In Once & Future, Amy Rose Capetta (The Brilliant Death) and Cori McCarthy's (Now a Major Motion Picture) first collaboration, the legend of King Arthur is reimagined as a space opera pitting a courageous heroine against the oppressive forces of capitalism.
The tyrannical Mercer Company controls "everything from people's food to healthcare to the freaking government." Ari Helix, an illegal immigrant in Mercer's territory, and her adoptive brother, Kay, flee company enforcers after a scavenging mission goes wrong. The Helix siblings' spaceship crash-lands on Old Earth; Ari explores and finds, "buried in the trunk of [a] thousand-year-old oak," a sword. Knowing somehow that the sword "needed to be set free," she pulls it from the tree, revealing its name: "Excalibur." Soon after, Ari is approached by another teen who introduces himself as Merlin and insists that she is the latest in a line of King Arthur incarnations. Together, he tells her, they must gather the knights of the round table and overthrow Mercer to restore peace to the galaxy.
Capetta and McCarthy update classic Arthurian characters, creating a racially diverse cast that embodies a spectrum of gender identities and sexualities. More than the action-packed quest narrative, it is the complex interactions and relationships among these characters--including a tempestuous romance between Ari and her betrothed, Gweneviere--that make Once & Future shine. Ari is "the thing Mercer feared most... a girl they couldn't control, who wouldn't stop talking," and her story makes the original Arthurian legends' messages of equality and inclusivity relevant for a new generation. --Alanna Felton, 18