The Pendragon Protocol by Philip Purser-Hallard

The Pendragon Protocol Reviews

• 
  Lawrence

  I've always enjoyed Philip Purser-Hallard's writing, and to the point of believing his name deserves to be at least as ubiquitous as those of Charles Stross, Alastair Reynolds and all those other top billing English science-fiction authors, not least because I would say that for the most part his is probably the greater talent. He's wrought some genuinely wonderful stuff within those little patches of universe left behind by the passing of the man in the blue box, and so the prospect of his first major steps away from the shallow pools of the more conspicuously licensed reaches of genre fiction has been a source of great anticipation for me. With this in mind, I must confess to some eyebrow-raising when I first read that The Pendragon Protocol would introduce us to the technologically sophisticated Knights of a twenty-first century Round Table sworn to protect us all from villainy. It made me think of Torchwood, or Primeval, or anyone who ever considered tales of secret government agencies full of superheroes with access to alien technology as being anything other than sheer arseache of the worst kind; but, I told myself, such fears will almost certainly be unfounded given the author's track record.
  
  Happily I was right, and whilst I wouldn't quite describe this as having a startlingly original premise, as does Simon Morden on the back cover - at least not given how many times Arthur's lads have been coaxed back onto the field by everyone from Stephen King to Alan Moore to probably Pee-wee Herman - as a novel it has defied my narrative expectations, and is in all respects pretty bloody formidable. The key to this being that the author has remembered to write a book which is actually about something, as opposed to just a bunch of guys grunting and romping away with swords and cellphones for a few hundred pages.
  
  To start with, the psychological mechanism of these Knights as the most recent expressions of an archetype is ingeniously told, precluding the need for anything so cock-obvious and hokey as reincarnated spirits, agencies of higher powers by traditional fantasy terms, or indeed anything requiring suspension of disbelief. In this sense The Pendragon Protocol does at least some of what C.S. Lewis tried to do with That Hideous Strength but without the sneering. Futhermore, reviewing That Hideous Strength, Orwell wrote:
  
  
  

  
  

  
  [Lewis's beliefs] weaken his story, not only because they offend the average reader's sense of probability but because in effect they decide the issue in advance. When one is told that God and the Devil are in conflict, one always knows which side is going to win. The whole drama of the struggle against evil lies in the fact that one does not have supernatural aid.

  
  

  
  

  
  
  Philip Purser-Hallard avoids this problem by means of simple narrative realism in combination with lively and unflinching investigation of the nuts and bolts of belief as it may relate to an objective reality without ostentatious demonstrations of divine power getting in the way. This refusal to stoop to the flashily miraculous allows the underlying argument of the text to really breath, to expand and to examine the greater context of belief - belief in the collective understanding of what constitutes human society, and so on. In other words, The Pendragon Protocol, rather than simply being Highlander with 'O' levels, demonstrates that belief in a Deity, a noble cause, the laws by which we define civilisation, or even that a piece of paper can stand for monetary value, are essentially aspects of the same understanding and are therefore closely related.
  
  Jory Taylor, our main protagonist and current expression of the characteristics of the legendary Sir Gawain, here finds himself torn between two schools equating to mutually exclusive views of the moral environment he inhabits, specifically amounting to the establishment and to forces opposing the establishment, without either definitively revealed as either more corrupt or any less worthy than the other; and this seems to further translate into a dialogue between faith and belief as either a personal matter or something which comes from outside and which may be embodied in a collective institution.
  
  Anyway, this is what I took from the novel, poorly expressed though my version may well be, which, if nothing else, is at least to say that this is a philosophically meaty read yielding some truly vertiginous revelations - at least to me - whilst rattling along at fair old pace without any sacrifice to the quality of language. To reduce that further into Daily Mail English, Philip Purser-Hallard has achieved that rare balance of a way above average intellectually stimulating novel you can read by the pool with a beer and a hot dog.  The Pendragon Protocol genuinely deserves to sell so well that we're all sick of hearing about it by this time next year, and I'm already looking forward to the second part of the trilogy.

  
  
  
  http://gnomeship.blogspot.com/2014/07...
  
• 
  Dan Smith

  This is great storytelling. It's an effective blend of Arthurian and related British myths and history, propelling a plot studded with action and intrigue. The narrative voice is breezy, engaging, and amusingly self-reflecting - and entangled with the story at appropriate moments, and the main characters are all fairly credible, although for reasons which become obvious the motivations of some are sometimes tweaked in unusual directions based on the devices which are central to the main conceit.
  
