Review copy provided by the author, who is a long-time\nfriend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was obsessed with Arthurian legends in my early\nadolescence, as I think a lot of kids that age are and especially a lot of kids\nthat age in that period were. I also read Robin McKinley’s Outlaws of Sherwood<\/em>, and somewhere along the line it occurred to me\nto wonder why there weren’t more Robin Hood novels. On the surface there was a\nstrong similarity with Arthurian stories: both British, both featuring nearly\ninfinitely expandable bands of buddies and sidekicks and character actors, both\nromantic and action-packed. But the shelves were packed with the one, nearly\nempty of the other. Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the theories I formulated was that the Arthur story\nhas a narrative arc, whereas the Robin Hood story’s arc, when it has one, is a\ndeus ex machina: King Richard returns and all is well through no particular\naction on the characters’ part. It’s not even ripe to be a picaresque because\nnobody really goes anywhere. It’s full of episode without direction. In order\nto have an actual novel, I speculated, you’d have to add a lot to the basic\nRobin Hood story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brightfall is basically exhibit A for this theory. This is a\nRobin Hood novel, no mistake, but Jaime brought so much<\/em> to the table. Witchcraft! The Fair Folk! A dragon! Entirely\nnew characters completely separate from the extensive original cast! Plot that\nextends in time–that, in fact, starts–far after the glory days of the Merry\nMen, that gives Maid Marian her own home and priorities and life–a life that\ncan be disrupted by nefarious plots from another realm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also Robin Hood is a complete\nbutt<\/em> in this book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seriously, though. A. Complete. Butt. But it’s not one of\nthose books where the author doesn’t recognize it; a good third of the dialog\nis approximately: Someone: Why are you\nsuch a butt, Robin Hood? RH: …I dunwanna talk about it. Is he not a butt in\nthe end? Well, that’s for you to find out for yourself. Marian gets an earned\nhappy ending, I’ll promise you that, but with whom and how and when is for you\nto find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Review copy provided by the author, who is a long-time friend. I was obsessed with Arthurian legends in my early adolescence, as I think a lot of kids that age are and especially a lot of kids that age in that period were. I also read Robin McKinley’s Outlaws of Sherwood, and somewhere along the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-2585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bookses-precious"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2586,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions\/2586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marissalingen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}