Perilous Times

When a somewhat disgruntled Sir Kay claws his way back to life out of a patch of muddy hillside (not easy when you’re wearing chainmail and a woollen cloak), he knows England must be in peril – again. Kay’s an old hand at this as the country has a nasty habit of needing its old protectors. He’s fought at more battles than he cares to remember, including Agincourt and the Somme and while the weapons have changed over the last 1,500 years or so, the objective is usually the same – kill the other guy before he kills you.

Kay isn’t sure who he’s here to kill this time, and he has no clue what fracking is, or why a bunch of blokes with guns are chasing a woman, but he has a healthy distrust of men in black uniforms and isn’t going to stand aside when a damsel is in distress. His have-a-go-hero approach results in yet another of his untimely deaths followed by a rather more timely return, just as a very large explosion destroys whatever it was that the men with guns were guarding. Then a dragon arrives, and Kay thinks he’s worked out why he’s back. Dragons are rarely good news.

The opening chapter of Perilous Times packed a lot in and hooked me right from the first page with its clever meld of Arthurian romance with a distinctly modern twist. The climate crisis has escalated to the point where the ice caps are melting, sea levels have risen again, leaving much of the UK underwater – Glastonbury Tor is an island again – and displacing millions of people to refugee camps on higher ground. Natural resources are scarce. The government wants to exploit more of them and the protestors want them stopped. It’s all horribly familiar and even more horribly plausible, despite the addition of dragons and magic.

Thomas Lee’s characters are diverse, vibrant and as cleverly written as the story itself. Kay’s sometime friend, sometime opponent Lancelot has returned as well and ends up working for the sleazy Marlowe – yes, I do mean the one who wrote the plays. He’s now involved in a very shadowy transatlantic corporation that bought out what used to be part of British military intelligence. Yes, times have definitely changed. For a start, no one wants Arthur back.

Several more characters from the Arthurian romances make an appearance, including Nimue, who swears she’s not helping anyone out any more, and the delightfully scheming Morgan (le Fay). The humans are mainly represented by Mariam, the determined, likeable and very out of her depth woman who blew up the fracking plant, and Barry, a racist lout who gets turned into a squirrel. Yes, I did say a squirrel. Do keep up. I loved the way this was all utterly bonkers but still left me totally invested in the fate of a talking squirrel with a bad attitude.

If Perilous Times comes over a tad preachy at times, well, that’s pretty much the main point of the story and it’s not something the book can be expected to apologise for. At times the tale is more TH White than Sir Thomas Mallory, with dragons and guns and huge drilling rigs thrown into this original and highly entertaining take on the legend of the sleeping knights who will awake at a time of England’s greatest peril. And when we reach that stage, if we haven’t already, I’ll be hoping for a woman with a sword, a talking squirrel, and a dreadlocked knight.