New video: How to read Le Morte D’Arthur
Greetings lovely ones, I just posted a video to my site called “How to Read Le Morte D’Arthur,” which, as you might have surmised, gives my perspective on how a new reader should approach Sir Thomas Malory’s famed Arthurian work.
It just occurred to me that most people’s entry point into the Arthurian legend is Le Morte D’Arthur, yet when the average reader of today picks it up, it’s a lot more difficult to read than they expect. It is also, for people who have only been raised on the King Arthur TV and movies, not at all what they expect. So I try to address some of these issues before they come up and give the newbie some advice on how to handle the pacing, the language, and some of the things about the work that simply don’t make sense.
Basically I just thought about my own experience reading Le Morte D’Arthur and what a shock it was. I had decided I was going to read “the real story” of King Arthur, and was in for a series of surprises. I was shocked at what happens to Merlin, I expected a lot more swashbuckling and romance, and I couldn’t believe how fast it moved. At first I was reading on the New York City subway, in small chunks at a time, so the whole thing just created a surreal music in my brain as all these tiny impressions of the Arthurian world broke through the bustle and noise.
I also address the issue of Tristram, because my experience—and I’m sure I’m not the only one—was to come up against all these Tristram chapters smack dab in the middle. I knew Tristram from Tristan and Isolde, but I did not know this was an Arthurian character. So all of a sudden there’s this completely unrelated character in the middle of the story and his adventures just go on forever. Perhaps when I am older I will return to the Tristram chapters and find them beautiful and moving, but for now I advise the average reader to just skip them.
You might also notice some hypnotic background videos. Those are all shot by me. Basically I just like to take slo-mo videos of patterns in nature or anything that could be described as “trippy,” and now I get to use those in my videos. Some of the ones in this video are from Iceland and one is this cool lava lamp with metallic fragments floating that I found in Chicago.
I’m going to continue making videos such as this one, some “educational” like this, and some with interviews or readings from the books. If you have a suggestion of anything you think would be interesting, please let me know. Otherwise, go take a look at the video for How to Read Le Morte D’Arthur.
Free Ebook of the New Book One
Greetings readers, and right to the point: I am having a Goodreads Giveaway of 100 copies of the newly-rewritten Book One of the series, A Man of Our Kind. If you’ve been curious about the rewrite, now you can try one for free!
This is the story of Merlin’s birth… his mother impregnated by the devil and finding a way to turn him to good, but now also includes Vortigern’s story, his rise to power through treachery, his inviting the Saxons into the country, his marriage to Rowena, the Saxon leader’s daughter, and his relationship to his son, Vortimer, who eventually leads the war on his own father.
Here is a link to the giveaway, which will start on Saturday, September 9th and run through the 21st.
Enter the Goodreads Giveaway for a free ebook of A Man of Our Kind
I have been very happy to see that the rewrite has been well-received and that readers are taking it the way it was intended. Here’s a sample of some of the reviews:
“An excellent beginning to the Arthurian story with a sense of maintaining the original story but humanizing the characters rather than making them historical bores. Seems that they are just pretty much normal, emotional humans wherein greatness may have come accidentally. I’ve read everything Arthurian that I can lay my hands on and this is certainly the best in years.”
—Scott T., Amazon review
“I really liked what he had done with Vortigern in Book Two and the first book had for me been a stand-alone triumph. I was afraid the rewrite might ruin things or over-egg an already tasty pudding. On the contrary, what he has done is used his considerable writing skills as a film blogger combined with his nous about screenplay structure to create, (or recreate) what I can only call a page-turner.”
—Steve Gladwin, Author of The Seven
“While I cannot wait to start reading the future books in this series, I’m really happy that the author decided to rewrite this first book. It’s better, the characters and the writing are more development and the reader can have an amazing time while reading it.”
—Mariana, Amazon review
The rest of the series relaunch is complete
In other news, Covid finally caught up to me. I had avoided it until now, and am very thankful to have had a mild case, but it sure has lingered in annoying little ongoing symptoms. And it caused me to cancel an international vacation. But the good news is…
I was able to use that time to do the myriad little tasks required to complete the relaunch of the newly-rewritten/revised versions of the series. I was able to add them to Smashwords, which distributes ebooks to Barnes & Noble, Apple books, Kobo, libraries, etc. Basically everywhere that is not Amazon. And on Amazon, I was able to take the time to format the books for paperback and design the covers. I was looking forward to my vacation, but also thinking “WHEN am I going to get to all these tasks done?” So in a way I’m happy to have been able to hunker down and get all that work done.
