What am I Reading? - May 2026

Don't judge me for not posting a review in over a year. I've been busy editing my own books (and reading dozens of others). It's easy to forget to update these things. I had earmarked a number of novels I thought might appeal to you as I was going along, but never got to writing about them. Maybe I'll go back and cover some of them soon.

I recently finished Lev Grossman's The Bright Sword and it struck me as one that I would like to tell you about. A lot of you will be familiar with Grossman's Magicians trilogy. If you enjoyed that, you're also going to enjoy The Bright Sword, because it's written in a very similar style. I can see why Grossman's style might not appeal to everyone, but I love it (then again, nobody's style appeals to everyone...). However, I was slightly suspicious before starting to read The Bright Sword, because I wasn't sure it was a style that would work so well with a more 'epic' fantasy setting. It was perfect in the Magicians books since the main characters are all from an urban fantasy version of our own world: even when they go off on their voyages to Fillory etc., they take that gritty Earth (ho ho - see what I did there?) perspective along with them, and the reader is happy enough to accompany them. Once I realised The Bright Sword lacked that grounding in an urban fantasy frame, with characters who think and speak like us because they are from 'our' own background, I entertained doubts about whether I would accept that writing style quite so well. Spoiler: I really enjoyed it.

The Bright Sword takes a look at an old staple of the fantasy fiction world, Arthurian Britain. For a UK native, there are some touches that strike me as not quite right, but I feel that the vast bulk of the potential audience wouldn't notice the 'artistic' way of thinking about the place and the cultural nuances. It also feels funny to read about some of this material in a very noticeable US English. At the same time, as a lifelong enthusiast of the Arthur mythologies, I might have been annoyed by some of the liberties Grossman took with the stories, except that absolutely every version of the Arthurian stuff takes big liberties, and besides Grossman did a brilliant job of selling a new vision of the world.

I could imagine some readers feeling that the plot sometimes lacks momentum. However, the reason for this is that Grossman is so heavily invested in the internal plot beats: what is driving the characters and why. Apart from the engaging writing style, the best thing about The Bright Sword is its characters. I have a couple of favourites who are not the main protagonist, and I always feel like the author has done a good job when you can really latch onto secondary characters and feel as if their stories and their lives matter. Most of us writers share the weakness of spending the bulk of our characterisation energies on developing our main 1, 2 or 3 people: a good writer makes you believe everyone in the story is a main character in their own story and that you are seeing a bit of their story from outside.

Having said all this about characters, etc., I should add that the plot does indeed happen and that it's worth reading on to find out how it develops. I should also add that Grossman repeats the trick from the Magicians novels of absolutely filling this book with wonder. If you have read my own work, you will know that I have a particular liking for fantasy that is genuinely fantastical. It's not that I don't enjoy more realistic fiction (fantasy or otherwise), but I especially love it when the book can make you marvel at something imaginative that just can't exist in our own mundane world.

I read it on my Kobo, so I didn't really pay attention to the number of pages, but I came away with the impression that The Bright Sword was a fairly long book. In some ways, you could argue that it was longer than it needed to be, but at the same time I didn't want it to finish, so much was I enjoying the company of these characters and the setting of post-Roman Britain.

I don't think it would be easy to write a direct sequel, but I've seen suggestions that there will be a follow-up or even two. My guess would be that these subsequent volumes would follow other characters in the same world. The Bright Sword stands alone as a great book. But, if a sequel appears, I'll grab it with both hands without delay.