Download And Enjoy Mordreds Curse Crafted By Ian McDowell Supplied As Print

Curse starts with what I felt was like a slap in the face, It took me by surprise, both due to the language and the intensity of it, It goes like this:

“I don't care what Guinevere and Gawain say this won't be Mordred's Life of Arthur, but Mordred's Life of Mordred, Fuck them they can chronicle my sanctimonious progenitor's exploits if they've got the stomach for it, ”

These first sentences are a great synopsis of the book, much better than the one found on the back cover, After the initial surprise was gone, the book proved to be both enjoyable and memorable,

First, I have to say I'm not a fan of the Arthurian Legend I mean, I like it well enough, but I don't go out of my way to get books on the subject in short, meh.
This happens mostly because I don't really care for Arthur, Or Guinevere. And even Merlin doesn't interest me that much, The one character I do like, mostly because of his complexity in terms of relationships and also because noone likes him, is Mordred, So this book was like an early Christmas: a book about Mordred, told by Mordred, just like his autobiography,

But despite this, I was actually amazed by how much I enjoyed this book,

Like I said before, Mordred's Curse tells the story of Mordred, even though this is not complete, and about his relationship with the other characters, Truth be told, most of the appeal of the book was how Mordred related to others and others to him, and not so much about his deeds and adventures although those are good too.


Most of these relationships are with members of his family: with Lot, his “father”, where there is no love, and much hate with Morgawse, his mother, that is heavily influenced by her relationship with Arthur with Gawain, the older brother with Guinevere, in a role usually given to Lancelot who is absent in this tale.


And of course with Arthur, This played a very important role in the story, and I really loved to see all the variations and shifts, A lot of Mordred's actions are a result of Arthur's attitude towards him first as his uncle, then as his father,

But, concerning character development, it seems that Arthur and Merlin who makes only a brief appearance seem to have drawn the shortest straw, Their characterisation didn't convince me as much as the others characters did,

Going back to the language, Mordred's Curse is full of cursing pun intended, As well as the swear words, there are a lot of innovative ways to insult someone, Add the fact that the descriptions are quite vivid, and Mordred does describe some gory and gross things, this book may not be everyone,

I really liked it, though, and will try to find a copy of the second book Merlin's gift,

Also at sitelinkSpoilers and Nuts Written from the perspective of the the usually villainous Mordred in the form of his journal, it is a unique take on the tale of Arthur and the dynamic between Arthur and Mordred.
From childhood to adulthood we are privy to Mordred's thoughts and feelings, many which are unkind and vulgar,
While many of my beloved characters are reduced to petty ambitions and traits, we are shown the ugliest aspects of personages normally held in high esteem,
While this novel has no redeeming qualities, I enjoyed it nontheless,
Not for young readers at all, This is a rather dark take on the Matter of Britain written from the perspective of King Arthur's bastard son, Modred, The one where Merlin is a pedophile and Mordred is a pottymouthed edgelord with no discernible personality, Pass. AWESOME! I want to find "Merlin's Gift, " I'm not sure what I was expecting from this, It's light, easy to read, and completely irreverent, If you favour the courtly love version of Camelot, you'll be disappointed with this book, It's a very gritty, dirty, realist view of things, Mordred has a pottymouth, and that's an understatement, There's also a lot of incest and things that are just plain gross, for example Merlin wanting to fuck a younger Mordred, and vivid descriptions of a coracle/boat made out of human skin.
I quite liked it. It's interesting to see Mordred given a voice, and a human, sympathetic one at that, His confused feelings about his father and mother are wellexpressed, My only trouble with the narrative is that it's sometimes a bit too light, a bit too offhand, It's also sometimes very easy to get thrown out of the story when Mordred constantly points out that he's writing down his story, and refers to things that haven't happened yet, spoiling any surprises.
It reminds me a little of Martin Amis' narrator in Money, John Self, It's the same kind of artificiality, along with the semiobscenity, I think, Although Mordred's a tad more aware of the fictional nature of the narrative all the way through than John Self is, Regardless

The characters seem to me to be mostly quick sketches rather than indepth studies which is fine by me, A quick sketch often holds more life and vibrancy anyway, I liked Gawain a lot: he's just sensible, and trying to make the best way he can, He seems like the kind of guy anyone could get along with, Arthur himself is a difficult character, In some ways you can understand why other characters and a younger Mordred heroworshipped him in others, you kind of want to hit him for being a selfrighteous twit.
Which makes him a more realistic character, I suppose!

Also pleased to note that Arthur's court must be in Caerleon, since it's close to Caerwent, Overall, this is much closer to the original Welsh setting and feel, if not the storyline, rather than the French versions,

Looking forward to seeing what more McDowell does with all this in Merlin's Gift, I was really into King Arthur as a kid and when I saw this book and it's sequel in the Science Fiction Book Club's flyer one day years later, I decided to give it a chance.
King Arthur's story from Mordred's point of view Sounded interesting,

Interesting was an understatement, The story is told by Mordred and he's bitter as hell about Arthur, his supposed father Lot, and has a strange relationship with his mother, Launcelot is nowhere in this book or its sequel, The things Launcelot is known for, ie romancing Guinevere right under King Arthur's nose, is done by Mordred, And Merlin, don't get me started, He's a halfdemon and a pedophile,

The story is engaging, dealing with Mordred growing up on Orkney, eventually joining King Arthur and falling for Guinevere,

If you're looking for a new take on King Arthur, look no further, Plus, the second book in the series, Merlin's Gift, has my favorite opening line of any fantasy book ever,


