Scarlet

The next step in Stephen R. Lawhead's King Raven trilogy, Scarlet is a wonderful, unique writing exercise - and a well-told, intriguing story to boot.

As the title suggests, this part of the story is told through the eyes of Robin Hood regular Will Scarlet (whose proper English name, Scatlocke, is unpronounceable to the Welsh, like Friar Tuck's true moniker). It opens in the first person, as an injured Will is languishing in Count de Braose's dungeon, postponing his inevitable hanging in exchange for giving an account of his experience with King Raven's band to a scribing monk, it being the Count's and Abbot's hope that he will unwittingly give them useful information regarding the location and identity of the already-legendary phantom who's wreaked so much humiliation in his quest to provide for his people while stealing enough silver to ransom Elfael for the price demanded by William Rufus (though this purpose has remained hidden to the Ffreinc thus far). As Will tells his scribe, Brother Odo, of how a Brit suffered as the Welsh under the Ffreinc rule and came to join the freedom fighters and eventually wind up in the Count's dungeon, the narrative takes turns between his story and a third-person account of what is currently happening in the larger tale, and if someone had told me prior to reading that this would be the format, I wouldn't have expected it to work. As it stands, Lawhead's command of the first person is why this book succeeds. So few authors understand that the first person is not the third person with "I" substituted for "he". Lawhead does, and, as such, the parts narrated by Will Scarlet have a distinct voice and character that create a person and bear no resemblance to the omnipotent narrative sections - resulting in one very engaging read. The closest thing in my frame of reference to compare it to is Jack Whyte's historical series about Arthur Pendragon, entirely told in the first person but with different narrators. They're not bad books, but they definitely suffer from each narrator seeming the exact same character as the one before - Publius Varrus sounds the same as Caius Brittanicus, who sounds the same as his son, who sounds the same as his son, Merlyn...as I said, not a bad read, especially in its interesting take on birthing Camelot out of the fall of the Roman Empire, but it gets really boring after six or so books when you realize that there weren't any actual distinct characters. Scarlet is its polar opposite.

As in Hood, this book stands out by how brilliantly Lawhead makes old things new - the challenge of any storyteller, and one that is (un)surprisingly hard to rise to. The single most striking change he makes here is turning the famous archery contest on its head. Instead of being a trite tale of Robin Hood risking his life and that of his people for the sake of humiliating the Sherrif and showing off his skills, in Lawhead's hands this contest is given a profound purpose that takes a highly emotional journey to its weak-kneed-with-relief end. It's beautiful and fantastic, and is a capsule summary of Lawhead's skill as a writer, storyteller, and artist.

Tuck is slated for release this winter, sometime after New Year's, but the note in the back of the book states that Lawhead recently came off of a serious illness, so I'm not certain this release estimate still stands...but I sure hope so.