I do not usually read fantasy tales, but I do love history and who can resist a story with Lancelot, Arthur and Sir Kay. Merlin provided resurrection stones to the knights of the round table. This would allow them to rise from the earth when Britain needed them. Sir Kay has fought at Waterloo, WWI and WWII. He is not sure why he has been called back this time, but when he sees a damsel in distress he goes to her rescue. That damsel is Mariam, who has just blown up a fracking site. Britain is dying. Water has risen in the streets of London, animals no longer roam the forests, there is a shortage of food and trees are disappearing. Miriam’s goal is to help the environment, but her efforts may have made things worse when the explosion releases a dragon. She hopes that Kay can find some way to help.

Thomas D. Lee has written a story that is whimsical and will frequently have you laughing out loud. He also explores the consequences of global warming, climate disasters and corporate greed. Mariam belongs to a group that provides support for women in the camps of displaced persons. While there is sometimes dissent regarding the group’s purpose, they support Mariam when she is called upon to fight a conspiracy that could result in doomsday. There is a plan to bring Arthur back to rally the people, but Kay, who was raised as his brother, warns that the Arthur that people know is a romanticized version. The real Arthur is very different and bringing him back could be disastrous. Kay’s feud with Lancelot, Merlin’s revelations regarding the resurrection stones, the appearance of Excalibur, magic and dragons will keep you engrossed from the opening scenes and Lee provides surprises throughout the story. This is a wonderful story that is highly recommended. I would like to thank NetGalley and Random House - Ballantine for providing this book for my review.

A fantastical dystopian romp steeped in Arthurian legend. In the near future, Britain is dominated by rising sea levels, oil rigs, and fracking. As a result, people are forced to migrate to higher elevations, where they live in filthy camps. A group of feminist eco-terrorists is bent on destroying the corporations that are making people's lives miserable. But they're not making much progress. Sensing that the empire is in peril, Kay, one of Arthur's knights (and brother!), awakens beneath his tree. His only mission is to alleviate the peril...again. He meets feminist eco-terrorist Mariam as she runs from Saxon security guards, and both of their lives and missions change. Can they save Britain? Will Merlin help them? Do they have to bring Arthur back? Lancelot is bandying about with evil Christopher Marlowe, but where are the other knights?

This book was suggested because I enjoyed Chuck Wendig's The Wanderers. The story is similar but with Arthur, Kay, Lancelot, the round table, and Christopher Marlowe thrown into the mix. It's much more of a dystopian fantasy.

Imagine Arthurian legends in a contemporary yet dystopian setting, doing battle with not only dragons but climate change, add in a generous helping of wry humor, and you have Thomas Lee's Perilous Times. A little slow at times, and the topic of climate change could be heavy-handed, but overall still a fun read. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those books that most people are either going to love or hate, depending on your stance on the climate crisis.

Perilous Times by Thomas Lee will be available June 23, 2023.

Thanks to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Eh. It was pretty ok. The author obviously knows Arthurian mythology and the dystopian setting was an interesting choice to blend it with but it just didn’t quite work for me. Don’t get me wrong the book was okay. Parts were kind of funny in a Prachett like way. The dystopian and grimmer parts were ok too. It just didn’t quite jell for me. I’d still try a second book by this author,

3.5 rounded up

This book is such a hard book for me to rate because there are elements that I truly enjoyed and there were parts that I just could not get into.

I found the book to be a very interesting read due to the concept. The idea that Arthurian knights are reincarnated anytime Britain is in peril was SUPER FASCINATING to me. Set in the future, Britain is in peril due to climate change, xenophobia, racism, corporate greed, and many other issues that hit close to home. You name it, the issue is there in this dystopia. And there were fantasy elements too! AND the characters have a huge depth to them that is difficult to convey in multiple POVs, but the author did it well.

As someone who loves Arthurian legend, dystopian novels, fantasy, and character novels, this should have been a slam dunk for me. But unfortunately, it fell a little flat and I think the main reason for that is pretty simple: the pacing and length of this book. At almost 500 pages, this was a whopper of a book and not every part of the plot moved it along, making large parts drag and feel unnecessary or repetitive. And parts of the book I wanted more information on were overlooked or quickly resolved.