  The pivot in perspective which occurs at the end of Book i is fun and effective and it's clear that Purser-Hallard had a tremendous time handling the revelation, as well of course as conceiving of the interaction between the relevant devices - to preserve spoilers I shan't say more.
  
  Anyway, the plot rollicks along and the transfusion of story archetypes into the modern setting works far better than I had expected, and the story has the courage to place knits with actual armour, horses and swords into settings such as shopping centres and in doing so make the shops the strange intrusion on reality. Other things which could have been clunky anachronisms become bright and refreshing symbolism especially the ongoing archery business, and the themes and weaknesses of authority based on Arthurian stiffness, stone and tradition compared to other archetypes. The set pieces also unfold vividly and with realism, with a great sense of visual flair.
  
  The pace occasionally dips from plot into exposition, but I suspect this is an inevitable byproduct of the need to juggle the surface level story with the explanation of the parallels with various British myths, characters, and legends which provide the underpinning. I'm not sure I'd want it any different though, as part of the fun is seeing them play out in a contemporary setting. The deduction and revelation which led to the final showdown seemed a little anti-climactic, but this was set against the preceding charity set piece, which followed through on the author's conviction that this was happening in the real world and not some fantastical action movie. This thankfully grounded the story in reality and concentrated the story on the characters and their motivations, rather than on a complicated explanation of devices and meta-stories, so a grand symbolic climax might have felt a bit forced.
  
  I would have given this four stars as I'm apprehensive about how the next books will play out, but as I'm a sucker for stories about stories, and as this has such a well-developed and comfortable narrative style finding new life in an old set of legends, I think it deserves a bit more than that. Fingers crossed for the remaining two instalments, which will need to work hard to keep up this quality.
• 
  Alex Sarll

  Successors to Arthur's knights operating as a covert agency in modern Britain; it's an idea which could have gone wrong in so very many ways, but Purser-Hallard has thought this one through so thoroughly. The process is neither veiled superheroics nor reincarnation per se, so much as a sort of memetic possession which leaves the tone with a very British ambiguity: is this supernatural, or a bunch of crazy people? More, does that matter?
  Our hero is Jory Taylor, the Gawain of this Circle, and he's a wonderful creation. Neither tediously perfect nor A Flawed Hero, he has a very believable personality, not all of it good, to balance the strange surrounding and inhabiting him. And yet, all this without becoming that ubiquitous modern plague, the audience identification character.
  The narrator is an inspired choice, adding depth to what could have initially played a bit too thriller for my tastes, and the story...well, sometimes even saying there's a twist spoils the twists, but enough happens here that many writers would easily have got a whole trilogy out of it, instead of just the first volume.
  My only real cavils are peripheral. The proofing is erratic, as seems depressingly common these days; and I can't imagine that unfortunately and surely inadvertently Britain First-esque cover will do it any favours with any audience it wants.
• 
  Sarah

  WOW. Just wow.
  
  Possible more coherent review to follow. Although words aren't really my thing, so it'll probably be just as incoherent, only longer...
  
  ***
  
  I promised a better review some months ago.
  The thing is, if I don't like something, I can tell you exactly what I didn't like. But if I do like something, I often can't tell you why. "I liked this, it was bloody brilliant" does not a good review make.
  So, go and read the other reviews, so far they all seem to say stuff I agree with, and say it far better than I could ever hope to write.
• 
  Freddie

  This book surprised me A Lot. I was all ready to dismiss it because of the way it treated some subjects but looking back on it, it seems like that was a risk Purser-Hallard took, making the reader agitated with the Circle to make them more likely to sympathize with the "terrorists." Whether that was on purpose or not, it worked, and I am very intrigued. I also did not expect that ending At All.
• 
  J. Burton

  I really enjoyed this book. In a five-star system I am very reluctant to hand out all five - and this book doesn't earn that fifth from me - but it's a very good read indeed, and I recommend it to almost everyone.
  
  One of the reasons (admittedly, I'm just speculating here) that I didn't get around to reading this until I did (although the very high price of the e-book from Snowbooks is certainly one factor...) is that - while my dad reads tons of books about the Arthurian legend - it's never been anything particular dear to my heart. And the thought of another "modern day King Arthur" series was - not repellant - but not a huge draw for me, conceptually.
  
  I knew, of course, that Philip Purser-Hallard would not be writing some hack-job "reincarnation of Arthur in modern Britain" type of novel (not that there's anything wrong with one of those, in principle, either I hasten to add) and that he would have much more interesting ideas behind it. But still, despite knowing I'd read it eventually, I dragged my heels a little.
  
  Thankfully (as expected) it's a much more interesting novel than any of those other Arthurian fantasies I've read over the years. There is no reincarnation story, or time travel, or anything even close to that. Instead, we've got a much more intriguing, and more sophisticated idea.
  
