Mad Merlin

I've always been a bit enamored with the Arthurian mythos --- to be totally honest, that would be myths and legends as a whole, but the stories of King Arthur and his knights in particular. And as a country founded primarily by [former] citizens of the British Empire, I suppose that it is natural to explore the stories that shaped our culture.
Which is why I picked up - and read with interest - J. Robert King's retelling entitled "Mad Merlin". The plot will be no surprise to anyone remote familiar with the mythos - even half-remembered from the old Disney movie Sword in the Stone. All the pre-Lancelot standard set pieces are here. Arthur is born, fostered by Ector without knowledge of who he is, goes to London, pulls Excalbur from the stone, builds Camelot, marries Guennivere, sires a son (Mordred) by his half-sister, and defeats the Saxons at Badon Hill.
Where Mad Merlin differs from many retellings of the legends is in the origin of Excalibur and the treatment of Merlin himself - and injecting a rather post-modern sentiment about the power source of gods in the process.
What drew me in was the same thing that drew me into the old AD&D Planescape setting -- that for the gods, belief is power. Here, when the Saxons invade the Roman Britain, they bring with them their pantheon -- in particular Wotan (Odin), and Loki. With the Roman pantheon already displaced by Christianity and the Brittanic gods driven underground by the Roman conquerors, the visible -- and very deadly Saxon gods would be free to decimate the Brittanic forces.
How author King (not Arthur, King) uses these facts is a treat for the comparative-mythologically inclined and a spoiler I'm not willing to share, but it is safe to say that the wizened Merlin is much older than he first appears.

Pick it up, give it a read. It's pretty much supplanted White's The Once and Future King as my interpretation of choice.