Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve (Scholastic, $17.99, 9780545093347/0545093341, 352 pp., ages 12-up, November)
Just when you thought the world possessed more than its share of Arthurian legend retellings, along comes Reeve's (the Mortal Engines series) take, a skeptical view well suited to our troubled times. His Merlin, here called Myrrdin, is no sorcerer; Myrrdin derives his powers as a bard. He remakes Arthur's bloody exploits as acts of bravery--he is a medieval spin doctor. Arthur travels about the countryside extracting "tributes" in treasure or livestock, as payment to ward off the threat of the Saxons (who have posed no threat in these parts for quite some time). We meet the narrator, Gwyna, after the farmer to which she is indentured has been killed and the farm destroyed by flames when her master repudiates his debt to Arthur. After Gwyna's impressive escape, swimming for a prolonged distance underwater, Myrrdin fancies her for a scheme he's cooking up, and Gwyna finds herself as (what Arthurian aficionados will recognize as) the Lady of the Lake, handing Arthur a sword from watery depths so he may charm a band of Irishmen. Even Arthur believes it was magic. Myrrdin, pleased with his trick, disguises his accomplice as a boy named Gwyn and keeps her as his assistant.
With that, the scales fall from her eyes, which makes Gwyna an ideal chronicler of events: she relates famous tales of the Round Table devoid of glitter and with the force of gravity. But Gwyn also gets swept up in Myrrdin's tales, "For a moment, the real Arthur and the story Arthur are one and the same, and we know that we are all part of the story, all of us." As Gwyna's true gender begins to show itself, Myrrdin finds a way to have her return to Arthur's lands as a girl, and once again, her experiences inform her incisive observations: "I remembered the way that [they] had talked about girls. How hard they thought of girls' bodies and how little of their feelings. . . . They respected horses better." Gwyna's plight is not easy; she is used as a pawn by those who'd once been kind to her. Ever after, she recognizes when others trump up circumstances to puff up Arthur's stature ("Not even a real war, but one made up to serve Arthur's purposes, a needless, reasonless war, spun out of lies," she observes at a crucial juncture). Reeve's retelling of an ancient tale imparts myriad modern-day lessons. Every once in a while Gwyna notes to readers that she is the one telling this story, the novel itself, as we watch her take the reins from Myrrdin. Most of all, she reminds us that facts exist to be bent to the will of the best storyteller, and to be ever mindful of what larger purpose the story may serve.--Jennifer M. Brown