Today on Classic Fantasy books: The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley review

Belongs in the Shelf of Classic Fantasy

*Image taken from the Amazon.com website. No copyright infringement intended.

February 5, 2025

Categorization: Fantasy

Subclass: Arthurian

Where read: Old green paperback that is bigger than the average-size paperback but I downloaded it onto my Kindle a few years ago because I lost said paperback

A part of me feels like I shouldn’t have to write this, right? This is an obvious classic that has stood the test of time. However, I browsed through my local bookstore yesterday and saw the Fantasy and Science Fiction shelves. There were so many new Fantasy books, I didn’t recognize about 80% of them. For example, I saw a ton of shelves devoted to Rebecca Yaros’ The Fourth Wing, which I couldn’t even get through a Kindle sample of. And I thought to myself, I am happy that the Fantasy genre appears to be having a sort of renaissance. There are so many new authors breaking into the genre, and I am all for whatever makes this new generation discover the joys of Fantasy.

However, that is no excuse for us to forget the classics. And so I decided that as an Elder Goblin, it is my duty to include here books that should still be given shelf-space as a Fantasy classic (just as every bookstore needs to carry Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas, etc. in the classics section, so kids can pick them up for their school book reports), but have been forgotten.

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley is just such a classic.

I already said it in a previous post, but I’ll say it again. I discovered this book decades ago in my local bookstore. It had an old-fashioned picture of a woman riding a carousel-like horse in a forest on the cover, so I was not terribly inclined to spend my meager budget on it (myself being only twelve years old or so at the time). But then, I saw the blurb on the front cover. It said:

“The best retelling of the Arthurian Saga I have ever read” – Isaac Asimov

That was enough for me, and should be for you, too. When I was twelve years old, Isaac Asimov was my hero. I was obsessed with The Foundation series, the I, Robot Series, I had read them all as well as his lesser-known short stories. And so I knew, I was sure, that Isaac Asimov would not steer me wrong.

(As an aside, thus began my lifelong habit of getting book recommendations from authors I admire, and this has rarely steered me wrong. Pro tip: see if you can find Orson Scott Card’s Uncle Orson Reviews Everything articles – there are invaluable recommendations hidden there).  

And truly, The Mists of Avalon blew me away.

I don’t think I really need to get into a synopsis of it, as the words “Arthurian Fantasy” should tell you all you need to know. Suffice it to say that it was written from the point of view of the women in the story, for example, Morgan Le Fay and Guinevere (Gwenhwyfar), and the cultural and religious influences that drive their infamous actions. And somehow, you really come away from reading this book thinking the “Arthurian” saga is not quite about King Arthur (or Merlin, or Lancelot).  And not in a way that denigrates at all their roles in the story; that is not the point. It is that (cue Enya – Hey Siri, play Shepherd Moons by Enya on Spotify) this book focuses more on celebrating how these magical, incredible women are woven indelibly into the legend of King Arthur, and the beauty of a long forgotten Celtic religion and history that is usually overlooked.

Then, as you read, The Mists of Avalon (as great books do) will make you stop and think, why is Arthurian Fantasy normally told in a vacuum of religion? It is set at a time when religion was the driving force of history, the raison d'être of wars and conquest and society. And slowly (I kid you not), as you get deeper and deeper into the book and its mysteries, you will start to believe, in your heart, that this is the real version of the story of King Arthur and his Knights. All of it, Avalon, Caerlon, the otherworldly power of religion and belief, that the tides of the moon have sorcery in them. (Literally, what sorcery is this?) I swear to God, the spell that Marion Zimmer Bradley casts is as close to real magic as I have ever come to. She makes the narration of a well-trod story so goddamn unique and believable, that you will never see King Arthur and his court quite the same way again. To this day, decades later, I cannot think of any character or plot point in the legend of King Arthur, without remembering how Marion Zimmer Bradley told it.

And the ending (which is an ambiguous ending that is normally very hard to pull off) is beautiful, and sorrowful, and above all, believable. It makes you feel, for lack of a better word, changed. Like there is something you understand a little bit less, and a little bit more, about the world as you know it. Like the world has, or had, magic in it, and that this magic is lurking just shy of the tips of your fingers.

This is what makes it a classic – in creating the experience of a unique Arthurian legend, none have come before, and none have yet come after it. And this is why it should still be in the shelf of your local bookstore, not among the trendy Fantasy (again, nothing against that, but they have, by virtue of their having just come out, not yet stood the test of time), but in its own shelf of “Classic Fantasy”.