Jack of Harts

I have been a major fan of the Pendragon Cycle most of my life. It was written and published when I was young, by Stephen R. Lawhead, an author who writes a lot of Christian-themed stories. Along with Tolkien and Lewis, Lawhead was one of the people who convinced me at an early age that the conventional wisdom of my time was wrong.

Some people still claim that Christians are too stupid to write good stories. Or that you can’t fit Christianity into a good story. The arguments are legion. And they are absolutely false.

The Pendragon Cycle is Lawhead’s take on the Arthurian myth, with an attempt to make it both realistic and fantastical at the same time. The three books are Taliesin, Merlin, and Arthur, and they tell the stories of how those characters affected early British history from the end of the Roman Empire to the fall in the Dark Ages that followed the collapse. And they are written from a major Christian perspective. They are written in an age of very early Christian preaching in Britain, and most of the major good characters either are Christian or convert to Christianity during the time frame of the stories.

Well, the first two books were just adapted to a seven episode series I just watched entitled The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin. And for a video adaptation, it was amazingly true to the first two books. Most of the first book isn’t there. I always knew any adaptation would probably do that since so much of the first book was setup for the other two. So I was not surprised. What surprised me is just how good it was done. Music, special effects, and things as simple as wardrobe and makeup where all amazing.

All in all, it is a very good series, and I absolutely recommend it.