(no subject)

[skygiants]

I escaped from Portland! More specifically, I escaped from Powell's bookstore. With ... nine books in tow. IT'S NOT THAT MUCH OKAY. IT COULD REALLY EASILY HAVE BEEN MORE.

One of my finds was Pamela F. Service's Tomorrow's Magic, a two-in-one reprint compilation of Winter of Magic's Return and Tomorrow's Magic, which I will forever remember fondly from my childhood as "THE POST-APOCALYPTIC TEENAGE MERLIN BOOKS." Although definitely not the weirdest Arthuriana I've ever encountered, but they were some of my first introduction to Weird Arthuriana and I have a huge fondness for them, which holds true in the reread!

The books start out in a standard British boarding school, except the boarding school is in dystopian nuclear FOREVER WINTER future Britain. (At this point in time, this ... rings a little unfortunately close to home. BUT MOVING ON.)

Our Heroes are, of course, plucky outcasts: sensible Welly, who wants to be a great warrior but is fat and wears glasses, and Heather, who is plain and whose parents don't love her and who reads all the time and thinks pre-dystopian Gothic novels might reveal news of SECRET TREASURE hidden in the ruins. At one point when Heather and Welly are out exploring dangerous ruins looking for fictional SECRET TREASURE, they run into cool mysterious older student Earl Bedwas, who is able to rescue them from a pack of wild dogs ... somehow! With totally normal non-magical things!

Earl also has no memory of his past, screaming nightmares, and pasty pale skin. (I did not notice when I read these books as a kid that everyone in post-apocalyptic future Britain is explicitly dark-skinned except for pasty Earl, which is actually kind of cool albeit SUPER not reflected on the book covers.)

Anyway, one day a mysterious and sinister woman shows up and claims she's Earl's aunt! Earl runs away, hits his head, and REMEMBERS ALL.

EARL: So OK guys I know this sounds weird, but actually it turns out I am Merlin?
HEATHER AND WELLY: ....but wasn't Merlin, like, old as balls....
EARL: Yeah, I've been aging and de-aging and aging and de-aging for like two thousand years! But now I really am legitimately fourteen, as will be evidenced in the next book when I get REALLY emo. Anyway, I'm off to find Arthur and wake him up to fix this terrible post-apocalyptic nightmare world!
HEATHER AND WELLY: Adventure YAY we're in!

And Book One is basically their adventures trekking around to find Arthur and occasionally defeating evil Morgan le Fay (Merlin's not!aunt) with the POWER of FRIENDSHIP.

TEEN MERLIN: Arthur you must return to save the world!
ARTHUR: But it's been an apocalyptic wasteland for like a thousand years and last time I screwed it up pretty bad so ... I mean ... sorry if I'm not exactly thrilled by this prospect ...
TEEN MERLIN: Cheer up, Arthur! Look, you'll have help! You've got me and Heather and Welly!
ARTHUR: You mean a fourteen-year-old wizard and two eleven-year-olds. Great. Awesome.
TEEN MERLIN: AND the power of FRIENDSHIP, jeez, Arthur, come on!

And then there's a three-year timeskip, and when we come back again, everyone's pretty much like "yeah ok magic's actually been kind of around, sure, whatever." Arthur is king of various post-apocalyptic principalities, Welly is a skilled warrior (but still chubby and glasses-wearing, which I also appreciate), Merlin has gotten SUPER emo, and Heather is suddenly the main character and has mysterious magical powers! Which forms much of the conflict of the book.

HEATHER: But ... I don't want to be the angsty girl with magical powers :( I want to go on being the plucky adventure-loving sidekick :( :( :(
TEEN MERLIN: oh wow Heather you have powers this is so COOL we'll be magic BESTIES and be together FOREVER and I'll never have to be SO ALONE LIKE I AM NOW and -
HEATHER: ....
TEEN MERLIN: ...I'm coming on too strong, aren't I.
HEATHER: I mean, buddy, I like you and all, but yeah, KIND OF a little.
TEEN MERLIN: OH GOD I KNEW IT I'M RUINING YOUR LIFE I'M SO SORRY HEATHER YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE ME I'LL JUST GO OVER HERE AND EMO BY MYSELF
ARTHUR: Oh my god CHEER UP emo teen Merlin.
TEEN MERLIN: FOREVER ALONE!!!!
ARTHUR: Seriously, you couldn't have waited like ten years to call me back from Avalon?

Meanwhile there's a Macguffin quest to find one of Merlin's lost artifacts, and Morgan is raising an army, and Arthur has a very background romance with an angry queen who also wants to rule all of Britain, and Merlin is also angsting about the fact that WAR, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR, TURNING THE WORLD INTO NUCLEAR WASTELAND APPARENTLY.

But after a brief field trip back to pre-apocalypse England, the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP once again comes through! And Heather comes to terms with her new powers, and Merlin starts growing a beard signifying the END OF THE EMO DAYS, and then they hook up, and Welly's just like 'whatever guys, I'm cool, I sorted out my issues way back in the first book when we were all eleven-year-olds having adventures, I'm just here to roll my eyes at both of you,' and the threat of nuclear apocalypse is forever burned into everyone's brains to prevent the horrors of the past, and everything's pretty much fine. Just as I remember it!

