Book Review: Jack Whyte's Camulode Chronicles

The Skystone (Camulode Chronicles Book 1)
Author: Jack Whyte
Format: Softcover
ISBN-10: 0812551389
ISBN-13: 9780812551389

I'm currently in the 6th book of this series, which places the Arthurian mythos into a realistic, historical context by tracing back the colony's lineage to the Roman occupation of Britain. The Skystone is the first book, written by Jack Whyte, relating the progenitors of the colony, Camulode and the finding of both the colony's pricipals and the meteorite used as the blade-metal for Excalibur.

Jack's writing in the first book is good and well thought out, if a little inexperienced. It gets better as you read each consecutive book. I liked many of the concepts behind this series. I also like the historical context as it relates to the need for civilization as the Roman empire collapses in the region. Some of the concepts may be viewed in the movie "King Arthur" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0349683/) but the books go into much more detail - the movie may give you some of the "feel" but little of the substance found in these books (I'm not saying that the movie is based upon the books - I'm only providing a second medium to sample the style of conjecture).

It revisits some of the same concepts from Merlin's Ring and Merlin's Godson by H. Warner Munn (Ballantine Books from the 70's) - missing are the fantasy aspects (plus the visit to the America's as detailed by Munn).

Camulode Chronicles (called Dream of Eagles in Canada) include:

• Skystone
• Singing Sword
• Eagles Brood
• Saxon Shore
• Sorcerer 1: the Fort at River's Bend
• Sorcerer 2: Metamorphosis

There's also two ancillary books:

• The Lance Thrower (book about Lancelot)
• Uther (Arthur's cousin)

I haven't read the last two, but have read in reviews that they aren't on-par with the first 6.

Jack Whyte's website: http://www.camulod.com/
A particularly good and insightful review:
http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2006/01/camulod-chronicles-history-behind.html

-- John