  It's about stories.
  
  You see, the Circle (our modern-day Knights of the Round Table) carry on the ancient traditions by allying each member to what they call "devices" (hence the title of the trilogy of which this book is merely the first part). The devices are the sigils of the legendary knights (and, elsewhere in the book, other characters) which fundamentally represent the character.
  
  So our lead character - Jory - bears the Sir Gawain device. And so, ideologically, he takes Sir Gawain's place in the story. He is a Sir Gawain "character". And the book is deliberately ambiguous on exactly how "real" the function of the devices are.
  
  Now, I don't mean to say that this is a key focus of the book. It may become so later (certainly it is the central idea that I find most interesting, personally) but Purser-Hallard does not go into the workings of the devices a great deal, per se. We are told several times how they seem to work (Jory's understanding of them, indeed, changes throughout the book) but not why they work. Nonetheless, it is a valid reading of the text to suggest that the devices in and of themselves hold no true power, but the belief behind them is what causes the observed effects. That a person's awareness of their own part in the story is what causes things to happen the way they do.
  
  This idea is enhanced by the way that the whole tale is narrated by a character who occasionally pops up in the events themselves - a storyteller by trade, whose point of view certainly emphasizes the importance of a character's role in the narrative.
  
  (By the way, it has come to my attention elsewhere that some people are put off - quite a lot of people, judging by the comments I read - by present tense narrative. That's a stupid point of view - as many excellent books use the technique to great effect - but I may as well "warn" you now that "The Pendragon Protocol" is indeed narrated in present tense - supposedly at the whim of the bard who is relaying the story to us.)
  
  Regarding the plot itself, it is a fairly simple one - but the more interesting aspects of it (indeed, what most of the "story" actually is) are spoilery enough that I don't want to go into too much detail here. Suffice to say for now that Jory learns some things about his role, and that of the Circle, as well as having to change his mind about some of the other devices out there which are not a part of the Circle.
  
  I felt that some of Jory's change of heart regarding aspects of the plot (look I'm really trying to be vague here...) was a little unearned - but this is as likely to be my own default loyalty to any "situation as presented" rather than an actual flaw in the story's development. (Although we may also be just a little too distant from Jory's point of view to really understand and accept his choices in some places.) For me personally, there were some aspects that - had they been moved earlier in the narrative - would have possibly helped me buy into Jory's thought processes a little more.
  
  As someone who likes to think of himself as a writer (don't we all?) I realize that I may be talking out of the wrong end (all of our experiences are different, and therefore non-transferrable to another's working process) but this strikes me as the kind of book where the "writing" part of the writing probably took up a much smaller percentage of the time than the planning. It is so meticulously designed that I imagine the research into the legends, and the plotting of what elements of mythology line up with what other elements, and how this could translate to a specific plotline with these specific characters, was vastly the more complex part of the equation.
  
  I guess I mean, it's not only the ideas behind the story that are really good, but they way they have been painstakingly implemented to work together in just the right way, that is so successful here.
  
  Now, I never personally connected to Jory in quite the way I might have preferred. And the actual story being told is slightly less engaging than everything that's going on under the surface, or behind the scenes, or what have you. So it's far from being perfect. (Is anything perfect?) But it's very clever, very thought-provoking, and very engaging. Just not (for me) very emotionally involving.
  
  I find it hard to believe that there's anyone reading this that wouldn't enjoy it. So (unless you're an avowed dead-tree-avoider like myself) pick up the paperback (by far the cheaper option) and give it a go.
  
  
  [A note on e-book formatting. For some reason, throughout this novel, every paragraph that has at least one word in italics has the font size for the entire paragraph reduced. I found this distracting in the extreme, although I don't knock any marks off of the novel for this bizarre formatting glitch. It's not something I recall ever seeing anywhere else, however, and it makes me wonder why it should occur at all.]
• 
  Richard Wright

  An unusual book, in a refreshing way. Rather than being a straightforward Arthurian fantasy (or one of the many tales in which the one true king returns in our of need, and etc, and yawn), The Pendragon Protocol takes the central expectations of this kind of novel and twists them around. The Circle are an official body, combating those threats from old that appear in modern Britain, and yes, each of the key players is 'possessed' by the essence of a particular knight from old. However, the possession is an unclear thing. Perhaps it really is a spirit, but more likely it's a sort of meme - individuals identifying so strongly with certain characteristics that they take them on and are enhanced by them. That's the notion in a nutshell, but it splits and divides in all sorts of interesting ways - for example, while identification with a knight might allow certain enhanced abilities (a possibly psychosomatic response), how much does the story of the knight influence the behaviour of the holder? Is Lancelot destined always to fall from grace through uncontrolled passions? Must Mordred necessarily be scheming and manipulative? And so on.
  
