Knight Life (Reading Log)

Back in 1987, Peter David published his first book, Knight Life. It's a whimsical tale bringing King Arthur, Merlin (now a boy, since he ages backwards), Morgan Le Fay, Gwenevere and other characters from Camelot to modern times, either through magic or reincarnation, and where Arthur Penn (as in Pendragon) runs for Mayor of New York City, and all sorts of funny and poignant things happen along the way. Loved the book, and have read several other books by the author in the intervening years, but always wondered about what happened next to Arthur, Merlin, Gwen and crew. Well, not only did Peter David continue the story (according to the book jackets, book 2 tells the tale of Arthur running for President, and book 3 involves the Holy Grail and the forming of a religious cult around Arthur (he's forced to use the Grail to save Gwen from an assasin's bullet and the miracle leaks out)), but he also revised the first book! Half again as long, and brought up to the twenty-first century (computers vs typewriters, cell phones, etc.). It was funny to read the author's foreword, though, where he talked about one of the reasons for revising the first book was that fans who didn't discover him until his later work could not find his first one, either in bookstores, used bookstores or on-line. I, of course, have the original edition sitting on my library shelves, in very good condition.