Lancelot

Author Giles Kristian
Narrator Philip Stevens
Publisher Transworld
Publish Date 31 May 2018
Run Time 22 hours and 56 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Historical adventure fiction, Historical fiction, Traditional stories, myths and fairy tales.

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What to expect

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Lancelot by Giles Kristian.

The legions of Rome are a fading memory. Enemies stalk the fringes of Britain. And Uther Pendragon is dying. Into this fractured and uncertain world the boy is cast, a refugee from fire, murder and betrayal. An outsider whose only companions are a hateful hawk and memories of the lost.

Yet he is gifted, and under the watchful eyes of Merlin and the Lady Nimue he will hone his talents and begin his journey to manhood. He will meet Guinevere, a wild, proud and beautiful girl, herself outcast because of her gift. And he will be dazzled by Arthur, a warrior who carries the hopes of a people like fire in the dark. But these are times of struggle and blood, when even friendship and love seem doomed to fail.

The gods are vanishing beyond the reach of dreams. Treachery and jealousy rule men’s hearts and the fate of Britain itself rests on a sword’s edge.

But the young renegade who left his home in Benoic with just a hunting bird and dreams of revenge is now a lord of war. He is a man loved and hated, admired and feared. A man forsaken but not forgotten. He is Lancelot.

Set in a 5th century Britain besieged by invading bands of Saxons and Franks, Irish and Picts, Giles Kristian's epic new novel tells - through the warrior's own words - the story of Lancelot, that most celebrated of all King Arthur's knights. It is a story ready to be re-imagined for our times.

Critics Review

It is a masterpiece in the true sense of the word.

CONN IGGULDEN, author of The Falcon of Sparta

Some of us grew up with T H White’s Once and Future King as our touchstone for authenticity in the Arthurian myths; others found that Rosemary Sutcliff, Bernard Cornwell or Mary Stewart filled that role. Giles Kristian pulls together the best of the best and infuses it with his own utterly transformative understanding of myth, magic – and the many faces of love . . . There are so many modern retellings of the Arthurian myth, but this one stands head and shoulders above the rest, in the company of true greatness.

MANDA SCOTT, author of Boudica

Without doubt this is Giles Kristian’s finest novel to date. Glorious. Tragic. Lyrical. Totally gripping. I loved it.

BEN KANE, author of Clash of Empires

This most fascinating character from Arthurian legend has been plucked from the 14th-century romances and positioned firmly back in the early medieval environment he belongs in. Giles is an extraordinary writer, able to capture sounds, smells, sensations in a sentence. No other writer thinks and feels his way back to the medieval past the way he does . . . Lancelot is an exceptional book and does what only great historical fiction can do: transport you back through time to feast, fight and feel alongside fascinating characters from the past. No one does this better than Giles Kristian.

DR JANINA RAMIREZ

A gorgeous, rich retelling of the Arthurian tale.

THE TIMES

I loved the post Roman chaos of Giles’ vision, just as I imagine it would have been but with the life of that vision breathed into it to render it in stark and bloody tones. But what I enjoyed most was the sheer glorious brutality of the age, delivered by a writer with the heart of a warrior and the soul of a poet. It’s really, really good.

ANTHONY RICHES, author of The Centurions series

His Lancelot is no airy tale of magic and romance, but a muscular telling of warriors and survival, beautifully rendered in a prose that is both visceral and lyrical. This is historical fiction at its very best.

ELIZABETH FREMANTLE, author of The Girl in the Glass Tower

Intense and powerful . . . written with deep expression and enormous feeling. It is a marvellous historical adventure.

Sunday Express

Kristian is a writer with rare power to grab you at the opening of the story and to keep the pace going. Lancelot is a powerful reworking of the King Arthur myths. The pages turn by themselves.

JUSTIN HILL, author of Viking Fire

My impression as I was reading Lancelot was of a flare being held up in the gloom of this peculiarly dark passage of history. Every detail illuminated, every motive believable, every heart laid bare. A bright intensity but passing away, guttering, about to go out. And, by the time his tale comes to its conclusion, that seems to be his point. A gentle lament at the onrushing of a dark and inexorable tide which comes to extinguish a bright and golden age of Britain forever. Lancelot is a gem of a book. If there were six stars, it could have them all. Or, to use the words of Spinal Tap, “This one goes to eleven.” Loved it.

THEODORE BRUN, author of The Wanderer Chronicles

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