  There's a great deal going on here intellectually, and each idea is one which you could easily get lost in were it not for the witty, self-aware storytelling. The book doesn't forget to tell a thrilling story, of memes, and politics, and (of course) derring do. If there's a fault for me it is that the conclusion of the book felt anti-climactic. It's not as though I was unaware that this is the first of a trilogy, but I would have appreciated a more defined ending within this particular volume. This is quibbling though. The Pendragon Protocol is a fresh and exciting fantasy, with wit, heart, and intellect all thrown into the mix. I thoroughly recommend it.
• 
  Bea

  I can't claim to be unbiased, but this is a great book. Lots of different plot strands come together to make "oh wow" moments and a brilliant ending that leaves you feeling you can't wait for the next installment.
• 
  Andrew Hickey

  Crossposting this from my blog, which is syndicated to my Goodreads account, so apologies to those who see it twice as a result...
  
  (Ob. disclaimer before I start — I know Philip Purser-Hallard, he’s an internet friend, and he’s commissioned me to write for an anthology he’s editing. However, I got to know him because he’s a favourite writer of mine, not the other way round, so I don’t think my judgement of his work is biased.)
  
  Don’t judge a book by its cover. Or, at least, judge it by a very small part of the cover.
  
  The Pendragon Protocol’s cover design looks like a “dad book” — the top of the book is a Union Jack, fading into a sword on top of some esoteric symbols, with a London cityscape underneath and the title written on top in runic-looking lettering. Looking at just the cover art, this looks like equal parts Dan Brown and Sven Hassel, with a little bit of Michael Dobbs or Jeffrey Archer thrown in. It’s the kind of cover art that instantly says “not for you” to me, and likely to many of the readers of my blog.
  
  And indeed this is a book about a high-tech secret government department hiding secrets dating back millennia and fighting neo-Nazis, eco-terrorists, and serial killers at home and in Iraq, so anyone who bought the book on the strength of the cover art is not being misled.
  
  Similarly, the blurb on the front talks about the book putting urban fantasy back where it belongs — and the book is, indeed, about the adventures of the Knights of the Round Table, updated and set in contemporary London, so I suppose it is urban fantasy.
  
  But the part of the cover by which you should pay attention to is the part which says “Philip Purser-Hallard”, because Philip Purser-Hallard is one of the two or three best science fiction and fantasy writers in the world today, and the only reason he’s not widely regarded as such is that all his published work so far has been in spin-offs of media licensed properties, usually published by small publishers for niche audiences. This is his first novel to be entirely outside other people’s continuities (though his work within those continuities has tended to involve him creating his own semi-detached areas anyway) and one hopes it will bring him to a far wider audience than his work has so far reached. Certainly it deserves to.
  
  In this book, which is the first of a planned trilogy, but thankfully works perfectly well read alone, Purser-Hallard introduces the Circle, a covert-ish law enforcement body whose higher-ranking members take the insignia of the Knights of the Round Table, and by doing so gain near-magical powers (though everything in the book stays just this side of physical possibility). It’s explained that they don’t gain any supernatural abilities, just a clarity of focus and purpose, and a psychosomatic growth in strength and dexterity, which comes from letting these living ideas into their heads.
  
  Part-meme, part-archetype, part-loa, the Devices let the people whose minds they live in perform feats which otherwise could only be performed by legendary figures, but they also affect the personality of their hosts, causing them to be drawn to re-enact elements of their originals’ stories, almost without realising it — and it’s not just people on the side of the law who have Devices. For every Gawain or Lancelot there’s a Green Knight or Mordred. But nobody is the villain in their own story…
  
  While on the surface, then, this is a fantasy-cum-police-procedural-cum-conspiracy-thriller, it is in fact a novel of ideas, and a novel about ideas, in the most literal sense — about how ideologies shape us, about order and chaos, about storytelling and narratives, about Britain and the visions people have of it, about how winners write history, about class, the folk process, and about the very concept or authority.
  
  In other words, once again Philip Purser-Hallard has, as he so often does, written a book that pushes so many of my intellectual buttons that it feels like reading a book I’ve written for myself — if, you know, I was a much, much better writer than I am. This is a book I’m going to be pushing people to read.
  
