Perilous Times by Thomas D. Lee

IN PERILOUS TIMES LIKE THESE, THE REALM DOESN’T JUST NEED A HERO.
IT NEEDS A KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOUR.

Sir Kay and his fellow knights awake from their mythical slumber whenever Britain has need of them; they fought at Agincourt and at the Somme. But in these perilous modern times, the realm is more divided than ever, a dragon has been seen for the first time in centuries, and Kay is not the only ancient and terrible thing to come crawling up out of the ground . . .

Perilous Times is a fiercely entertaining contemporary take on the myths of Camelot, which asks: what happens when the Knights of the Round Table return to fix the problems of the modern world?

---

Perilous Times is so much fun – I had an absolute blast reading it.  But I guess that doesn’t quite constitute a review, does it?

The premise behind the novel is a simple one.  The knights of the round table are merely sleeping, and return when there is peril in the realm.  The Battle of Hastings, Agincourt, the two World Wars – they’ve fought in them all.  But the peril that sees them return in this novel is a rather different one.  Here, they return to a near-future England – the kingdom no longer as united as it once was – ravaged by climate change that has caused widespread homelessness and food shortages with rising sea levels flooding coastal regions.  While not what they usually reawaken for, these are perilous times indeed. 

Going into this novel, I had two minor concerns.  Firstly that the overarching message would be that we need an honest-to-God miracle to fix the damage done to the planet, and secondly that the knights would take over, rendering any women present to bit parts and damsels in varying degrees of distress.  Reader, I should not have worried – neither of these concerns was born out, and there is actually a really strong positive message here that ordinary people can make a difference, more so if we can find a way to look past our differences and work together to effect change.  I’m not suggesting that we all become eco-terrorists al la Mariam and co, but we can make a difference.  

Nobody has to do this alone, fight all the evils in the world alone, save the world alone.

As to my second concern, the knights do obviously have their uses, and yet come across as faintly ridiculous at the same time.  This is perhaps best illustrated when Sir Kay (Arthur’s foster brother) and Sir Lancelot decide to fight each other, rather than focussing on the task at hand, leaving Mariam and her friends to get on with the business of slaying a dragon.  Kay and Lancelot do eventually put aside their differences (over a pint or three, obviously) and start to work together.  They might be knights, but they are also very human in their foibles.  I like that Lee has some fun with Arthurian legend throughout the novel, and that his knights are far from perfect (I’m looking at you in particular here, Lancelot), just men brought back to do a job and who are getting a bit fed up with it all although they’d never shirk their duties.    

While the knights are great, it’s Mariam that is the real star of the novel.  She’s a young woman who bears the weight of the world on her shoulders, wanting to make a difference but understandably feeling inadequate, scared, and helpless, and she comes across as a genuine person who’s just doing her best in the face of adversity.  I loved the way that her character develops throughout the novel, as she comes to realise that she is stronger than she thinks, and that people will listen to her and will support her ideas, and that she most certainly doesn’t need a knight to help out.  It’s great to see her grow in confidence and really come into her own as the novel progresses.    

There’s a really nice metaphor in the novel around the Avalon platform – an oil rig cum luxury retreat where the government and those who can afford to do so intend to wait things out while the rest of the population starves.  It smacks of those who are in a position to effect change, and yet instead have their own bunker prepared or who want to explore the colonisation of Mars, essentially shrugging their shoulders at current issues or even denying that such problems exist, protected as they are in their own little bubbles.  There’s a little more to it in the novel, but I felt it captured the absurdity that one hears about perfectly.

Perilous Times does contain a lot of Arthurian legend, but don’t worry if, like me, you’re only familiar with the barest bones – it’s a joy to read anyway.  And while it is a lot of fun, it does still deliver a powerful message, and I think a note of hope that the damage done isn’t (yet) irreversible, but that the time to act is now, even if there isn’t a knight on hand to help out.  Recommended.