The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur

After fleeing a brutal childhood in the far north, Collum arrives at Camelot dreaming of honor. Instead he finds the Round Table decimated, King Arthur newly dead, and Britain teetering between fading enchantment and sharp mortal necessity. In the company of the weary survivors—Bedivere, Dinadan, Palomides, and the sorceress Nimue—Collum enters a world where angels sing and giants tear roofs from chapels, where Morgan le Fay pleads her own claim, and Lancelot denies he ever betrayed the king.

Their quest for the Holy Lance begins as a last, slender bridge back to God and order. But Britain is not the one they remember. The Grail has come and gone; miracles are rarer, the stories harder. Between colliding loyalties and the bitter knowledge that no marvel is given without cost, the band makes its way through forests of old Roman ruin, into the Otherworld’s glass castles, and out onto windswept headlands where the world itself seems to change underfoot.

Grossman’s retelling is steeped in wonder but anchored in the mercies and failings of people who bleed, forgive, and break. It gives voice to Bedivere’s faithful love, Nimue’s precise courage, Palomides’s homesick heart, Dinadan’s quiet truth—and to Collum, who must learn what it means to hold a king’s sword when kings are no longer given by miracles. The Bright Sword recasts the legend with humanity and grit, illuminating what remains when the songs fade: the hard work of living in a bright world gone dark—and the stubborn hope of making a future anyway.

• Fans of Arthurian retellings that honor myth while grounding it in human stakes
• Listeners who love epic fantasy with moral complexity instead of simple prophecy
• Readers of T. H. White, Mary Stewart, or Guy Gavriel Kay seeking a modern, tender reimagining

Lev Grossman is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy—The Magicians, The Magician King, and The Magician’s Land—published in thirty countries and adapted into a five-season SYFY series. A screenwriter and journalist, his work has appeared in Time, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He is also the author of the children’s novels The Silver Arrow and The Golden Swift. He lives in New York City with his family.