Overall, I found myself either extremely riveted by the story or sighing heavily to get through parts. There was no in between for me. I would recommend this book to those interested in dystopian and fantasy novels, retellings, social justice and environmental issues, and longer novels!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballentine for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review!

If you loved the tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, then this is the book for you. I read all of those tales growing up and enjoyed this book immensely, since this is Arthur and the Knights like you never saw them. The storybook legend is that when they were needed, they would rise to defend England.

The knights are shown as heroes (eventually) but also as deeply flawed individuals. Kay, who is the narrator for a large part of the book, is my favorite. Kay broke my heart at times. Lancelot is a real jerk but became more likeable as the book went on.

This time around the Knights are resurrected from their deep sleep to save the realm again, and more than the realm. This time they need to save the entire planet from global warming, and defeat the enemy behind the corporations with more than a lance and a horse.

I received a review copy from publisher Random House Publishing/Ballentine Books via NetGalley. It was a great pleasure to voluntarily read and review this book.

DNF - I think I misunderstood what this book was going to be after reading the description, but I just couldn’t get into this book. If it was shorter, I maybe would have pushed through, but since it was quite long, I just gave up. This is probably my fault for not doing a little more research before starting this book.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Thomas D Lee for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for Perilous Times coming out May 23, 2023. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Legends don’t always live up to reality. 

Being reborn as an immortal defender of the realm gets really tiring over the years—or at least that’s what Sir Kay’s feeling as he claws his way up from beneath the earth yet again.

Kay once rode alongside his brother, King Arthur, as a Knight of the Round Table. Since then, he has fought at Hastings and at Waterloo and in both World Wars. But now he finds himself in a strange modern world where oceans have risen, the army’s been privatized, and half of Britain’s been sold to foreign powers. There also happens to be a dragon running. He can handle that. But he’s not so sure about the rest. 

Mariam’s spent her life fighting the good fight in her country. But she’s just one ordinary person, up against a hopelessly broken system. So when she meets Kay, she dares to hope that her world has finally found a hero. 

Yet as the two journey through this weird and dangerous land, they discover that a magical plot of apocalyptic proportions is underfoot. And Kay’s too wrapped up in hunting dragons—and exchanging blows with his old enemy Lancelot—to come up with a plan. 

In perilous times, the world doesn’t just need a knight. It needs a true leader. 

Excalibur lies within reach. But who will be fit to wield it? 

With a cast that includes Merlin, Morgan le Fay, the Lady of the Lake, and King Arthur himself—all reimagined in wickedly subversive fashion—Perilous Times is an Arthurian retelling that looks forward to the future as much as it looks back to the past.

I received this directly from NetGalley. I loved it! I’m definitely a fan of the legend of King Arthur. I thought the idea of people like Lancelot, Kay, Merlin, and the gang living until modern times was unique. It felt like an epic journey for the characters. I loved Miriam’s character and thought she was a strong heroine. The story did get a little long for me at the end. I think some themes were slightly repetitive and could’ve been a little tighter. But overall, I loved the characters and the world building.

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys modern stories about Camelot!

Perilous Times is the gripping futuristic retelling of Arthurian legend. It follows Sir Kay, Arthur’s brother and knight of the round table. But Arthur is dead, the planet is in a climate crisis, and Kay is summoned to help when Britain is in dire peril. Kay meets Mariam, a young activist who is attempting to save the planet. Can Kay and Mariam work together to save Britain and the planet before the damage is irreversible?

I loved how inventive and creative this book was. The magic system was fascinating and I really liked the lore behind how the knights were able to be summoned back to life if Britain was in peril. The dragons, fae realm, and deals with the devil were incredibly fun. I especially loved the inclusion of queerness and the challenging of legends that readers feel they know by heart, such as what truly happened between Lancelot and Gwen. The book really reminded me of the writing style of Good Omens (Gaiman & Pratchett), especially the excellent sense of humor.

Thomas D. Lee writes the characters with so much wit and skill. In particular, I loved his take on Merlin, Morgan, and Lancelot. Lee excels at taking a piece of the legend that readers think they know and creating something entirely new. Perilous Times is a wild ride of Arthurian knights brought back to life, fierce battles, and people trying to do the right thing for the planet. I loved it and can’t wait to see what Lee writes next! Readers who enjoy Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, and inventive Arthurian retellings need to check out Perilous Times.

Thank you to Thomas D. Lee, Ballantine Books, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on Instagram, Goodreads, Amazon, Storygraph, and Barnes & Noble etc

I’m a sucker for a King Arthur story. There have been some good ones over the years and some really bad ones, too. I am not one who has to have the stereotypical Arthur and his knights and an ancient Merlin. So I was ready for anything when it came to Perilous Times.

If you don’t believe climate change is real or don’t believe it’s as big of a problem as some say, this book is not for you. If you want your glorious King Arthur shining like a beacon of goodness and all his knights chivalrous and honest (and white), this book is not for you. If you can’t handle LGBTQ as part of the storyline, this book is not for you.

There’s a lot to like about this quirky and humorous fantasy book set in the not distant future. It turns out that Merlin cast a spell on the Knights of the Round Table that they would be resurrected any time Great Britain is in great peril. In modern times, many parts of the cities are flooded due to polar ice caps melting, the sun is burning hotter than ever, and pollution has muddied up streams. Kay, King Arthur’s brother, rises from the ground from an ancient oak tree, and starts searching for the peril; he’s been through this dozens of times before.

He meets Marian, who is fiercely independent and believes in her cause, yet at the same time lacks the self-confidence to take charge and lead the others in her fight. She doesn’t believe he could be a knight because he’s black and has dreadlocks, saying that no one looked like her in all the Arthurian legends she’s heard. Kay convinces her of his story, and they join up together to fight the bad guys, the industrialists who are mining the earth regardless of the environmental impact. Through an accident of Marian’s at a fracking site where she blows up the facility, a dragon is released from the bowels of the earth. Crazy, right? This is a fantasy, after all.

Then Lancelot comes to life. He’s almost immediately met by a man simply known as Marlowe, who can be none other than Christopher Marlowe, who appears to be his handler. He apprises Lancelot of the current situation and lets him know about Kay’s current whereabouts. It seems there’s no love lost between the two, and Marlowe’s assignment for Lancelot is to find Kay and stop him. We learn as the book goes on that the story of Lancelot and Guinevere is just that, and in reality Lancelot is gay and was in love with another knight all those years ago.

The reader follows these three people through all sorts of adventures, with all sorts of twists and turns and surprises along the way. Merlin, Nimue, and Morgan LeFay also make appearances when the ultimate happens: Arthur is brought back to life through witchcraft, and he’s anything besides the benevolent king one grew up reading about. He’s a bloodthirsty tyrant who doesn’t listen to anyone, and I’ve seen other reviewers complain he’s modeled after Trump or Boris Johnson, but I didn’t read that much into it.

Normally I don’t like fantasy books despite trying them from time to time, but the King Arthur hook had me, as well as the humor and ridiculousness of some situations. If you’re looking for something different, give it a try!

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and Ballantine Books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

2.5 stars. I used to love the Arthurian legend and I read many books based on it when I was younger, so I thought I would give this one a try since it was free through Netgalley. I was not expecting it to be a climate change dystopia. I don’t usually read those because I find it too depressing that our world is headed in that direction and nobody in charge is doing much about it. But since I got this book from Netgalley, I decided to keep going.

I liked the characters; they were the best part of the book. I liked the FETA sisters and their love for each other and their resolve to do something to make the world better, especially once Mariam realized that she couldn’t just rely on others to do it for them. I loved Merlin’s character and he was actually how I pictured him. However, I didn’t love how useless Kay and Lancelot and Arthur all turned out to be. Or how awful Arthur was in general. I read this because of them and it just wasn’t fun. I also didn’t understand the addition of Marlowe or how he ended up in this story.

The book was a little too long and slow. There were definitely parts that just dragged. I liked how the solution required everyone to join together to make it happen, but the ending was just cut off. I wish there had been an epilogue based sometime in the future.

Overall, this was an ok book, but not what I was hoping for when I read the summary. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

You’ve never read climate fiction like this. There really is something in here for everyone. Explosions? Check. Feminism? Check. Knights? Check. Neo-Nazis? Check. I mean it. It’s got it all.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my free copy. These opinions are my own.

Kay, King Arthur’s brother and one of the knights of the realm, has been summoned from under his oak tree many times over the past hundreds of years each time Britain is in peril. This time, however, it is not Nazis or another clear foe but rather environmental - with global warming, resource exploitation and the country being sold off to the highest bidder. Something has gone very wrong with the world. As few fight to fix it, Kay along with Lancelot, Miriam (your average feminist environmentalist) and others go on an adventure defeating dragons and corruption.

This novel was a creative take on a classic tale of a great king and his warriors thrown into a world where everything is environmentally a mess due to the greed and corruption of a few. Most of the time all the quirks and oddities played into the story well. Other times they seemed manufactured but didn’t distract too much from the overall story. The threads of humor balanced the serious themes and the idea that anyone can be the hero was well done. A fun, quirky read. 3+ stars.

Review based on a digital Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley. Thank you!

Cursed (or blessed, depending on how you look at it) with saving Britain from peril, Kay is digging his way out of the earth when he realizes it is different. There is no birdsong, no bugs, and it is uncomfortably warm. He doesn’t understand why he has been summoned to protect Britain again until he meets Miriam. Miriam has been devoted to saving the world from climate change and impending doom. When she meets Kay, she accidentally blows up a fracking rig, blowing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. After accepting Kay’s explanation (after seeing him return to life after being killed), Miriam and Kay start a quest to help Britain. But, also resurrected is Lancelot, and he is working for the enemy. What happens when the unthinkable happens and an ancient leader is resurrected? Will Miriam and Kay be able to help Britain and the environment? Or will Lancelot and the villains succeed in their plans?

I have always been intrigued by the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I have prioritized reading anything that mentions King Arthur, the Knights, and the legend. So, when I read the Perilous Times blurb, I knew I wanted to read it. And let me tell you, I am glad that I did because this book was equally funny and heartbreaking.

Perilous Times is a fast to medium-paced book in future England. The book takes a wandering tour through various English cities and eventually ends up in Wales. The pacing suited this book. The author kept the pace fast enough for me to follow (without returning to previous pages to reread) but slowed down during crucial parts.

The plotline of Perilous Times centers around Kay, Miriam, Lancelot, and the plot to bring King Arthur back (and yes, it is a spoiler). This plot meanders all over the place but, at the same time, sticks closely to the main characters. Usually, I wouldn’t like it written like that, but in this case, it worked. It allowed for a good view of dystopian England affected by climate change and other outside influences. The author did a great job of stressing how climate change affected the lower-lying coastal areas, rivers, and other bodies of water. As for the different influences, it wasn’t a stretch to see Britain reduced to a shadow of what it was. No monarchy, Wales and Scotland were independent (honestly, I can picture this in real life), armies were privatized, and other countries bought up parts of England to help pay their debts. Again, I had no issue seeing this happening in real life.

There are trigger warnings in Perilous Times. They are:

Climate Change: England (and the rest of the world) has been ravaged by climate change. Polar caps have melted, releasing long-dormant diseases. Seas have risen because of the polar caps melting. Trees are almost all gone. Birds, worms, and insects are dying out.
Eco-Terrorism: Miriam is part of an eco-terrorist group trying their hardest to save the world. They do this through nonviolent protests. But Miriam goes off script and accidentally blows up a fracking complex.
Racism: Unfortunately, racism is alive and well in dystopian England. Kay, who is black, makes it a point to remember that his skin color wasn’t an issue until more recently (the last two to three hundred years). Kay also takes a rather drastic approach to being talked down too: he slaughters everyone in the group except Barry, who he turns into a squirrel.
Grief: Kay grieves for his wife and the past. Lancelot grieves for his lover when he discovers what happened to his tree. But Lancelot also turns that grief into a rage and exacts revenge.
If any of these triggers you, I suggest not reading the book.

