Enemy of God

 

Enemy of God – Bernard Cornwell

The second book of author Bernard Cornwell’s “King Arthur” trilogy, and just as good – better probably – than the first. I stumbled on this author quite by accident, and his first two works have been pleasantly surprising. To be fair, the type of book along with the settings and characters aren’t exactly the genre that immediately appeals to me, so the fact that I actually enjoyed these books as much as I did says an awful lot about the author and his style of writing.

These books attempt to tell the story of the “King Arthur” legend.  Yes, his story is a legendary one, not a real one, yet this was a fact that was somewhat lost on me.  Oh sure, I’ve heard the tales of the Knights of the Round Table, and the quest for Holy Grail (-Ni!-) but I always thought there was some truth behind the tales.  Not so, and this is pretty obvious when one reads these stories.

These books remind me a lot of the ‘Game of Thrones’ books (and television show) yet are slightly more grounded in what many would call reality. There’s a lot of fantastic mythical elements though including wizards, magical cauldrons and spells, yet these tales are so well-told, that the fact that these are obviously fiction doesn’t take away from the enjoyment.

The story is told through the eyes of Derfel, who is a friend, servant, and advisor to King Arthur. There really isn’t one simply story here.  The book is a series of different tales, all somewhat related to each other, and all focused on the kingdoms, conquerors, friends, and foes of Arthur himself.  There are a lot of battles, a lot of evil kings and queens, a lot of wizards, yet all of the stories are enthralling and interesting.

Since there’s some level of “truth” in these 4^th century tales, there’s an awful lot of religious rivalry going on – mainly the dreaded Christians versus the reprehensible pagans.  It’s a bit much. Derfel is on the “pagan” side, yet the book (as did the first one) begins with him many years in the future looking back and dictating his tales.  In the future, he lives in a Christian monastery, so I’m sure book three will have a lot of explaining to do as to how Derfel ends up where he does since there seems to be so much animosity towards Christianity.  Anyway, my guess is this is where the title of the book comes from, since there is so much bitterness and distrust towards one religion and its partakers versus the other ones.

I believe that these books have been made into some sort of tv series, and this wouldn’t be surprising.  The fact that each book is packed with so many different stories lends itself to such a platform.  I loved this book, and am eager to not only finish the trilogy, but to explore other offerings (and there are apparently many!) by this author.