The
Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur (Magicians Trilogy) Hardcover – July
16, 2024
by Lev
Grossman (Author)
A
gifted young knight named Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a spot on
the Round Table, only to find that he’s too late. The king died two weeks ago
at the Battle of Camlann, leaving no heir, and only a handful of the knights of
the Round Table survive.
They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs
of the Round Table, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the
Saracen Knight, and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke.
They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him
and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to
rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.
But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it,
and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s
half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords lay
siege to Camelot and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot
and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to
reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole
again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of
why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell, and lay to rest the ghosts of his
troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.
The first major Arthurian epic of the new millennium, The Bright
Sword is steeped in tradition, full of duels and quests, battles and
tournaments, magic swords and Fisher Kings. It also sheds a fresh light on
Arthur’s Britain, a diverse, complex nation struggling to come to terms with
its bloody history. The Bright Sword is a story about
imperfect men and women, full of strength and pain, who are looking for a way
to reforge a broken land in spite of being broken themselves.
The
Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien Box Set: Three-Volume Box Set Hardcover
– September 17, 2024
by J.
R. R. Tolkien (Author)
J.R.R.
Tolkien aspired to be a poet in the first instance, and poetry was part of his
creative life no less than his prose, his languages, and his art. Although
Tolkien’s readers are aware that he wrote poetry, if only from verses in The
Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, its extent is not well
known, and its qualities are underappreciated. Within his larger works of
fiction, poems help to establish character and place as well as further the
story; as individual works, they delight with words and rhyme. They express his
love of nature and the seasons, of landscape and music, and of words. They
convey his humor and his sense of wonder.
The
earliest work in this collection, written for his beloved, is dated to 1910,
when Tolkien was eighteen. More poems would follow during his years at Oxford,
some of them very elaborate and eccentric. Those he composed during the First
World War, in which he served in France, tend to be concerned not with trenches
and battle, but with life, loss, faith, and friendship, his longing for England
and the wife he left behind. Beginning in 1914, elements of his legendarium,
“The Silmarillion,” began to appear, and the “Matter of Middle-earth” would
inspire much of Tolkien’s verse for the rest of his life.
Within The
Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien almost 200 works are presented
across three volumes, including more than 60 that have never before been seen.
The poems are deftly woven together with commentary and notes by world-renowned
Tolkien scholars Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond, placing them in the
context of Tolkien’s life and literary accomplishments and creating a poetical
biography that is a unique and revealing celebration of J.R.R. Tolkien.
THORN:
The Complete Proto-BONE College Strips 1982-1986, and Other Early
Drawings Paperback – Illustrated, July 30, 2024
by Jeff
Smith (Author, Illustrator)
Cartoon
Books announces THORN: The Complete Proto- BONE College Strips from
1982 to 1986, and Other Early Drawings, reprinting the entire run of his
earliest rendering of the world-famous BONE characters for the first
time.
The
comic strips reveal an early version of BONE called THORN that
was written for a college audience in the 1980s. THORN appeared
in the pages of The Ohio State University's student newspaper The
Lantern. A few were reprinted in a self-published 1983 book called THORN: Tales
from The Lantern. Another small selection was published in 2008's limited
edition fundraiser for OSU's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
called Before BONE. Both books are long out of print and sell at
collector's prices. There has never been an official, complete run published
until now.
This
beautiful edition includes plenty of bonus material such as recently discovered
early drawings of the BONE characters, essays and interviews.
All text and pictures from Amazon. The Bright Sword would be the first non-Magicians book from him that I would ever read. Thorn seems to be that sweepings and laundry-list publication that happens when authors (and artists) grow near the end of their useful productive life, but Jeff Smith is good enough that I'm willing to be surprised and prepared to be fascinated. But of course the gem is not out until September, the traditional Tolkien publication month. At last, all Tolkien's poetry (Middle-earth and non-Middle-earth) gathered in one place, chronological and with variations! I swoon.
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