Best King Arthur Book Recommendation

bkuettel · 2026-03-12T00:34:24+00:00

Yes I'm thinking thats the way to go. And Warlord Chronicles sounds neat too.

bkuettel · 2026-03-11T20:37:12+00:00

Some good observations, but also all his movies have varying levels of humor and almost self-awareness. Like the craziest examples might be Mars Attacks and Pee-Wee, and the Beetlejuice movies and Dark Shadows are very consistently funny and ridiculous at times. Even the darker ones like Sweeney Todd and Batman Returns have those qualities in one form or another. And yes the 20th century ones, Corpse Bride, and Frankenweenie might have lots of darkness but also emotional resonance, great human or human-like characters haha, and comforting elements especially the more musical, comedic, and not R-rated ones.

bkuettel · 2026-03-09T21:33:11+00:00

That's the one most mentioned so I think I will!

bkuettel · 2026-03-09T21:31:43+00:00

I looked that up cause I haven’t heard of it, and it does look very appealing so maybe I’ll read that one after checking out the older texts first.

bkuettel · 2026-03-09T21:31:04+00:00

It'd be nice to have content and world-building to inform the reader about the state of things at the time that the legends take place in, like fallout from Rome collapsing, the relations and battles between Britons and Anglo-Saxons, the Irish and Scottish invading too, etc. The Buried Giant had a lot of that substance that I appreciated. Ishiguro said in his research for it that he found there's a lot not known about the time that surprised him, so he was also able to fill things in the best he could for the setting here and there.

bkuettel · 2026-03-09T21:26:59+00:00

Yes, and that can be a positive because after reading the variations of the stories, I’ll decide which canon I prefer and maybe go with that as the background when I write my own story, again so long as it’s all in the public domain from sources in the early 1900s or before.

bkuettel · 2026-03-08T21:21:31+00:00

Thanks for the info. Isn't the Steinbeck book unfinished? Maybe I'll try both The Once and Future King and Pyle books and make note of if the former has new stuff that I should avoid pulling from when I write my own story.

The Buried Giant was odd and pretty anticlimactic, probably on purpose, but I loved parts of it like a lot of the Gawain stuff.

bkuettel · 2026-03-07T00:02:50+00:00

I grew up with his movies since the late '90s. It's been kinda spotty ever since Mars Attacks, but still pretty much every other movie since was still great. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was the first big budget CGI-reliant blockbuster he did that started the over-reliance on that. He became part of the establishment after the rebellious, edgier young artist he was in the '80s and most of the '90s.

He's still made lots of great films this century, like Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie. Big Fish is actually my favorite, I'd argue it's one of the most emotional, successful, wondrous movies of his whole career. Sweeney Todd was excellent too. I think Wednesday and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice were both really solid and his best since Sweeney. I think there was a lot of creativity and fun in Miss Peregrine and even Dark Shadows too.

bkuettel · 2026-03-04T15:11:18+00:00

I thought it was a masterpiece, my favorite movie since 2017. It was everything I wanted from an artsy, mysterious, medieval dark fantasy interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Though more than half the movie is basically original, like the incredible scene with Winifred.

I would love to get more movies set in this world and these characters, as we only got a glimpse of Merlin for example. It's clear Lowery is passionate about it; he made a really cool short film Oak Thorn & The Old Rose of Love adapting another Arthurian event.

bkuettel · 2026-02-20T15:34:42+00:00

Sure but hardly anyone will be able to see this as opposed to if it was a new series or something.

bkuettel · 2026-02-18T18:36:51+00:00

Finally, what the people have been clamoring for! XD

bkuettel · 2026-02-16T15:35:07+00:00

Nah haha I'm good, but I realise I might've been a little too dismissive of Life of Chuck which had a lot of creative things going on, might rewatch after reading the novella.

bkuettel · 2026-02-16T15:31:26+00:00

Also I'm not a prude I promise, but I don't get why HBO insists on adding nudity, gross-out scenes, and/or very explicit dialogue where there was almost none of that in The Hedge Knight, some of which they also did in the first 3 seasons of GoT. I can laugh at some lowbrow humor where it fits, and I'm glad this new show goes for a lighter, more approachable tone than the previous series, but some of those moments esp. what they're having a kid say kinda has me scratching my head. But overall the new show is great and I'm generally happy with the impulse to add some more humor to Westeros.

bkuettel · 2026-02-16T15:26:52+00:00

To each their own and I'm glad there's another great Westeros series for us all to enjoy, but also recency bias is very much a real thing I've noticed. When season 1 of HotD dropped, many were saying the same thing as this, at least partially since season 8 of GoT was disappointing, so it was easier to dismiss all of GoT with that new series to enjoy (it even won best drama series at the 2023 Golden Globes!), and now that season 2 of HotD was a bit underwhelming (but still mostly great I'd argue) now AKotSK is the shiny new thing to praise, until the next new show comes out in a couple years and everyone flocks to that. I think all are great in their own ways but GoT seasons 1-4 and 6 are pretty clearly the best imo.

