Twenty-six years after he seemingly ended The Pendragon Cycle novels, author Stephen R. Lawhead has returned to the legends of King Arthur in a big way.
Not only is this fantasy / historical fiction series being adapted for television by the streaming service DailyWire+, while the first three books — Taliesin, Merlin, and Arthur — have been reissued, but he’s also written a prequel to the series called Aurelia (hardcover, Kindle).
In the following email interview, Lawhead talks about what makes The Pendragon Cycle different from other stories about King Arthur, as well as whether you should begin with the new novel or go back to it later.
For people who haven’t read any of these books, what is The Pendragon Cycle about, and when and where do these stories take place?
The short answer is that The Pendragon Cycle is series of books about the life and times of King Arthur.
It has grown over the years, and is now contained in seven volumes. The setting is post-Roman Britain of the late 400 CE to early 500 CE, which is when the events of Arthur’s life and deeds would actually have taken place.
For readers unfamiliar with my version of the legend, it may help to know that when I began writing the Cycle, I made a decision to get back to what might have been the original source material. Legends have legs, and as they grow, they move around. I wanted to show where the legend of King Arthur began, not where it ended up.
That decided, I set aside all the later medieval sources — especially the French-ified versions — and dug into the earliest sources available. These can be traced in scraps of early Welsh poems and stories. One of these is the collected fragments of verse attributed to the bard Taliesin, who has the enviable reputation of being the greatest bard Britain ever produced. The figure of Taliesin then became a main character in the tales and SPOILER ALERT eventually becomes the father of Merlin — or Myrddin, to give him his Welsh spelling.
Where did you originally get the idea for The Pendragon Cycle?
Who knows? I think I became fascinated with legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table at quite a young age. As I grew older, I became a fan of the writer John Steinbeck, and when his posthumous novel The Acts Of King Arthur And His Noble Knights was published in 1976, I read it. Sadly, Steinbeck did not live to finish that book, and reading it left me wanting more, I suppose. That was something I came back to once and again over the years as I learned the craft of fiction writing.
Now, the new book, Aurelia, is a prequel to The Pendragon Cycle. And like the other books in this series, it is clearly a fantasy story. But do you consider it a certain kind of fantasy story? Like, an epic fantasy or medieval fantasy?
Aurelia, like the other books in the series, is classified as a fantasy. I like to think of it as a hybrid: part fantasy, part historical fiction. I say this because the geography, the political landscape, the people and places are all as historically accurate as I could make them. Into this historical framework, I mixed the various fantasy elements from the early legends so that readers get a blend of both: legendary history, you might call it. This approach gives readers a sense that these stories are taking place in the real world — that if any of it happened at all, it happened just like this.
Moving on to every writer’s favorite topic, influences, are there any writers or specific stories that you think had a big influence on Aurelia but not on anything else you’ve written, and especially not the other novels in The Pendragon Cycle?
I have been told that my early writing carries a whiff of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books, and that’s probably not wrong. I poured over those books as a teenager. I also read a lot of Robert Heinlein, and I think he did influence me a lot. As I grew into the craft, however, I like to think I found my own style.
As we’ve been discussing, Aurelia is a prequel to The Pendragon Cycle, and the first new book you’ve written in it for many years. But is the plan that you’re going to write more books in The Pendragon Cycle?
There is nothing on the drawing board at the moment. But, as a wise man once said, “Never say never.” (James Bond, again.) So, I’ll leave that as an open question.
Just now, I am working on what think of as my Scottish Ghost Story: The Demon Of Fairy Dene. This one is a collaborative project with my son, Ross — also a published writer. He lives in Scotland and makes a huge contribution to the story.
That said, for people who haven’t read any of The Pendragon Cycle novels, would you suggest they start with Aurelia, or do you think they should read the six earlier novels and then go back and read Aurelia?
Either way. It might depend on the reader’s personality.
Personally, I would advise starting with Taliesin, and then move on to Merlin. This is because, while much of Aurelia takes place well before the book Arthur, some events portrayed take place alongside those described in the first two books — events seen from a far different perspective, and explanations for some of what takes place that other characters could not have known about at the time.
On the other hand, reading Aurelia first will be its own reward. The book stands alone.
Speaking of the earlier novels, the first three in the series — Taliesin, Merlin, and Arthur — have also just been rereleased in trade paperback, mass market paperback, and digitally. Is there anything different about these new versions? Like did you add anything or change any in the text?
I didn’t change anything in the stories themselves, but for each book I wrote a separate essay included as an Afterword. And in the essay, I explained some of my process and what led me to write the story in the way I did. In this way, I answered some of the more frequent questions readers have asked over the years, such as, “Whyever did you include Atlantis, for heaven’s sake?”
Normally this would be the point in the interview when I’d ask if you think your novel could work as a movie, TV show, or game. But someone beat me to the punch because The Pendragon Cycle is already being made into a TV show for the streaming service The Daily Wire+. Do you know when that show will be available?
I wish I did. Like everyone else, I’m waiting for an announcement to come anytime soon.
Finally, if someone enjoys Aurelia, they’ll probably go read the other books in The Pendragon Cycle, if they haven’t already. But once they’ve done that, which of your other multibook series would you suggest they check out?
Well, that really depends on what sort of book they might be drawn to. If it is my blend of legendary history, then I’d recommend taking on my King Raven trilogy: Hood, Scarlet, and Tuck. It is the tale of Robin Hood…but not as you know him. He’s not from Nottingham, and his name isn’t Robin.
However, if a reader is more drawn to a sort of futuristic fantasy, I’d suggest diving into the five-book Bright Empires series: The Skin Map, The Bone House, The Spirit Well, The Shadow Lamp, and The Fatal Tree. It is my tip of the hat to a more old-fashioned style of storytelling in that it is big on plot, with a cast of mismatched characters and mystery at every turn.