  But it’s not a heavy, hard-going, book either. It’s a very straightforward, linear, exciting narrative full of swordfights, jokes, and hidden secret fortresses disguised as office buildings. It’s a book that’s pure story — the kind of thing people describe as a page-turner — and even for people who don’t care about the ideas, it has a lot to offer just in terms of keeping you reading to see what happens next. I can’t describe much of the plot without giving away a major revelation that comes at the half-way point (one I inadvertantly spoiled for myself by flicking to the back and looking at the list of sources in the acknowledgements, so don’t do that), but just as this is worth reading for those who want to be made to think, it has just as much to offer for those who prefer their books to feel like an action movie.
  
  It’s not my favourite thing Purser-Hallard’s done — that would be either his wonderful short story De Umbris Idearum or his note-perfect Olaf Stapeldon pastiche in Peculiar Lives — but it’s by far his most accessible work, and the best in terms of pure storytelling. I can’t wait for books two and three in the series.
  
• 
  Helen Angove

  The best - and most creative and original - take on the Arthurian legends I've ever come across. If you like urban fantasy, British folklore or just good storytelling you should read it
• 
  Caleb

  Sometimes you come across a book that so closely matches your tastes and interests that it feels that it could have been written just for you. This blend of contemporary thriller and medieval myth was one of those books for me.
  
  I loved it, but it makes it slightly hard to review though since I know my reaction to it is even more personal and subjective than usual. Would this book work so well for someone who hasn't immersed themselves in the stories of King Arthur? I suspect that it's clever and canny enough to still be a good read and to fill in all you need to know regardless. But if you do know the stories, it will resonate all the more richly.
  
  The main character Jory bears the device of Sir Gawain, which lends him a certain impetuousness and unfortunate habit for decapitation. The main characters are connected to figures from legend, but with clever shifts and reveals along the way. It's also fiercely and relevantly political - not in a narrowly party-political way, but in exploring what Britain can and should be. By the end, it establishes a fiendishly compelling conflict and concept that has me eager to read the rest of the trilogy.
  
  I was reminded vaguely of Paul Cornell's London Falling, which similarly grounds extraordinary goings-on in a recognisable contemporary setting, with believable human reactions to the strange goings on. This goes further, in fact - there is nothing overtly supernatural here, with pseudoscientific explanations in terms of archetypes and the national psyche. You still have all the fun of a modern day Knights of the Round Table doing quests and secretly defending Britain, fighting against a far-right group under the influence of Hengist and Horsa, plus the modern day ecowarrior embodiment of the Green Knight, justified with clever layers of rationalisation.
  
  If you're even vaguely interested in British myth and folklore, get this book now!
• 
  Scurra

  Whoah. This was a genuine surprise, taking a terribly well-worn set of clichés - in this case, the mythic tales of King Arthur and others - and turning them into something special. Not to mention the highly unusual decision to write the book in the present tense, giving it an immediacy that means that the complex and well-worked through background doesn't get in the way of the vivid action sequences (I really, really want to see the movie of this!)
  I hesitate to give this five stars because it raises the bar unreasonably high for the sequels, but it deserves them for taking a genre that had been rendered dangerously fragile by people who think they can "do" Dan Brown and instead rebuilding it from the ground up into something radical that makes you think.
• 
  Stuart Douglas

  A fantastic, in every respect, novel, which manages the impossible and does something new and interesting with the Arthurian legends.
• 
  Selina Lock

  Interesting use of Arthurian (and other) myths and legends in a modern setting. Looking forward to the next book.
• 
  Jamie Harris

  I struggled with this one, to be honest. It's an interesting idea, and clearly Purser-Hallard's done his research, but something just didn't click for me. I found the chivalry clashing with practicality throughout to be something that started to grate after a while, and the narrator didn't really engage me - the humour in a lot of it seemed a bit forced. The chapters were cutting back and forth too frequently which made it hard to really get INTO the story. It's quite frustrating when it cuts from an exciting action set-piece back into a chunk of backstory that didn't really need to be put in at that moment. All in all, lots of little niggles that, for me, made it a difficult read.
  
  There's nothing particularly bad about it, but just wasn't for me; maybe others will have more patience. In any case, utterly unique and worth checking out for that. :)
• 
  Anna

  A series I have read several times over despite knowing exactly what happens. A curiously interesting take on the legend of Arthur and his ilk. Robin Hood as well. A strong grasp of the narrative of each story used within these books to weave a greater one, a gorgeous tapestry expertly handled. The kind of thing I wish I could come up with. I guarantee I'll read them again.
• 
  Charlie

  An interesting idea for a story: Modern day Knights of the Round Table. In some ways pulled off quite well, in others maybe trying a bit too hard. Some very clever story telling quirks. Maybe too clever?
  
  I enjoyed its playful use of ideas.