That means that the ebooks are all updates and available at all online retailers, and the paperbacks are available from Amazon. Which means I can move fully onto writing Book 6 and promoting the series, which had been on pause while I was rewriting. And I’m mostly feeling better with a little lingering congestion. Happy day!
The Swithen NEW Books 1 and 2 are now available!
Greetings lovely people—
Well, it’s a new beginning for my Arthurian series, and I do mean a literal new beginning. I completely rewrote the first book and seriously revised the second and third, and the first two are now available as ebooks (paperbacks are coming soon, the third book is at the proofreader).
This means there is no more Our Man on Earth and now Book One of The Swithen is A Man of Our Kind.
For me, personally, this is a huge thing, because for the past year and a half I have stopped promoting the series because I knew these big changes were coming. So there have been next to no sales and no motivation to keep writing from people reading and leaving reviews. So I’m super-excited to get these out and it’s very motivating as I start to continue the series with Book 6.
For the series it’s also a huge thing, because for the first time I think the first book is really GOOD. I was never quite proud of it before and didn’t feel great recommending it to people. Now I think the whole start of the series is much stronger and it has a much more cohesive continuity moving from the birth of Merlin through the three kings that precede Arthur (his father and uncle), and then into the King Arthur story we feel we know (although we don’t, really).
The second book is thoroughly revised and much more vivid, the characters much more fully realized, but it is generally the same story, just vastly improved.
If you want to read more about the thought process that went into the rewriting of the first book, I just posted this author interview that goes into detail about what has changed.
If you want to check out the books themselves, here they are. So far, only ebooks at Amazon, but paperbacks will follow and then more outlets. Etc. You know, the whole world domination thing.
And I’d always love to hear from you if you feel like contacting me.
A Man of Our Kind: The Swithen Book One in ebook at Amazon
The Sons of Constance: The Swithen Book Two in ebook at Amazon
Book 6 is in progress
Greetings, readers! The last of the revised Books 1-3 is ready for the proofreader and I have started turning my efforts to writing Book 6.
The revised versions of Books 1-3 will go up in a few months. I’m waiting to release them all at the same time, and am also working on recording new audiobooks (in my specially-constructed cardboard-and-foam sound booth, made from a box for a screen door). They’ll have new covers and new paperbacks, in addition to a 80% new Book 1 and much more consistency and more fully realized characters in Books 2 and 3. I love the addition of Vortigern in Book 1 and am very happy to give Pendragon and Uther much better character definition in Books 2 and 3.
Again, I want to thank you for your support and encouraging words, and simply for reading my work, which is really the main satisfaction for me.
So the saga is now progressing as I have begun writing Book 6, which will cover the first few years of King Arthur’s reign. If you’re familiar with Le Morte D’Arthur, this book will cover the rest of Chapter 1 after Arthur becomes king.
There is SO much story to cover here! Whereas Books 4 and 5 were largely original works as there is little in the legend about these periods, in Book 6 we have a lot of events covered in the legend to get in there, so it’s back to adapting existing work and making it consistent and meaningful. This part is actually the oldest section of the story, first captured in Geoffery of Monmouth’s The History of the Kings of Britain in 1136, the first complete chronicle of King Arthur and his reign (P.S. It also contains the inspiration for King Lear).
The other thing that occurred to me while writing yesterday is that Book 6 is where things start getting WEIRD. The first sections have a lot of battles, but in the second half we start entering that state so unique to the Arthurian legend in which we exist somewhere between reality and a dream, where ordinary things take on a symbolic tinge and mystical events become commonplace. The wonderful thing about this series for me is that every book presents a different writing challenge, and the intermingling of the everyday with the mystical is going to be among the challenges of Book 6.
Anyway, the book is in progress! No more looking back, just charging forward! Thank you for reading the series and your kind comments. Be well and take care.
Scott
New Book Cover Mania! See all five redesigned covers…
Greetings all! Hope you are well…
Surely you teeter on the edge of your seat in a state of tingling excitement over the prospect of the relaunch of The Swithen series of Arthurian novels. You will get: A whole new Book One, rewritten from the ground up! Vastly revised Books Two and Three (I would say 50% revised)! A new imprint so they can finally be available in stores! And… all new covers for the whole series. Which brings us here. Book One is at the proofreader right now, and in the meantime I have finished the new covers for all five, so let’s take a look at those.
