehensive fiction collections.-Joseph Eagan, Enoch Pratt Free Lib., Baltimore Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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