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Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: AudiobookHub Recommendation
Chapter 2: An unnamed boy, a painted shield, and an ending he cannot yet see
Chapter 3: The road south, a warning at an inn, and a Round Table with vacant chairs
Chapter 4: A hand restrained, a sword unsheathed, and the cost of making a king
Chapter 5: A duel that takes and grants: Villiars dies, Collum learns the trick
Chapter 6: Bread, wine, scheming—and a vow to demand a miracle
Chapter 7: From Baghdad to Camelot: the outsider turns into a mirror
Chapter 8: Thresholds: a glass city, a barge of queens, and how you move when God is silent
Chapter 9: Morgan’s demands, a kingless war, and the price of being witty in a tragedy
Chapter 10: A coin that shines, a lion that waits, and the Grail that wanders as it wishes
Chapter 11: How you pass the trial, and who waits beneath a flawless helm
Chapter 12: Confessions: Lancelot’s craving, Arthur’s regret, Nimue’s cost
Chapter 13: The lance that shatters, the giant that dies, and the empire that has no home
Chapter 14: A false title, a real queen, a dream that ends, a sword that agrees
Chapter 15: Duel on a bleak shore, the last magician, the first Saxons, and what endures
Description
What happens after the last miracle? In The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman tilts the Arthurian canon on its axis and lets us walk with the people who show up late—after the great quests, after the jeweled pageantry, after the stories we thought we knew. We meet Collum, a bastard from the far islands who stumbles into Camelot on the day the truth arrives: Arthur is dead, the Grail has broken the fellowship, and the world has turned. Bedivere, Arthur’s oldest friend, still carries the king’s last secret. Nimue, shaped by Merlin and scarred by him, has turned her power toward mending instead of spectacle. Palomides, a Muslim prince from Baghdad, shows how far the stories travel and how strange they feel from the outside. Dinadan, wry and brave, is the truth-teller who won’t look away.
Together they try to stitch a nation from grief: to hold Camelot against bandits, pretenders, and an empty sky where God has gone quiet. They chase a green knight, parley with lost Romans, descend into a glass city, and stand with angels and fairies when the Holy Lance is found—and lost. And when Lancelot crowns himself with another name, they fight not to bring the past back but to make room for a new kind of future. This is an Arthurian tale about the ones who pick up the pieces, about what courage looks like when the fireworks are over, and about the hard, ordinary work of keeping a bright world alive.
Who Should Listen
- Listeners who love Arthurian legend but want it rebuilt for adults
- Fans of Robin Hobb, Naomi Novik, and T. H. White who enjoy character-first fantasy
- Leaders and team builders curious about stories of duty after glory
- Readers who like myth retellings with moral clarity and real stakes