29. The Wicked Day by Mary Stewart

My nephew and I made an epic trip last xmas to the Salvation Army in downtown Oakland to find boots and books, only to be dissapointed in both.  I did, however, find two 80s first edition hardcover Mary Stewarts, which I took as consolation prizes.  The first one was okay but I now consider this one to be a real find.  First, Mary Stewart is an excellent writer and I had forgotten how good she is at creating a sense of place as well as moments of satisfying character and badassery in her Arthurian saga.  Second, as I have embarked on the Farseer series by Robin Hobb, I am reminded of some of the tenets of epic fantasy, several of which Stewart does very well in this series.

That being said, I did not totally love this book.  It builds up wonderfully but ends on a frustrating note of uncharacteristic misunderstanding between the two main protragonists. The main character is Mordred, Arthur's bastard son with his half-sister and witch Morgause (Morgane Lefay as she is more commonly known).  Mordred is raised as the only son of a hard-scrabble fishercouple in the Orkney islands.  It's a long and twisted story that takes place in the previous book that lands him here. When Morgause's later husband, King Lot (like a few months later) learns that his wife was impregnated by Arthur and the baby abandoned, he has all the baby's in that village put to death, but Mordred escapes.  He is a good boy and his adopted mother loves him and fears the day when the queen may come and take him away.  Blood will tell and one day he accidently stumbles across young prince Gawain, his half-brother and rescues him, which brings his attention to Morgause the queen.  Thus begins his introduction to his destiny.

In some ways, up until the ending, this may have been my favourite book of the series.  Merlin, who narrates the first three, is really cool but can be somewhat of a bummer.  Here, we mainly have the perspective of Mordred and it is a very enjoyable coming of age plus political intrigue story.  There are some really cool interludes where he demonstrates his character and toughness. His mother as the antagonist is creepy and nasty, with one near-incest scene definitely taking her evil over the top.  I was thoroughly into it and turned the pages quickly.  It's all leading up to Mordred's destiny, which Merlin has foreseen, that he would be the downfall of King Arthur.  You don't want that to happen because they two develop such a good relationship and Mordred had the makings of a fine successor.  I could accept the bad ending except that the mechanics of it felt forced and really went against all that had been built up.  There is excessive miscommunication that creates distrust between the two men, which just didn't feel solid enough to destroy what was such a strong relationship.  So the ending left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.  Still, it wasn't enough to wipe away the enjoyable taste of all that led up to it, especially a really nice section where he makes his away alone through old England, camping out and feeding himself and just enjoying the autumn wilderness.  Very cool stuff.  I am also happy to know that though there is a fifth book in the saga, it is a standalone adventure taking place near the end of the third book.  So I don't feel any pressure to have to seek it out and read it soon, though it shall be on my list.