Squire (The squire trilogy) [Paperback]

If you read "Squire", you really have to wonder how King Arthur ever made it to the throne, much less held onto it, without the faithful service of this plucky squire.

This is an odd vision of Camelot, at times majestic, at times rolling in mud and blood. Arthur himself gets angry, gets scared, runs, fights pointlessly, and generally gets out of control. Luckily, as I said above, Christopher is there to bail him out. And, with no background to reccomend him, Arthur listens to him immediately.

This is one of those strange books like "The Belgeriad" that is not quite sure if it wants to be a "Boy's Own Adventure Tales" book or the latest R-rated slasher flick. Instead of choosing, it willingly partakes of both in an unsatisfying mixture that will appeal to boys/men in mid-teens through mid-20s (or whenever they discover Mac Bolan novels...). It is far from the worst book ever written -- certainly the author can construct a sentence, and sometimes quite elegantly, and yet it is an extremely disatisfying novel.

I found the vision of King Arthur to be particularly appaling, as he is viewed as a great noble and brilliant strategist by most everyone in the book, yet his actions immediately put the lie to this. I have read books with Arthur-as-villain, some of which have been quite good; this book is not really attempting to make Arthur evil. Instead, in trying to make the character of Squire Christopher more important, it somehow emasculates Arthur and relagates him to the position of "bumbling buddy with too big of a sword".

Read it once. That's about all it is good for.

(There may be possible tiny spoilers in this review. However, it's the only way to make the point. I apologize)

If this book was vying for the award of "Most Dramatic Book", then it would win hands-down. Only problem is it isn't, and the book very well may be one of the worst ones I've ever read. I had to finish it, just to see if there was a chance it would get any better. Well, it definitely didn't, and brings shame to Arthur and Camelot.

Christopher may be one of the most perfect characters in the literary world. He can make friends with anyone, even the villains. He's the perfect son who of course "hates" his parents until they die, at which point he naturally loves them. He never forgets, cheats on, or generally stops loving his girl, who of course never stops loving him either, even when she supposely gets over him. He's experienced on the battlefield from a boy, and becomes only the best squire in the land. His entire character speaks of a perfect man who hates violence even though he is a squire, doesn't want to do anything that is wrong, wants eternal peace and happiness for everyone, and never forgets about his friends, parents, tutors, or "special friends". He's so incredibly perfect I don't know whether to cry or laugh.

Continuing on that note, the antagonist is so perfectly BAD. He's a sadist who has his own vision of the world, and hence does what he wants to. He's convinced that everything he does, even if it's downright horrifying, is perfectly all right and that "God will forgive him". However, despite his determination to kill everyone in the most painful and humiliating ways possible, he still doesn't kill Christopher, and even allows him to travel with him. Hmmm.

With a dynamic duo of Perfect Protagonist and Evil Antagonist, the story's plot doesn't have much chance. In fact, I'm not quire sure there is a plot. The story follows Christopher's adventures and once in a while gives a sneak-peek at Mallory, who is of course always doing something horrible. These adventures are always dramatic. I don't think there's any time in the book when someone isn't crying, dying, killing, feeling emotional, or thinking about doing something horrible. It became so terrible that I was able to predict happenings; when Mallory was being his typical sadistic self, I found myself thinking, "I knew that would happen". By that time, I was able to predict the entire book right up to the end, which didn't provide an exciting read.

Perhaps all of this would've been slightly acceptable had it at least been well written. Unfortunately, it isn't. The paragraphs are painfully short, which means that the book should be a quick read; however, the content is so grotesque that I couldn't help but slow down. Hence, the story has horrible flow. It's also incredibly blunt. Telep made no attempt to glorify anything that was happening; he just plain said it. And with all the dramatic, horrible things that were happening, just saying everything made the book rather disturbing and absolutely no fun to read. Telep's word variety also could use some help. In one of his short paragraphs, he uses the word "justice" in every single sentence, which is total of four times. He also has little sentence variety; most of them are terribly short, and some aren't even sentences in the first place -- They're incomplete phrases. I'd say this book was written for children if it didn't have so much adult material.

There were other things that worsened the story as well, such as confusing sentences, pathetic dialogue ("I'm stunned." "Try them on." *yawn*), and terrible characterization with basically every person in the book. If Telep was trying to give Camelot a more violent and "realistic" perspective, then he certainly accomplished the former. However, the latter is far from being achieved. I would stay away from this book unless you want to kill some time, and possible some brain cells.

I really really enjoyed this book. . . and I find myself a little depressed that it is out of print. But I would recomend this book to anyone. . . it really is a great book