I thought this one ran a little too long at almost 700 pages, but I mostly enjoyed it. I liked Colum as a main character and enjoyed revisiting Arthurian mythology.

A smart, absorbing update of Camelot — the kind of massive entertainment you spend the day looking forward to reading at night.

Grossman manages to refresh the fantasy genre and King Arthur legends in a really fun and exciting and contemporary way. Loved the backstories on the characters, and the story really picks up once they begin their quest. Highly recommend!!

the Bright Sword was such a fun read. Very absorbing, i loved the re-telling of Arthurian legend and looking at the lesser characters.

The Once and Future King was my whole personality for at least one year of high school, so I was delighted to receive an advance copy of The Bright Sword of Lev Grossman - having loved his Magicians universe. This is a vibrant reimagining of Arthurian legend that focuses on lesser-known knights of the Round Table, which focuses on themes of heroism, masculinity, and power.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me.

Wielding The Bright Sword deftly, Lev Grossman commands authentic Arthurian tones throughout this work. Curiously, only Arthur is the negative space, yet by his relentless absence he fills it well through the memories of his remaining Round Table mates, along with all the usual suspects from Arthur's oft-read past. Grossman further fleshes out that missing hero by the Quixote-like quest of the ever earnest Collum. Of the Out Isles. In his stolen/borrowed armor, well-earned sword, and bittersweet discoveries, attentive readers will be pulled into the riptide of Collum's obsession with all things Arthur: tales, rumors, and especially hopes - worldly - in either this realm or any another.

For this avid fan of all things Arthurian (even have a grandson so named), this tale was fresh, intriguing and 100% enjoyable.

*A sincere thank you to Lev Grossman, Penguin Group Viking, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review independently.* #TheBrightSword #NetGalley

I couldn't finish this one. While the subject matter is one I'm obsessed with, it struggled to bring me into the story and connect with me. There's something about a male author writing about a male protagonist that is hard for me to vibe with and enjoy reading. It was boring, too long, and took forever to get anywhere.

I'm a huge fan of this author's Magicians series, as well as a lover of Arthurian tales, so I was really excited to read Bright Sword. And it did not disappoint! I loved the unexpected timeline with our hero arriving after the party is over, and his story arc felt real and satisfying.

My mom and I read this book at the same time and we both loved it. I ended up going back and forth between the hardcover copy and the audiobook because I wanted to stay with the story on my commute to work! The Bright Sword was a great re-visiting and updating of the King Arthur stories that I read as a child; I felt nostalgia for my childhood while reading, but at the same time was getting a deeper and more adult take on the classic tales. This is a long book, but each chapter is it's own story (while staying within the greater overarching plot) so I could read a chapter and feel a sense of completion without getting overwhelmed that I had hundreds of pages left to go.

As a medieval historian I absolutely loved this fresh take on Arthur that honors the stories and legends while updating them in ways that feel unique and authentic. Grossman brings the roundtable-- or what remains of it-- to life, rendering in vivid detail and making very human characters of larger than life legends. At once epic and deeply personal-- truly gorgeous.

I loved the Magicians series by Lev Grossman and had high hopes for this book. Was not disappointed! All of his books have this thread of despair running through them, this disappointment that magic or God or adventure can't fix what's broken inside. It works perfectly with the legend of King Arthur. This would be a great book club read.

"The Bright Sword" by Lev Grossman is the must have fantasy for Arthurian fans.

As it seems tradition of Arthurian tellings, "The Bright Sword" is not a fast paced read. It's a read to pick up and really dedicate your imagination to go escape in Camelot. But when we get there, we see that Camelot is in disarray. King Arthur is dead. The Knights are dead. And we, along with Collum, take the gritty journey through the end.

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I absolutely fell heads over heels for the Magicians trilogy and when I se Grossman had a new book out, I thought heck yar! I discovered Arthurian literature is not for me. There is a lot to unpack and build and because I don't naturally gravitate to Arthurian books, and I had to encourage myself to finish. It's beautiful and wonderful and Grossman includes some darker parts of the story (read the back pages first) but I don't think I was the intended reader. Now if your are and Arthurian fan, READ THIS!

I really really loved this one. I thought the framing of a post-Arthur Arthurian legend was a really inspired choice and I enjoyed the whole cast of characters. So much of this book felt so haunted but in a really satisfying way. I didn’t expect much when I started reading and was delighted.

Wow. Really, just ... wow.
Author Lev Grossman (of The Magicians fame) takes on a classic legend with his new look at King Arthur, the knights of the roundtable, and all the usual, familiar characters whom we've read about in other versions of the legends. Grossman brings us into the story with a new knight, Collum of the Out Isles.

Collum is a wide-eyed teenager, a bastard child who comes from nothing and thus has everything to gain and nothing to lose. Skilled with a sword he sets out to join King Arthur and, hopefully, become a knight of the Roundtable. He needs to prove his skill along the way, taking his first life, which is disturbing to him, but he did everything he could (he feels) to avoid the situation and in the name of Arthur he did what he had to do.

But when he arrives to King Arthur's court, Collum discovers a kingdom in ruins and Arthur himself dead, with the few surviving knights (names Collum once thought of with respect and awe) lost and floundering, trying to figure out what happens next.

It takes Collum's youthful naivete and optimism to wake up the Roundtable knights and look for options to keep Arthur's vision for Britain alive. What follows is a quest worthy of the Knights of the Roundtable, bringing them in contact with all of the characters from the legends and plenty of magic thanks to Nimue and Merlin.

This book is amazing. Grossman has certainly taken his place alongside Sir Thomas Malory, Mary Stewart, and T. H. White as one of the great Arthurian Legend storytellers.

We get a lot of the history of the individual characters through flashbacks. I'm generally not a fan of the device, but Grossman makes it work. It would do the novel a great disservice to have each character 'tell' their history when we meet them, so seeing their history is much more exciting.

Grossman takes a few liberties with characters (and their stories) that we think we know (specifically Lancelot du Lac), and of course adds Sir Collum of the Outer Isles, but, as Grossman writes in his Historical Note:

Arthur’s story has been told and retold for 1,400 years, and it’s never been told quite the same way twice. Every age and every teller leaves their traces on the story, and as it passes from one hand to the next it evolves and changes and flows like water. ... Arthur didn’t spring to life fully formed, he was deposited in layers, slowly, over centuries, like the geological strata of a landscape. It’s one of the things that makes him so rich and compelling. It also makes him, from a historical point of view, a complete mess. ... but the messiness is, I would argue, an authentic part of the Arthurian tradition. It’s always been there—I don’t imagine Malory or Tennyson sweated much over their world-building either.
We don't get the love affair of Lancelot and Guinevere or Guinevere and Arthur - this takes place after all that's done and (nearly) forgotten - but we do get some romance and it's just about the right amount and with an unlikely but appropriate pair.

The magic within the story builds slowly but plays a major part of the story, and Collum takes the heroic journey from innocent, would-be-knight to legend. But with his knightly humility, he tends to shrug it aside.

This was truly a remarkable read. It's exciting to read something - to be among the first - that you can imagine becoming a classic for future readers and something that will be referenced for what it adds to a mythology.

Looking for a good book? Lev Grossman adds to the Arthurian legends with The Bright Sword and you should be sure to read it.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I tried to get into The Magicians but discovered it wasn’t my thing; however, when I was invited to read this book I was intrigued (I love a good Arthurian retelling).
It seems Grossman may not be the author for me as I wasn’t able to get into this novel either. I only made it about 20% through the story before I lost all interest. There wasn’t anything glaringly bad, it just moved slow and I found I didn’t care about what was happening/would happen next.

Even though it was a DNF for me, I think if you’re a fan of Lev Grossman or Arthurian retellings you should definitely give this one a try.

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking for the copy of this eARC.

This is a lush, richly imagined retelling of the Knights of the Round Table with a focus on lesser-known knights. The novel does many things right, giving the male characters complex histories and inner lives, and examining what it means to live through transformative times. I only wish the women had been as complex and nuanced as the men -- in most cases, they were more plot device than person. The result is a story that will be an easy sell to dedicated fantasy readers, but will have limited crossover appeal for my female patrons.

Collum, a young wanna be knight, arrives at Camelot to make it big...but he's too late. Arthur and most of his knights are dead, and Camelot is falling apart. There are a lot of familiar characters in this story (Guinevere, Lancelot, Morgan Le Fay) but no one is quite what you'd expect. Grossman's Camelot is dark but not as dark and twisted as his Magician's series reworked Narnia. It is full of quests and magic and flawed and complicated humans attempting to be heroes. Definitely worth a read.

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

Lev Grossman is not the twin whose books I love more - his brother Austin Grossman’s novel Soon I Will Be Invincible is a masterpiece. But I also really enjoyed Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy, as well as his first book, Warped, which shows his love of TNG. For a long time I wondered what he was up to. Now I know - he was writing The Bright Sword, a chonker of a doorstooper fantasy Arthurian novel.

This book was wonderful! Way too long, but wonderful. If you told me it was originally going to be a trilogy and then got smushed into one volume I wouldn’t be surprised. This book is a King Arthur tale focused on everyone except Arthur and the other well known round table members. They all get an incredibly long backstory chapter or two which could’ve been their own novellas. This book was a great joy to read and I highly recommend it.

This was utterly enthralling. The writing was beautiful and I was so engrossed with the story I cannot stop thinking about it!