I liked Kay and understood why he was so tired of being resurrected. All he wanted was to be at peace and see his wife in Heaven. But he knew something was different when he dug out of the earth this time. The world was too warm, too wet. He meets Miriam after the fracking explosion and convinces her to take him to Manchester. But, on the way, they encounter a dragon, and Kay’s quest to get to Manchester gets sidetracked. He gets to Manchester, gets Excalibur, and starts on a quest to find Merlin. While on that quest, a whole bunch of Monty Python-like situations happens. Kay’s storyline kept me on my toes.

I liked Miriam. She was trying her hardest to do her part to save the world. She knew that the Saxon Company (a megacorporation) was behind everything that had happened to England (and the world) but didn’t know how to change things. It wasn’t until she accidentally blew up a fracking site and met Kay that her path became clear. She was a quiet but compelling leader who wasn’t afraid to get stuff done. She convinced her FETA sisters to follow her and Kay. The best part of her storyline was towards the end of the book. What she did was nothing short of amazing. All I can say is, Once and Future Queen?

Lancelot was different from who I thought he would be in Perilous Times. He was not the Lancelot from myth. In this book, Lancelot is at the beck and call of the Saxon Company and a man named Marlowe. He also was gay, which was a surprising turn for me (since he supposedly seduced King Arthur’s wife). His sexuality added extra depth to his character. I didn’t think he was terrible, but he did shady stuff like taking Kay’s wooden staff or helping Marlowe and Morgan resurrect King Arthur. But, once he realized what he did was wrong (and it was very shortly after King Arthur returned), he set about fixing things with Morgan.

As I mentioned above, King Arthur is brought back. I was not too fond of his character, but at the same time, I couldn’t stop reading. The author portrayed him as a jerk and a sexist. He was also too easily led by people and couldn’t see the truth if it was woven in front of his face. In the end, though, he did the right thing; for a secondary character, he was larger than life. He almost overshadowed the main characters at one point in the book.

The author did have Merlin make a brief appearance. Honestly, I was very disappointed in how the author portrayed his character. I thought he would have had more interactions with Kay. But after the bombshell he dropped on Kay, he jetted. I was not OK with that.

There were several other deities/gods/goddesses mentioned in Perilous Times. The fae was brought in a solitary character that sold drugs (now that did make me laugh for a minute). Herne, a Celtic forest god, communicated with Kay and Miriam through dreams. And the Lady of the Lake, Nimue, was a considerable presence towards the end of the book. She reminded me of a cranky old lady who complained about doing things but did them anyways.

The end of Perilous Times was action-packed and very interesting. I will not get more into it than others to say I agreed with how it ended. There was hope for a better future.

I would recommend Perilous Times to anyone over 21. There is language and violence, but no sexual situations. Also, see my trigger warning list.

Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Ballantine Books, NetGalley, and Thomas D. Lee for allowing me to read and review Perilous Times. All opinions stated in this review are mine.

This unbiased review is in exchange for an ebook from NetGalley.

Perilous times is a dystopian fantasy about what happens if the world is in peril from climate change and king Arthur’s knights come back to life to save it. Kay comes back to life from his tree and sets off to find out what evil he needs to defeat. He meets a young woman Mariam who is currently blowing up a site and battling the Saxons and somehow a dragon is unleashed. Together her and Kay set off to save the world and along the way we meet other characters out of legend. There are battles with magic staffs and swords, political stand offs, morally grey characters, and a satisfactory moment when someone is turned into a squirrel.

I was a little worried going in that I wasn’t the target audience for this. Sometimes books have a political agenda and end up coming across more as a lecture and less of a story. But overall this was a well written, well paced, delightful read. I’m not overly familiar with King Arthur beyond the basics, so I don’t recall any of the characters existed beyond him Merlin and Lancelot. But even seeing those parts of the myth remade were interesting. It focuses well on moving the plot along and tying up loose ends. If I had to complain I would say the end is a little too neat as they don’t pay any high price for victory. But overall a fun yet thought provoking read.

