Rebecca Barnhouse’s Novels

The Medieval News blog has a post on Rebecca Barnhouse’s new novel Peaceweaver, which is inspired by episodes from Beowulf. 

An interview with Barnhouse on the novel appears at Suvudu, and an earlier interview at The Enchanted Inkpot looks at her earlier book, The Coming of the Dragon, which is also based on material in Beowulf. 

Barnhouse has published further material set in the Middle Ages for young readers as well as two academic studies of similar works. Her website is: http://www.rebeccabarnhouse.com/. 

Beowulf by James Rumford

I recently picked up James Rumford's Beowulf: A Hero's Tale Retold (2007) and found it an interesting read. The book--both written and illustrated by Rumford--offers young readers a simplified and non-gory version of Beowulf that makes several attempts for a more "authentic" version of the story. The costumes, arms and armor, architecture and decoration are suitably early medieval in appearance, and the text itself both uses keenings and employs a lexicon of words primarily derived from Old English. Rumford details his approach to the book in an author's note that concludes the work and on his website. This is definitely something to consider for the young medievalists on your holiday shopping lists.

A Hard Day's Knight by Simon Green

The latest in Simon Green's Nightside series is Arthurian in content.

Here are the details from publisher Ace Books:


A Hard Day's Knight
Simon R. Green - Author

$25.95
Hardcover | 9.25 x 6.25in | 304 pages | ISBN 9780441019700 | 04 Jan 2011 | Ace | 18 - AND UP

John Taylor is a P.I. with a special talent for finding lost things in the dark and secret center of London known as the Nightside. He's also the reluctant owner of a very special-and dangerous-weapon. Excalibur, the legendary sword. To find out why he was chosen to wield it, John must consult the Last Defenders of Camelot, a group of knights who dwell in a place that some find more frightening than the Nightside.

London Proper. It's been years since John's been back-and there are good reasons for that.


Amazon.com has additional information from Publisher's Weekly. Apparently the series has always had some Arthurian content, but this seems the most Arthurian (I think).

Private investigator John Taylor returns in the 12th novel (after 2010's The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny) of the Nightside, "the dark, secret, brooding heart of London." Having killed the former Walker, the voice of the Authorities, Taylor's now the closet thing the Nightside has to a leader. When the sword Excalibur shows up in the mail, he must return to London Proper to consult with the descendants of the Knights of the Round Table. The blood runs red (and golden) as he teams up with King Arthur and tangles with Merlin, elven royalty, traitor knights, sons of the devil, the Lady of the Lake, and various creatively named denizens of the Nightside. Taylor's irrepressible sarcasm and a twisted take on quotidian scenes compensate for a few too many solemn, self-important pronouncements and evil-overlord lectures. (Jan.) 

The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card's latest novel The Lost Gate, book one of the Mither Mages trilogy, features a number of figures from Norse mythology. The publisher's website has sketchy information on the plot (after the jump), but the trailer for the book (below) is told from Loki's perspective.