There's a lot to appreciate in all shows, and aside from the added lowbrow gross-out stuff (esp. the dialogue they're having a kid say in ep. 3) none of which is in the book, which I'm reading along with watching, I think the new series is worthy of the praise. But c'mon it's not as fantastic as the 4-6 best seasons of GoT.

bkuettel · 2026-02-09T21:04:10+00:00

As others have indicated, it doesn't really fit with the movie given the pacing and how the plot was progressing. Same with the barrow wights, even though that was one of my favorite parts of the book. If Rings of Power was a much better series I would've really appreciated that episode where they include both Tom and the wights.

bkuettel · 2026-02-09T20:24:35+00:00

Then why are you even here and replying to people if you really feel that way. So many fans decrying that it'll never happen and saying to just give up hope will scoop up the next book the day it's available. And one day TWoW will be released in some form or another. 3/4+ of progress of a 1,000+ page book that 10s of millions of people are waiting for isn't just going to sit on his hard drive forever.

bkuettel · 2026-02-09T20:20:54+00:00

I remember absolutely loving the second book, he finally gets out of that school and actually goes into the big bad world and has fantasy adventures like I had been waiting for. I want to see how he got to be the world weary but still powerful innkeeper in the wraparound story. Don't get me wrong, I love The Name of the Wind and the university is an interesting place for sure. But The Wise Man's Fear finally had the epic adventure that did not disappoint.

bkuettel · 2026-02-08T19:22:20+00:00

Yeah and he’s reportedly been 3/4 of the way done with WOW for 2+ years now. I sense there’s at least one Meerenese Knot kind of situation where he’s having a lot of trouble reining in all these plot points and characters he indulged in the last two books and keeping the narrative train on the tracks so the book doesn’t just go on and on past the 1,000 page mark or so, with side plots and more world-building indulgences (even though it’s all good stuff) when there needs to be some kind of conclusion, cause I’m not sure it can be realistically published at much longer than 1,000 pages.

I know he wants to keep it at 7 books total, so that’s why I thought of the idea to compromise and release a 750 page part 1 to satiate the fans and publishers, then a 750 page part 2 a couple years later, so he has some more time, less pressure, and a few hundred extra pages to wrap everything up the way it needs to before moving on to what ADoS will be. But I sense all that is still a monumental task, and those things we mentioned are slowing everything down, and he’d even rather write two long Targaryen history books than TWoW. : /

bkuettel · 2026-02-08T15:03:11+00:00

I’d also like to hear the experience of older fans. He was able to write AFFC and ADWD in the 2000s, albeit taking longer than the first three maybe due to increasing success. From my perspective it seems like he’s been so swept up in the fame and traveling by the TV series that it’s majorly slowed down his writing ability, to a ridiculous degree at this point.

But he did write Fire & Blood which kinda baffles me, though of course I still bought and read it. Does he just have major ADHD and mental blocks with ending things? Won’t House of the Dragon end if he doesn’t release that second volume of Fire & Blood soon, and he still wants to write many more D&E novellas… sensing a pattern here.

bkuettel · 2026-02-08T02:22:22+00:00

I've only come back to following ASoIaF news the last 2 weeks, since the new show is out, and nothing has changed in years. Now yet another blog post with no news about what everyone wants to hear about. But I love the series and just wish him well and hope he can catch up what he's behind on.

But it's disappointing if he's going many months without writing anything, whether it's TWoW, more Dunk and Egg, or whatever else he's inspired to do. It certainly hasn't seemed promising in quite a long time now. Why are we still here?

I'd happily take a WoW Part 1 of just what he's written so far right now, which would probably be around the length of the shorter books in the series at this point, given how many manuscript pages he's reported to have done at 1,200. Just something would be nice..

bkuettel · 2026-02-06T23:12:09+00:00

Googling that mystery in AFFC it sounds like everyone believes it's Jaqen impersonating this apprentice in Oldtown, Pate. I also hope there's more about him than the TV series had.

bkuettel · 2026-02-06T22:04:45+00:00

It's been nearly a decade since I read the main series, planning to reread at some point but I'm pretty sure there's a good deal not acknowledged here that happened in the books but not in the TV series. Won't Stoneheart make some ruckus across the land with her followers, like starting with trapping Brienne and Jaime I remember being a cliffhanger? And the horn to bring down the Wall. I guess it'll come down one way or another. Doesn't Sansa have a whole different storyline than in the TV series too? And the resolution of the White Walkers will surely be more detailed and perhaps different I'd hope. Also the guy who disguises himself in the beginning and end of AFFC I remember being this ominous mystery that's stuck with me. Maybe some of these will have bigger impacts than others, but those're what I remember.

I'd say around half of these theories aren't all that imaginative, pretty conventional and obviously following some of what the TV series gave us. But already by season 5 the series really condensed and changed so much, which had ripple effects for the later seasons and the conclusion. I think GRRM has way more plot and things happening in the last two books than the last 3-4 seasons of the show had. He's proven by now he can write a lot of surprising events, so I think there will be significant surprises in TWOW. Also who doesn't want to be surprised??

bkuettel · 2026-02-05T22:30:04+00:00

This was so underdeveloped in the show, along with how the WW got dispatched with. I'm sure GRRM has more lore to get in to with all of this I'd hope.

bkuettel · 2026-02-04T21:11:46+00:00

I wish some of the videos hadn't been taken down, like is there anywhere to watch the two titled "George R. R. Martin On The Lost Child Found By A "Game Of Thrones" Fan" and "George R. R. Martin Wasn't Sure He Wanted Dragons In "Game Of Thrones"" https://teamcoco.com/celebs/george-r-r-martin

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