Lady of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Lady of Avalon is a set of three sort-of-related stories about priestesses on the Druid isle of Avalon, during the centuries preceding Bradley’s stunning Mists of Avalon.
And they’re OK, in general. I especially liked Viviane’s story; I learned more about what made that complex character tick.
Unfortunately, certain details of the history set up by Bradley in Mists were contradicted in Lady of Avalon. Don’t read this if you don’t want to get a headache trying to reconcile the two chronologies. The result of the ritual to enshroud the isle in the mists, as well as the backstory of Taliesin, were altered, along with a few other things. I suppose I could theorize that Marion Zimmer Bradley did it on purpose, and we’re supposed to assume that the “true story” was changed over time, so that the Mists characters had mistakes in their history. But the Druids were such meticulous loremasters, I find that difficult to believe. I think they’re just authorial mistakes.
Lady of Avalon is better than The Forest House, which was overly depressing and had unsympathetic characters, but it sure ain’t Mists.
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