I am not sure what to say about this novel, I can't say I completely disliked it, but the parts about the plot I liked were mostly overshadowed by vulgarity,
I am deeply confused by how much I liked it and how much I did not, I love the theme of Mordred loving/hating Arthur and there is not enough Guinevere/Mordred in novels, so I was extremely glad when I found out that Guinevere and Mordred would become lovers.
I also loved how Mordred was much more shaped by Lot and Morgause than by Arthur, thing that usually doesn't happen even in novels about him, Not to talk about Morgause as actually a good mother, I loved how she cares deeply for both her son, Gawain and Mordred, even if, of course, it had to become quite disturbing during the novel,
Everything sort of gets on the disturbing side of things, I have no idea why Mordred's favorite sentence for expressing disgust is "I'd rather have an enema", I actually went to google when the word enema was born and if it was sensible to use it in a novel placed in older times it was, But still, a very peculiar expression that made me quite uncomfortable like many other things in the novel, I feel some kind of dissonance as I can look at the plot, the way the characters are meaning to be described and the relationships and think: Yes, this is the book for me.
But then, while reading, it was all very cold and gritty and crude,
I was in particularly confused by Mordred, A part of me liked his character while on the other side he was so vulgar and cold to become quite detestable, I can only wonder how the second book will be but I will read it for sure as I still want to know what will happen between Guinevere, Mordred and Arthur.

Just a brief thing more, this book would deserve all these three even just for te description of Kay as a cold dangerous and powerful man, Arthurian, but with Mordred as the central character, and Lancelot's role as well as his own, Bitter twisted heroic Mordred, and even more twisted religious Arthur, I liked it. Mordred's an antihero I can enjoy,

The only change to the standard legend that bothered me was the loss of Gawain's other brothers, Probably justified in the source material, but I miss them,

Gawain is very much like White's Gawain, and all the other Gawains, despite the change in his family, I guess he must go far back, Okay so I made it throughpages of this book, The book has lots of terrible language and I stopped after Merlin tried to rape Mordred, . Ya he is a pedophile in this book, Where to begin I have hungrily devoured all Arthurian stories I can get my hands on, As an Arthurian fan, like Luchasaurus, since middle school when I read L'Morte d'Arthur, hardly a children's novel, and grew up with the names of the legends from the ADampDst edition sourcebook Legends amp Lore, I can appreciate the expansion of some of the heroic deeds of Mordred that are in this book.
The author takes a lot of liberties with expanding upon the incestuous desires of Mordred's mother, Arthur's halfsister, as well as the cheating of Guinevere, In some really messed up ways, but the author explains his liberties in the foreward, I don't begrudge him for changing things to how he thought they would best make sense, but the changes don't sit well with me, or many other readers, He doesn't even try to explain why he made Merlin into a pedophile, but he might in his book he did on Merlin, which I haven't read, Overall, I think Ian McDowell would be great for doing some Game of Thrones style spinoffs of gritty fantasy worlds, but perhaps not so great at trying to expand on the Arthurian stories.
I read this as a teen, I remember it showing Merlin as a sexually starved pervert who was also a lover of King Arthur, I was turned off from this book in just a few pages, I love Arthurian legend and though I can appreciate McDowell giving a darker version of our beloved hero, his words were too vulgar and bitter for my liking, As avid of a fantasy reader as I am and an English major, I do not enjoy the original Arthurian Legends, It's almost sacrilegious, isn't it I do know that the stories are good, however, and you simply can't take two steps in a fantasy section of a bookstore without tripping over an Arthur tale.
My point being, that since I'm not an Arthur fan, I was loathe to pick this up, It had been sent to me by a friend over a year ago, placed on my toread shelf and was promptly forgotten about, Then while looking for something to read, I read the first two sentences, and I couldn't help but laugh and continue reading,

"I don't care what Guinevere and Gawain say this won't be Mordred's Life of Arthur, but Mordred's Life of Mordred, Fuck them they can chronicle my sanctimonious progenitor's exploits if they've got the stomach for it, "

The story of Arthur, through the eyes of his bastard son, by his sister Sounds neat, right It certainly started interestingly enough, It was written in an interesting fashion and the characters were surprisingly threedimensional, I say "were," because when The Big Secret comes out, everything changes,

Mordred changes into a whiny emo kid, and he never grows the fuck up, Sure, he's only supposed to beorin the book, but he was sullen, pompous, and obnoxious for the duration and it got old, real quick, Arthur becomes a total douche, and completely onedimensional, Guinevere, who is usually one of my favorite characters in Arthur stories, simply acts like the sticky sweet girlnextdoor, The entirety was reduced to this sort of sameness, It might as well have taken place in a high school!

I enjoyed the beginning of the book, but by the end, I was just glad I didn't have to read about how much Mordred hated Arthur any longer.
I'll only say this before i read Robert Devereaux's Santa Steps Out this was the most screwed up and off the wall book I'd ever read, Read this back when I was a teen and was drawn to it because it was a very different take on the Arthurian story, And possibly because it was also a very gritty version with some very modern language,

I was also intrigued to learn from the author note at the end that in older versions of the stories Lancelot didn't exist and so the bits with the adulterous romance with Guinevere used be associated with Mordred, and thus give more reason to the tragic endings.
This was a retelling of the story of Arthurs son Mordred, from his life growing up in Orkney to him finding a place in Camelot and love with Guinevere.
Irreverent, grotesque, ironic, yet intermixed with deep emotion and some gorgeous descriptions of even the most austere landscapes, Mordreds Curse breathed new life into a familiar story, I also think McDowell did an excellent job weaving historicity with a world of magic, He also didnt back down from the truly wretched, which felt appropriate for such a violent world, Apparently there is a sequel, which I definitely want to read, As a huge fan of everything King Arthurrelated, I enjoyed McDowells take on things, and his turn to the older versions of the story

before the introduction of the Lancelot character.
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