Tag Archives: Stephen Lawhead

Reviews

Final review: The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin

Leave a comment

I’m going to do another post about the Daily Wire’s miniseries, The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin, now available on Amazon Prime. I finished watching it on Sunday, and just want to give it another boost.

My opinion has not changed – this is very, very good epic television. The premise, if you haven’t read the books, is that the Faery Folk of Avalon, so prominent in Arthurian legend, were actually refugees from Atlantis, a long-lived race with certain mystical powers. Taliessin, a great British bard with mysterious origins of his own, marries Charis, a princess of Avalon, and Myrddin (Merlin) is their son, whose otherworldly vision sometimes threatens his sanity. His great challenge (accepted only with reluctance) is to unite all the Britons under Prince Aurelius in order to resist the Saxon (Saecson) invaders.

There were a couple of matters I thought I should address. I understand they’ve raised some controversy among Christians. You should be aware that this series is mature material, and probably is not suitable for younger viewers. The series is grittier than the Lord of the Rings movies. The controversial matters I refer to are the traditional ones – sex and violence.

There is sex here – but no nudity or explicit content. We are presented with couples who fall in love and clearly desire each other very much (though Taliessin tells Charis he prefers to wait for marriage “as the Christians do,” which is the rule throughout). We follow them to the bedchamber and see her drop her gown (above the waist, from behind), and then the shot fades in classic Hollywood fashion. It’s very sexy, but chaste, in the precise meaning of that word.

The Atlantean women also dress pretty lightly – though not as lightly as the Minoans their culture is based on.

There is violence here. I have long criticized Stephen Lawhead for being shy about ending his epic stories with good, rousing battles. But that (I think) is the later Lawhead. This series ends with an extended battle, in which there’s plenty of gore. These scenes, in particular, should probably not be viewed by children.

Which leads to my conclusion. The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin is Christian art for grownups, handling life issues more realistically than the Christian films you’re probably used to. I approve of this, but some Christians will surely take offense. And it’s not for me to judge them. They must guard their own hearts, and they may be very wise.

For all that, I recommend the series. For those who can appreciate it.

Fiction, Reviews

Rise of the Merlin: A Fatherless Child

2 Comments

The third episode of Jeremy Boreing’s The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin continues in the series’ strengths. Tom Sharp as Merlin (shown above) brings appropriate gravity to the role of a 75-year-old mage who has been an established legend for many years, according to all the people who meet him.

It begins with Merlin in the wilderness and a voiceover telling us what people say about him — that he was mad, that he was a king of renown, a bard, a prophet, and a slayer of hundreds. A figure and voice reminiscent of the old man who confronted Taliesin charges him to “go back the way you came.” And so, our man with falcon eyes returns to the land of the living.

The easiest way for me to review each episode would be to simply recap what happens. I don’t want to do that. I want you to enjoy the show yourself, whether it be on DailyWire+ or on another method of release (surely they will sell DVDs). Still, I’ll share what I can.

Merlin delivers the episode’s theme when telling Aurellius, “First, there is a sword, a sword of Britain and the sword is Britain.” Aurellius is of Roman decent and aims to reclaim his father’s land from the Saxons (or Saecsens, as the show spells it). One historical account says he was the one who directed the building of Stonehenge, which would be an impressive real-world tie-in. Right now, he is avenging his father’s murder and rallying other warlords to his banner.

Aurellius’s brother is Uther Pendragon, who appears as his more pessimistic partner in the fight. The story makes it clear Aurellius is in charge, but Uther looks to be his equal in many ways.

This series isn’t going to put the cookies on a low shelf. Viewers may ask if they are supposed to know who someone is or how to read Welsh, and if you’ve taken a course in Arthurian legend, then yeah, you should know. The rest of us will need to get comfortable with ignorance. I haven’t felt lost yet, and most of my knowledge of Camelot comes from the musical.

I love what they’ve done with magic, so far. Episode one got gritty with the pagan stuff, but when our leading men exercise power, it’s natural and sometimes marvelous.

And there’s a scene in this one that is a bit more thrilling for its close resemblance to the hobbits hiding from the Black Riders. I almost stopped it to stare at the tree roots. It’s not the same forest, but when you see it, you’ll know what I’m saying.

Fiction, Reviews

The Pendragon Cycle: Taliesin Episodes

3 Comments

DailyWire+ has released its beautiful, 7-episode series The Rise of the Merlin, based on The Pendragon Cycle, Stephen Lawhead’s six book series, to regular members last Thursday. The first two eps are up along with a podcast that explains some of the details.

The first episode introduces Charis of Atlantis and the destruction her civilization. It’s an impressive scene in a Greek-style arena. Charis is the head of a seven-person team, male and female, who summersault over running bulls (see the photo of a Minoan fresco above). It isn’t just sport. It’s ritual for the bull god, Bel, to whom Charis is praying when we first see her.

