" His hero is Anthony, Lord Scales, brother to the beautiful Elizabeth who becomes Edward IV's queen, and one of the Woodville clan whose rapid and resented rise is one motor of the mayhem unleashed by these titled gangsters. We meet him first at the battle of Towton, the bloodiest in English history, where he is apparently killed. After three days of strange encounters in a limbo landscape he returns to life and continues on picaresque adventures of chivalry and horror. Often bewildered, often slipping into occult spaces, he meets people like Sir Thomas Malory, author of Le Morte d Arthur, and the alchemist Ripley (believe it or not) who turns Anthony's life into a legend. As one character observes: The real world is a poor thing compared to the stories that are told about it." Ian Irvine in Prospect Magazine
I have seen this compared to "Game of Thrones" and Russell Hoban's novel "Ridley Walker," both of which I love, but I could not get on board with this strange novel, which re-imagines the life of Anthony, Lord Scales, and later 2nd Earl Rivers, as a mythic saga, in the style of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." On a line by line basis, it was very readable -- witty, clever -- but I just found it hard to care, once the novelty wore off.
I have seen this compared to "Game of Thrones" and Russell Hoban's novel "Ridley Walker," both of which I love, but I could not get on board with this strange novel, which re-imagines the life of Anthony, Lord Scales, and later 2nd Earl Rivers, as a mythic saga, in the style of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." On a line by line basis, it was very readable -- witty, clever -- but I just found it hard to care, once the novelty wore off.