...except? There are two more books apparently???? Which came out like five years ago, well beyond the age when I found these in the library, and which now apparently I'm going to have to read, god damn it Pamela F. Service!

Comments

[sanguinity]

These posts have only improved now that I hear them in your voice and with your hands emphasizing the VERY IMPORTANT POINTS. :-)

I was completely confused by "the post-apocalyptic teenage Merlin books," because that would be the Changes Trilogy, which you are very clearly not talking about. (Although I suppose "teenage" is not a modifier of "Merlin" in the case of Changes. But correctly parsing word order is not my best suit.)

I eagerly await reports on the next two books!

[skygiants]

I CAN'T NOT TALK WITH MY HANDS. It's a hardwired impulse. :( In text, it comes through as exclamation points.

....of COURSE there are more post-apocalyptic Merlin books. (There are also other teen Merlin books, aren't there? I'm not sure if there are other post-apocalyptic teen Merlin books in which all modifiers apply to Merlin, but I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED.)

[sanguinity]

It is a charming impulse!

The challenge, probably, would be to find some string of modifiers for Merlin that doesn't exist as books? Although a quick search is turning up only zombie-Merlin fic, so perhaps I am wrong about that.

[cofax7]

So I'm sorry, the 17-year-old Merlin hooks up with the 14-yo Heather? Ew?

[skygiants]

Well, I mean, the 14::17 thing doesn't bother me as much (in a post-apocalyptic world in which apparently marrying at 14 as normal) as the 14::2017! "How long have you been seventeen?" "Only a year! ... and then again a hundred years ago, and then again a hundred years before that, and then again a hundred years before that... so you know, about 200 years in total ..."

On the other hand, ten-year-old Becca, who was the one who read these books formatively, did not care about EITHER of those factors and shipped Heather/Merlin hardcore.

[kore]

POWELL'S, OMG YES

.....holy shit I read these as a kid and apparently entirely forgot about them until just now. That plotline is completely familiar.

[skygiants]

I LOVED THEM SO MUCH. I can still remember the way the library shelf looked where they lived because I checked them out so often.

[littledust]

I am really impressed you left Powell's with only nine books! I remember leaving with two BAGS of books the one time I visited Portland.

[skygiants]

I made a rule for myself! Only used books, only things I wasn't sure I could find elsewhere or had been wanting to own for a while and knew I would never find for as cheap. I was planning to buy, like, two. >.>

[sovay]

which I will forever remember fondly from my childhood as "THE POST-APOCALYPTIC TEENAGE MERLIN BOOKS."

Yes! I had to explain these books to people for years! Then the omnibus came out and people still didn't believe me! I understand their position!

[skygiants]

YES OKAY BUT HAVE YOU READ THE SEQUELS, I MUST KNOW

(What impresses me now is how ahead of their time they were! Like, OK, both post-apocalyptic YA lit and classic myth/lit high school AU YA lit are totally trendy now, I would not bat an eye if I saw these on the shelf as published in 2012, but these were written in the nineties, so, I mean, way to go, Pamela F. Service. You were a visionary of your day.)

[obopolsk]

Oh my goodness, how did I not know about these?

[skygiants]

They were one of the delights of my childhood! ARTHUR will save the world from nuclear winter! (Actually there is still nuclear winter. Sorry, Arthur.)

[intothespin]

Nine books seems admirably restrained!

[skygiants]

They were all smallish books too! NO HARDCOVERS. My suitcase remained under fifty pounds. >:D

[intothespin]

What else did you get?! Greedy bibliophiles want to know.

[skygiants]

An Elisabeth Sanxay Holding double feature (Widow's Mite/Who's Afraid) that I'm gonna write up today or tomorrow! Ummm what else, let me see. A Patricia McKillip (The Throme of the Errill of Sherill) that I've never seen before; a Vonda McIntyre (The Exile Waiting) because I just read my first book by her and therefore remembered to look for her; a copy of the Well of Loneliness because I've never read it; a copy of Anne Ursu's Breadcrumbs because I love it; the war diary of a housewife during the Blitz; the memoirs of a WWII refugee; and a book called You're Stepping On My Cloak And Dagger which claims to be a hilarious memoir of the years the author spent in the OSS trying to become a secret service agent.

[intothespin]

The McKillip is charming! But then I love nearly all of McKillip. I like the world-building in the McIntyre, but I like her later books better (it's her first novel). It's set in the same world as Dreamsnake, but a very different part of it.

[bookblather]

The only time I got out of Powell's with less than twenty books was the one time I only had six dollars on me, and that time I still left with five. I'M JUST SAYING.

ALSO HAVE YOU READ THE RELUCTANT GOD BECAUSE I LOVE IT.

[skygiants]

I love The Reluctant God! It's my other favorite Pamela F. Service. I reread it a few years ago and it remains TOTALLY DELIGHTFUL.