published 1997; hardback 1997, Viking Penguin

Lady of Avalon, the second of the "prequels" to Marion Zimmer Bradley's monumental Arthurian fantasy The Mists of Avalon, breaks no new ground. One of my friends who (like me) has read all three of the Avalon books, says that after reading the prequels, she can only conclude that Bradley channeled The Mists of Avalon. If so, then Bradley was touched again by the same spirit in the latter part of Lady of Avalon, but not enough.

All the conflicts in Lady of Avalon, including the clash between Christianity and the Old Religion, the wars between the Romanized Celts and the invading Saxons, the tug of destiny on the unwilling, and past-life romantic entanglements, are played to much better effect in Mists. Each of the three sections of Lady of Avalon enacts a chapter in Avalon's history. These stories revolve around the effort to protect Britain from enemies with the aid of a reincarnated figure called the Son of a Hundred Kings.

Son of a Hundred Losers is more like it. These guys are killed off in rather short order, and I don't mind telling you that, because their deaths are foreshadowed with all the subtlety of a speeding Mack truck bearing down on your back bumper. It's surprising that the people of Avalon celebrate when one of these Sacred Kings turns up, instead of groaning and going, "Not this again!"

The religious elements of Lady of Avalon are also in some places downright annoying. The Old Religion was left obscure in Mists, and benefited by that air of mystery. In Lady of Avalon, deities trip along into the story at the drop of a hat, and once present, natter on in mystical monologues. The rituals shown in Lady of Avalon probably bear little resemblance to how the ancient Britons worshiped (little is known for sure about their beliefs), and since Lady of Avalon, unlike The Mists of Avalon, aspires to a certain degree of authenticity, even using historical dates, characters, and places, I think the author owes it to the readers to point out which parts are factual and which are conjecture.

Which brings me to another point. The Christian-Pagan clash in Lady of Avalon is even more pronounced than in Mists of Avalon (if that can be imagined). Christians fall into two camps: hateful and benign. The latter are uniformly reviled by their less tolerant brethren and persecuted. Though the character of Gwenhwyfar in The Mists of Avalon was like the former, she was also more complex, sometimes questioning her faith and in one case, making use of sorcery herself. Furthermore, many of the characters in The Mists of Avalon have crises of faith, including Morgaine, a high priestess of Avalon. There are no Gwenhwyfars or Morgaines in Lady of Avalon.

For the first two sections of the book, I didn't feel really involved with the story. The characters seemed flat, and anyway it was obvious that most of them were going to die quickly, so why make an emotional investment? Bradley is back on familiar ground in the third section, as she explores the early life of Viviane, a main character in The Mists of Avalon. The characters in this part were stronger and more vibrant, especially Viviane's mother Ana.

If the first two sections were subtracted, leaving the third to stand on its own, I would give Lady of Avalon a much higher rating. My rating of three roses is an average among the sections.

Review by Sara Lipowitz
Reviewed July 14, 1997

ISBN 0-670-85783-1

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