skygiants | (no subject)

I just finished Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy's Once & Future and boy! that was! the WILDEST ride! I did not expect "King Arthur, but make it Jupiter Ascending," but that's what I got and I'm not at all mad about it!

To give you a sense of the pace and plotting: in the first chapter, we meet Ari, a teen refugee, and her adopted brother Kay, and are introduced to the evil corporate dystopia that disappeared their parents ('Mom' and 'Captain Mom'). Subsequently, Ari and Kay cause a ruckus at a museum, flee the evil corporate police on a spaceship, crash-land on forbidden Planet Earth, find Excalibur, and pull Excalibur out of a tree that contains the malicious ghost of Morgana le Fay.

In the second chapter, Merlin -- now a scraggly teenager, because of the aging backwards -- is awakened from his crystal cave on Earth by the removal of Excalibur, has a brief panic upon the realization that Ari has already fixed her spaceship and left Earth, then belatedly remembers that he possesses the power of flight and promptly yeets himself into outer space, where he finds Ari in a nightclub on the moon and attempts to explain to her that a.) she is the reincarnation of King Arthur and b.) no, he's not hitting on her, because he is extremely gay and also he only dated one (1) of his Arthurs out of all forty-one (41) incarnations and she's not going to be the second.

In the third chapter, Merlin attempts to rescue Ari from the malicious ghost of Morgana le Fay and only succeeds in destroying an entire moon-dome, after which everyone flees again on a spaceship, picking up Kay's best friend, dreamy genderqueer Lamarack, along the way. Subsequently they all decide to go to Lionel, the eternal Ren Faire planet, where Ari's childhood crush Gweniviere, from knight camp, is now queen, with Lamarack's baby brother Percival as her chief advisor.

This gets us barely fifty pages into a 350-page book. There is so much more! so much!! The book hurtles along its gay, sparkly, and idtastic path at a breakneck pace, lobbing quips and song references cheerfully behind it as it goes. A sample bit of dialogue:

[Merlin] crossed his own arms -- alarmed at how skinny they'd grown. "You aren't getting a bit of my magic for your parents' prison break unless you agree to train with me first."

"Fine," Ari said, waving her hand. "We'll train." Her eyes glimmered behind the casual acceptance. "But you should know I was a conscientious objector at knight camp."

(

genarti, when I described the plot to her: well I'm not surprised to hear that the authors are a couple, this is definitely a book written by people whose entire writing process is composed of 'YES! ... AND!')

BUT ALSO! this is absolutely a book written by people who really and truly love The Once and Future King and its thesis that the most important thing about the cyclical tragedy of Arthur is the way it embodies the hope of human idealism, that you can't stop dreaming of a better world even as you fail over and over again to create it because someday the day may come when you can! which in fact is indeed the reason that Arthuriana is important to me, and makes this completely breathless gay space roller coaster far more in line with all my own personal favorite Arthurian takes than the vast majority of other recent Arthuriana! I did not actually expect this either!

These are probably all the facts you need, to be honest -- well, except for the fact that the book ends on a really incredible cliffhanger, with a sequel that I have not yet read -- but I'm going to keep on talking about plot twists because I cannot stop myself.

Some other things that happen, in this book:

- Merlin goes undercover in prison to rescue Ari's moms! As you might guess, this plot takes one (1) whole chapter, during which Merlin makes a friend, attempts to recruit a friend, watches the friend get murdered, gets infected with bioengineered prison plague, turns Ari's plague-infected moms temporarily into stone for escape purposes, and then finally gets rescued

- the malicious ghost of Morgana le Fay whisks Ari away to Ari's home planet to find out what because of her people (alas, completely genocided), leaving behind a fake Ari corpse; subsequently Ari and Morgana le Fay spend a year bonding and befriending the local dragons while the rest of the cast hangs out on Ren Faire planet

- Ren Faire planet is attacked by the evil corporation, but Gwen's castle turns out to be a giant spaceship that can help the entire planet's population of Ren Faire staff and trapped tourists escape atmosphere, so that's all right

- Merlin spends the entire book squinting suspiciously at Gwen's dreamy best friend because she's giving off Big Lesbian Lancelot Energy, only to realize that he's been played: Kay and Gwen have been banging out their mutual grief, because this time around, in an incredible twist, KAY was LANCELOT all along!!! also Gwen is pregnant

- (my one real Arthurian Beef with Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy is that Ari and Kay are SUCH siblings that this for me completely rules out the classic OT3)

- (also Gwen's dreamy best friend with big lesbian energy is real annoyed about this misconception and gives a whole speech about how nobody noticed? she's been ace?? the whole time???)

- oh also Merlin and the reincarnation of Percival are now dating which is definitely a new ship in the Arthurian Annals, I am absolutely convinced that this one at least was a complete spin-the-wheel on which cute gay Arthurian knight was going to be Teen Merlin's boyfriend

- anyway they finally rescue Ari, and also Morgana and Merlin make up and Morgana gets a brand new body and doesn't have to be a vengeful ghost for like the length of a whole chapter, until the evil corporation kidnaps them all again and Merlin accidentally kills off Morgana's brand new body while escaping! Morgana is now a vengeful ghost again. Sorry, Morgana. Pour one out. :(

- everyone gets kidnapped by the evil corporation, who have decided to suborn Ari's rebellion by faking a defeat and making her their new figurehead; Kaycelot makes fun of them to the last and as a result does not survive the finale. Pour another one out. :(

- but everyone else does win! for like a day! until the evil space corporation, as the only entity that can facilitate trade between different colonies, says they're going to hold everyone's food and water shipments hostage unless Ari and Gwen agree to sign over Gwen's baby as a corporate asset, for ... evil corporation reasons?

- there's only one way to resolve this! Merlin explains: if they make the head of the evil corporation drink from the Holy Grail, she'll see the error of her ways!

- where is the Holy Grail, you ask?

- well it spontaneously disappeared during Arthur's first incarnation ... which means ........ Ari and Merlin must obviously have time traveled back to ye olde Camelot to steal it for the future! AND THAT'S JUST WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO

- IN THE NEXT BOOK, WHICH IS AN ARTHURIAN TIME TRAVEL HEIST

- what an incredible cliffhanger. I'm in absolute awe. Time to find the next book immediately!

Anyway I hope someone calls the Wachowskis and gets them to pick up the film rights because I think they're absolutely the only people who could do this work justice.