Taliesin

this is the edition I had

Taliesin is a book by Stephen R. Lawhead. I received a copy not long after it was first published in 1987. I never read it then. It was recommended to my mother as described as something comparable to C.S. Lewis and she gave me the book. I got several pages into it several times, but never could really get into it.

From somewhere I found the urge to discover the Arthurian Legend which I'm only vaguely familiar with. I suspect this urge originated with rave reviews of the old Chaosium RPG, Pendragon and the BBC series, Merlin. When looking up fictional series that might be on audio book, Lawhead's series appeared on a few lists. I was reminded and figured it was time I fnished the book and start the series.

I found that this does compare with C.S. Lewis well in certain ways. His Space Trilogy had a very clever way of examining the Gospel of Christ from a literally alien point of view. The Gospel was described in layman's terms or in a sort of secular way. This is how Taliesin was similar to Lewis' Space Trilogy, in my opinion. We experience druids in the 6th century rapidly discovering Christ.

What I appreciate about Lawhead's writing (at least this one book) is there is a wholesome quality about it. This is medieval fantasy, swords and knights (or soon to be knights I presume), druids and bards. But there is a great deal of dialog about God and Christ.

After four books in the Song of Ice and Fire series, it finally occurred to me that I didn't really care about anyone in those books. They were very depressing. I've dismissed them. They're well written and exciting, but they're not wholesome. Whatever it really was that I was missing in George R.R. Martin's series, I've found in here. Lawhead's characters display real and true love for each other. I'll have no worries about Lawhead's Pendragon series sitting on the shelf when my kids poke around them with curiosity. In fact, I look forward to that day (this wasn't the case with Martin's books).

A good book with a lot of emotion. There is a lot of positive about this one.

One more thing, Nadia May does a wondrous job narrating the story for the audio book. Her accents fit the characters extremely well making great characters even more lovable. Notably Taliesin as a child and Charis, masterfully handled.