Perilous Times turns the King Arthur story we all know completely upside down. It has everything you want in an Arthurian story, Magic, Dragons, Morgana, Merlin, and the Lady of the Lake. I loved Barry the Squirrel, I laughed out loud a lot during his scenes.
We first meet Kay as he crawls out under a tree, woken because the world is in Peril. What exactly is wrong we're not sure of yet, but Kay goes forth to figure it out.

I loved Kay, he just wakes up to do his job and looks forward to going back to sleep until he's needed again. And it seems like the entire world needs help, although mostly they want him to wake up Arthur. However, to Kay, that's definitely a last resort option as he knows Arthur better than anyone and he's kind of a douche.

This is a slower-paced story but the battle scenes are very action-packed. It's full of grim dark humor, and a great cast of characters with a fun twist on the myth we're all familiar with, and I really enjoyed how it all ended.

This was such a fun book. A great combination of updated Arthurian lore, climate fiction, humor (the squirrel! The banter!), and adventure. I loved the premise of Arthurian knights being revived over the centuries to fight "peril" (perfect title, btw), and the little hints we get about how the knights have been exposed to culture at irregular intervals. I thought the characterization was well done (I swear, I was close to tears when Kay mentions his long-dead wife's honey cakes near the end) and I cared about what would happen, about who would ultimately take up the mantle of responsibility. Having visited Glastonbury, I also loved how the Glastonbury Tor is part of the ending. Overall, definitely a book I'll be recommending to others, and I'm looking forward to reading more by the author!

2.5 stars rounded up.

This book is an adult fantasy with multiple perspectives, it really focuses on a modern-day Arthur and his knights. It has magic, dragons, battles, and a desperate attempt to save the world before it's too late. This book has a very interesting concept of medieval knights returning to life when England is in peril.
It talks a lot about everything horrible that is happening in the world, global warming, government corruption, corporate greed, and lack of all types of supplies. While this book mentions all these things happening, I felt that the actual characters in the book did more arguing and walking than anything else in the story. When there was drama, action, fighting and something was revealed it was great and I loved the twists. This book was long, I thought that some parts did not need to be in there because it just made it drag on more than it needed to.
Some of the decisions that the characters made did not make sense, doing the wrong things for the right reasons, but as soon as they achieved their goal, they back tracked and this happened several times, it was super frustrating, and the logic behind it did not make any sense or how they thought there was going to be a different outcome. I think that this book had a lot going for it, but there were too many lulls in the story, and I lost interest at times.
Trigger warnings: blood, gore, burns, infection and death of an animal
I received this advanced ebook, via Netgalley. This review is my own honest opinion.

Don't worry iff you don't remember or even know Arthurian legend- this novel is a hoot. Lee has merged the past, the present, and the future to create a hero and band of merry men out to save the world from climate destruction and xenophobia. It's not the easiest read in spots (it does sag occasionally) but it's got a big heart and it's funny. Sir Kay, who has been reincarnated multiple times to fight in wars, this times finds himself teaming up with a very different Mariam. They, along with Sir Lancelot (yes, he's made it here too) tell the story. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It's a good read.

Sir Kay has been reborn into our present and is looking for his next quest. What does he find? A world torn apart politically and an earth that is getting too warm. If that wasn’t enough, a dragon has gotten loose and is wreaking its own kind of havoc. Mariam has focused her life to fight against those doing wrong to the planet. When these two join forces … well, the system has something to fear. Other knights have been reborn, Excalibur is still hidden, and King Arthur is asleep. What changes are in the works for our planet?

Perilous Times is a stand-alone fantasy adventure that fans of Arthurian legends will devour. This is a longer read, but since it is a one-and-done, that makes the adventure that much more appealing. Readers will get to visit with Merlin, the Lady of the Lake, Lancelot, and others. The question is: What would happen in our present world if the Knights of the Round Table returned? Read this book to find out.