*** "In my time, I have been called many things: sister, lover, priestess, wise-woman, queen. Now in truth I have come to be wise-woman...(But) for ever the world of Fairy drifts further from the world in which the Christ holds sway. I have no quarrel with the Christ, only with his priests, who call the Great Goddess a demon and ever deny she held power in this world. At best say that her power was of Satan. Or else they clothe her in the blue robe of the Lady of Nazareth -- who indeed had power in her way, too -- and say that she was ever virgin. But what can a virgin know of the sorrows and travail of mankind?'' This is the somewhat unexpected intro to Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, and epic re-writing of the legend of King Arthur.

I came across this book while doing my spring cleaning. Although it's a pretty old book (copyright 1982), I remembered how much I enjoyed it both of the times I read it and figured it could definitely stand as a "Pick of the Week'' -- especially since I rarely review books that fall into the Fantasy genre.

This book, which stayed on the New York Times Bestseller List for three months, was actually assigned reading for a college course I took on Arthurian Romance Literature a few years back -- and it definitely stood out as one of my favourite books I read during that whole year.

And although I've always had an interest in the legend of King Arthur, this book also stands out from the numerous books written on that subject, including Mary Stewart's excellent Merlin trilogy.

What makes this novel so appealing for me is that it's written from the perspective of Arthur's sister, Morgan le Fay also known as Morgaine, and my feminist leanings appreciated this wonderful legend retold with a behind the scenes look at who was really running things -- the women.

The book is also rife with recapturings of Wicca pre-Christian religion of the British Isles, and gives a very interesting rendering of the tensions between ancient pagan Goddess religions and emerging Christianity -- as you can see from the intro.

Wonderful read The novel does some really interesting things with love relationships as well, including the infamous love triangle between Lancelot, Gwenhwyfar, and Arthur.

I also like how Gwenhwyfar got depicted as a weak, petulant little snot -- nice change from the norm.

The novel is huge -- more than 850 pages long -- but it's a wonderful read and if you're a decently fast reader, you'll gulp the book down whole.

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