The Atlanteans speak a language invented for the show by Spencer Klavan. It has a great, authentic sound. I picked up notes of Indo-European and Phaffinnic intonations under a clear faux-Latin influence. (I say this as a guy who can spot the subtle flavors in a Hersey’s, so I know what I’m talking about. Don’t get me started on peanut butter blends.)

Twenty years after their home is destroyed, the Atlanteans have established a kingdom in southern Britain, where the Cymry find them, having fled their land to escape barbarian raiders. Taliesin, a bard, is the adopted son of King Elphin. On the first evening, we hear him sing for King Avallach, Charis, and the other Atlanteans a moving song about the Welsh king Pwyll meeting the fairie lord of Annwn in the forest. It’s the first of two songs Taliesin sings in these episodes, and I like them, though they aren’t 4th century ballads. (I assume Lawhead wrote them.) This one in particular has been stuck in my ear for days.

The theme of this part of the series is the move from paganism to Christianity. Both main characters reject offers to sell themselves completely to their pagan gods, and at the end of episode one, the Lord catches Taliesin by surprise. “Look upon me then, Shining Brow!” It’s marvelous.

I love the look of this series so far. The actors are wonderful. (James Arden looks and sounds great as Taliesin.) Dialogue is strong. My one criticism is that a few scenes feel clipped. A dramatic scene at the start of episode two could use a few more minutes of explanation. Or maybe it lacks a foundation. They do explain why everyone is angry in that moment after the scene, but I could use three more minutes of talking it over—maybe hearing the offer put on the table and hearing it rejected before tempers flare.

Episodes drop every Thursday. I’ll try to review the next ones as they come out.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Shadow Lamp’ and ‘The Fatal Tree,’ by Stephen Lawhead

Leave a comment

I must admit that Stephen Lawhead almost lost me at one point, but I carried on with the last two books of the Bright Empires pentalogy, and came out a fan again.

If you’ve followed my reviews of the previous books, The Skin Map, The Bone House, and The Spirit Well (or if you’ve read the books; some people prefer to do it that way), you know the series involves a group of people who have learned the secrets of “ley travel,” using particular geographical formations in the earth at sunrise or sunset to travel to other times, places, and dimensions. The earlier books involve a sort of race between the good guys and the villainous Lord Burleigh to locate the “Skin Map,” the tanned skin of the discoverer of the ley lines, who had their locations tattooed on his body.

My temporary problems with the story occurred in the fourth book, The Shadow Lamp. I feared, for a while, that author Lawhead had succumbed to “Game of Thrones Disease” – not in terms of perversion, I hasten to add, but just in the sense of producing a story so complex and sprawling that he loses control of it. The characters seemed to be running around chasing each other through time and space, without advancing the story line much. But in the second half of the book things sharpen up. The focus shifts when the characters become aware that thoughtless ley traveling has caused a disruption in the very fabric of the cosmos. The quest becomes one to return to timeless Spirit Well and undo a thoughtless act. That quest continues in the final book, The Fatal Tree. By the time I got into that one I was back with the story all the way, and I found the resolution entirely satisfactory, nay, moving.

Lawhead (as I read him) has been endeavoring for some time to figure out a way to write epic fantasy without big battles. The Bright Empires series is his most successful effort so far.

Highly recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

The Bone House, by Stephen R. Lawhead

Leave a comment


In this second book in his Bright Empires Series, The Bone House (sequel to The Skin Map), Stephen Lawhead continues the saga of Kit Livingstone and his friends and enemies, in various places in space, time, and alternate dimensions.
Time travel stories, though not uncommon, are devilish hard to put together (as I can testify, though I make no claim to have done it as well as Lawhead). The story jumps around a number of locations and millennia, and we’re informed that some of the futures and pasts are alternate ones. It’s all rather complicated, and the large cast makes it hard to keep the characters, many of whom only appear briefly, straight. I recommend that you bookmark the Important People section, for reference.
In The Skin Map, Kit Livingstone met his great-grandfather, Cosimo, who taught him to use the mysterious “ley lines” to move around dimensional pathways. Cosimo is in competition with Archelaeus Burleigh, Earl of Sutherland, a villain and megalomaniac, in seeking the Skin Map, which the original discoverer of the ley lines, Sir Arthur Flinders-Petrie, had tattooed on his own body (so that he’d never lose it). The fact that Arthur himself is a character in the story, while his tanned skin is the “Maguffin” of the whole adventure, adds a bizarre note.
It’s all rather fun, and of great interest, if you can keep the players straight. Again in this volume, one of the most interesting characters is Kit’s old girlfriend Mina, who accidentally got stuck in 16th Century Prague, an experience which surprisingly turned her into a better and more competent person, one who’s very useful to have around.
To my surprise the most moving part of the story was a sojourn by Kit in a prehistoric cave community, where he has a genuinely transcendent spiritual experience that raises the whole level of the story.
I recommend The Bone House almost without reservation, except to say that the reader may want to wait until the whole series is available in the format he prefers, and read the whole thing at once, to help keep track of all the characters and settings.