Book Review of The Broken Kingdom: Episode Five: Arthur’s Battle, by Angus Donald
Angus Donald lands the plane with Episode 5
“Arthur’s Battle” is a bombastic conclusion to a fresh foray into the Arthurian legend. Angus Donald masterfully blends the known history of subRoman Britain with its myths and legends to bring us a seamless marriage of historical fiction and fantasy, including the battle scene with the dragon we’ve all been waiting for. It felt right out of a Godzilla movie. Honestly, I was struck breathless at Cythraul’s full power unleashed upon an army of mere mortals. It was absolutely metal.
Arthur also proves himself to be a true hero we can cheer for when he faces the choice between expediency or honor in dealing with his allies and enemies.
The conclusion of this book is satisfying, yet leaves several open threads that will make you want to continue with this series.
“Arthur’s Battle” is the fifth and final episode of Book One: The Broken Kingdom which is the first novel of what promises to be the Wormkind Chronicles series. If you haven’t read the previous episodes, read Episode One: Authur’s Bane, then read through the following episodes from there.
However, Donald has now released The Broken Kingdom: All Episodes as a full novel containing all five episodes. Isuggest buying that, at this point, because it’s currently a better deal.
This may seem confusing, but it’s part of a fascinating experiment in which I happily participated. Donald is a well-known author in the historical fiction action and adventure genre. He’s got several successful series published through traditional commercial publishing houses.
The Wormkind Chronicles is his own independent series. But instead of waiting to finish each novel before publishing, he’s releasing the story as a series of episodes as he writes. Each episode has around six chapters and is about twenty thousand words or around eighty pages. The episodes came out nearly monthly with about a four-month break between Episode Four and Five. The first five episodes make up the first novel of the series.
This made the story feel like an old-school serial in which I could look forward to the next episode. It also made it a bit hard to follow. I had to refresh my memory of the story with each new episode because I had forgotten a lot in the time in between. This won’t be a problem for new readers now that they can simply buy Book One as a complete novel and read it all at once.
What was most impressive was that Donald treated each episode as a story arc in itself complete with its own climax and cliffhanger. It took a lot of discipline to make each episode satisfying, and yet tell a greater story. Even the last episode of Book One portends more to come.
I look forward to seeing how this experiment evolves. What are the lessons learned? What practices will continue andwhat will change? All I can say is that I’m here for the ride.
Check out Episode Five: Arthur’s Battle here:
Check out the full novel, The Broken Kingdom here:
Check out my latest novel here:
