The Sorcerer, Book 1: The Fort at River's Bend

Carol U. Merriam is an assistant professor in the Department of Classics
and Brock University.

These latest volumes in Jack Whyte’s Dream of Eagles series deal with
the legends of King Arthur and Merlin and the remains of the Roman
Empire in Britain. Book 1 tells the story of the education of young
Arthur Pendragon, as undertaken by Merlyn Britannicus (the wizard Merlin
of Arthurian legend). Book 2 traces Arthur’s development from his
first battle to his coronation as High King of Britain. Both volumes are
best classified as historically based adventure stories, and there is
indeed a great deal of adventure, in the form of battle, ambush, and
political intrigue.

The adventure scenes are widely separated by long stretches of
introspective conversations that seem to go nowhere and contribute
little to the story itself. Although the goal of these conversations and
musings is probably to make the characters “live,” they serve only
to portray characters of legend as filled with 20th-century angst and
psychological conflict. The late 20th century forcefully intrudes when
one character accuses another of “a lifetime of narcissism” and when
an ancient British physician begins to worry that his friend may have
leprosy after hearing that he exchanged bodily fluids (in a fight, of
course) with a leper; the allusion to AIDS is simply too obvious. There
are some other infelicities in the novels, such as the author’s
attempt to conflate Merlyn with the Sir Kay of the original Welsh
Mabinogion tales by giving him the first name of Caius, the short form
of which no Roman or Romanized Briton would pronounce as anything but
“Guy.”

Both volumes, and the series as a whole, are action-packed retellings
of the Arthurian legends for a late–20th-century readership.
Unfortunately, this has been done before, by both Mary Stewart (the
Crystal Cave series, 1970–83) and Marion Zimmer Bradley (The Mists of
Avalon, 1982). Whyte’s version of the legend simply does not stand up
to the competition.