*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*Ĭursed is an overloaded, bloated mess that promises a unique spin on classic Arthurian legends, but does nothing to fulfill those promises, is bursting at the seams with unnecessary garbage, and completely betrays nearly all of its source material to an unforgivable degree. I have some slight curiosity about where the story will go after this, but probably not enough to read the next offering in the series. One last bummer about this book: I hate saying this because I usually love Frank Miller, but the art in this ’s terrible. Arthur, interestingly, winds up being a pretty standard Arthur archetype, though I wonder if that might change in the next installment. The minor characters were much better rendered, Morgan, Iris, and Lancelot in particular. In my mind, he looked and sounded like Lord Farquaad. He’s pretty doltish for most of the book and then suddenly has a brief moment of Super Spy before withering back to his halfwit self again. I liked the role laid out for Uther, but the execution of his character arc left much to be desired. I kind of got the impression the authors were going for a Tyrion type but instead we got a mix of the Mad Hatter and a really, really hammered version of Littlefinger. She comes off like a dumb Celaena Sardothien.Īnd Merlin! Merlin is (sorta kinda) a fraud, and Merlin is drunk as a skunk! All the time! And sadly, that’s not nearly as funny or interesting as it sounds. Nimue isn’t a particularly good leader and an even worse martyr. But on the other side, most of the main characters leave a lot to be desired. On the positive side, there were some very clever work-ins of traditional Arthurian characters here in ways which I haven’t seen before. You’ll find some Lord of the Rings, some Game of Thrones, and some Throne of Glass.

Not of Arthurian Legend, mind you, but of uber-tropey YA and fantasy novels. Unfortunately much of the detail and storytelling style is derivative. It’s a good idea and a semi-creative spin on the original legend. Though this particular offshoot had its moments, it’s largely disappointing. Now suddenly there are quite a few and unfortunately, they are all similar and all pretty bad.

I feel like I’m this book’s exasperated mother: “I’m not mad, just disappointed.”įor a long time, we didn’t see a lot of Arthurian retellings and spinoffs.

Cursed thomas wheeler