The new Swithen S
First, note the lovely new Swithen S. It has elements reminiscent (not exact) of the other one, but I free-drew the middle section based on Medieval scripts, then hired a designer to clean it up. Now I LOVE it! Best of all, this S exists ONLY for THIS series, so for the time being, this particular S means The Swithen series and nothing else.
Book One: A Man of Our Kind
The first book in the series… and one I’ve never felt was quite right, until now. This book has been completely rewritten and while it used to be only the story of Merlin’s mother, which kind of made it a deep dive into severe suffering, it is now half her story and half that of the tyrant king Vortigern, which adds a lot of intrigue, treachery, murder and betrayal. Fun! It also has a new title, since the other one wasn’t quite right anymore. I’ve always felt that the first book in a series has to be GREAT, and I was never fully proud to say this book was mine, but now I am.
Merlin’s mother is placed in a tower until she gives birth to the baby Merlin, who slings off quite a bit of magic while still an infant. I found this wonderful stock photo of a baby that, when you remove his surroundings, looks quite spooky. The tower was a easy pick for the cover image, but I am very keen to avoid copyright issues and pictures of existing buildings can be tricky, since the building can be copyrighted even if the image isn’t. The solution; the photo reference for this tower is an old grain silo in rural Ontario!
Book Two: The Sons of Constance
This one was tricky and as you can see, doesn’t quite look like the others. But the fight between the red and white dragons of Wales is a main event of the book, and symbolically the fight dominates the action as well. Now this red dragon in the Arthurian legend is the very same red dragon as is on the flag of Wales to this day, but that image is copyrighted. I was able to find this other dragon that refers to the classic Welsh dragon but is not the same image. I know it might be more obscure to many, but I want people familiar with the Arthurian legend—and also people in Wales—to look at this cover and know EXACTLY which story we’re talking about.
Book Three: The Void Place
I went through a lot of questioning over what to put on this cover. The title refers to a place at the Round Table, but a table doesn’t make the greatest icon, does it? A round table just looks like a circle. I had also considered trying to render Tintagel, a castle set on a cliff over the sea, or a half-moon, which is a prominent image in the novel. But once I thought of the King chess piece, that was it, especially because the main idea of the novel is that the king feels like he is just a plaything to be moved around by Merlin. The image of the man makes a fantastic menacing Merlin here [especially when you make his eyes glow white] and the deep red is to express that the book is full of a lot of violence, anger, deception and all-around ill-will.
Book Four: The Flower of Chivalry
This book is about King Arthur’s childhood, and is very sweet and lyrical as a contrast to the last book, which was very angry and dark. I also was unsure which icon would best sum up the book (the other option was a frog), but I went with the hand because it’s a classic icon reminiscent of mystical symbols, and also because of a key event in the novel. I like the idea that people will be reading and when it happens, say “Oh, that’s why the hand is on the cover!”
There was also a happy accident with the photo. I had another photo of a young boy that could represent Arthur at this time in his life, and I liked it, but couldn’t find it again when I went to create this cover. Luckily, I found this picture that I like even better. Arthur in this novel is a quiet, thoughtful and confused little boy, and I thought that image expresses that beautifully. I also liked the color scheme once I came upon it, as of all of the books so far, I want this one to read as “literary.” That IS my own hand, by the way.
Book Five: Wonderly Wroth
I was fairly happy with the previous version of this, which had an icon of a sword and a picture of an intense-looking young man. It was the form of this one that determined all the others, as in the overall concept “silhouette icon with photo of a person inside.” My initial intent was to leave this one alone, but as I went on I realized it had to be changed. Again, lots of thought about which image would best encapsulate the entire novel, with a sword being the leader, since Arthur has to pull the sword from the stone several times here.
The other option was a knight, since the book features two prominent knights and is about Arthur learning the values of knighthood, but I thought “I can’t just put another chess piece on the cover!” Then I thought; “What about an actual knight?” I like how the photo is of a boy looking up, because Arthur is looking up to the two grown knights in the novel.
That’s it! At the current rate, we’re looking toward the middle of 2023 before the entire series is brought into shape and released. Again, if you have already read the books, you do not need to go back to stay current on the story. I’m looking forward to getting this series in great shape to last the ages going forward, and then getting started on Book 6…
