Mordred's Curse - Ian McDowell

Apparently the universe has decided to fuel my Arthuriana kick, because I recently checked my local Little Free Library and found that someone had left a bunch of 1970s-90s Arthurian-retelling novels— it didn't feel fair to take the lot, but I did grab Thomas Berger's Arthur Rex (1978) (with an inscription indicating that it was a birthday(?) gift from the original owner's grandfather(?) in 1979) and Ian McDowell's Mordred's Curse (1996). Read the McDowell first, which is an ~EdGy~ retelling* (impressive, really, given the starting premise): ( ... )

All that aside, McDowell's Mordred is a foul-mouthed little freak*** and I love him; his Arthur is, as one character describes him, half priest and half soldier, a bit of a prig but not wholly unsympathetic, even as he passes from the object of Mordred's hero-worship to betrayed rage to a sort of not-quite-apathy. This book also goes full-on Mordred/Guinevere, and it's actually... really cute? They're close in age and education, bonding over Roman poets and games of chess (no, seriously, WHERE did the "playing chess with Guinevere" trope come from?); ( spoilers! )

I am increasingly amused by how many Arthurian retellings have whatever knight is central to said retelling be in love with Guinevere (Kay in The Idylls of the Queen, Mordred in The Wicked Day) because she is kind of the only option unless you want to make up an entirely new character.

( Footnotes )