Prince of Annwn by Evangeline Walton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is pretty fun. I don’t know the Mabinogion at all, so I can’t say how accurate or not it is. It’s definitely a great adventure though! I particularly like the severed heads flying around; the language, which is thoroughly salted with good description; the titanic moral struggles; the prevalence of virtue and honor (although of a peculiar kind I wouldn’t personally recommend); and the liberal use of capital letters, as for the words ‘Shadow’, ‘Beginning’, ‘Fate’ and ‘Illusion’.
A couple things: I would say that Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber owes a debt of some kind to this book, except that that came out in 1970 and this in 1974. So maybe it’s the other way around? Or more likely they were both getting inspiration from the same mythology. Particularly the way the characters pass between worlds is very similar, and I like it.
One notices the author on several occasions taking a time-out from the actual story to have the characters philosophize, and it breaks the immersion pretty badly. You just can’t have your legendary medieval druid-hero-king argue modern US politics without making him look like a puppet. Those of us who write novels should take notice; we will look just as corny in 40 years if we’re not careful.
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