The Compleat Arthur?

I’m thinking about reading all stories about King Arthur. What do I need? I’m already aware of the following authors’ works in this area:

Sir Thomas Malory
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
T.H. White
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Mike W. Barr

Who else?

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=121803&highlight=*arthurian*

One of the very few threads of mine that didn’t sink like a stone…

I went to Amazon to check out Bernard Cornwell’s first name, and find that there’s all kinds of stuff indexed and listed.

The Cornwell series is supposed to be very good – it’s on my “to-read” list, perhaps as early as this summer.

Jack Whyte (The Sky Stone, The Singing Sword, etc.)

Stephen Lawhead (Taliesin, Merlin, Arthur)

My personal favorite: Parke Godwin (Firelord)

I just recently finished the Cornwell series and I’m currently in the middle of Whyte’s series. They’re both quite original, and quite good.

Diana Paxson’s “Hallowed Isle” series is also excellent… perhaps the best “magical” take on Arthurian legend since Mists of Avalon, and Paxson’s story is better in some ways. I really like the way each of the four books looks at the legend from a different cultural perspective.

Peter David’s Knight Life is a pretty amusing take on the legend, with a sequel, One Knight Only, coming out next month.

The Forever King, by Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran, is a pretty decent read, though not the best.

One of my first pieces of Arthurian fiction as a kid was the comic series Camelot 3000. The first time I knew comics could be “mature,” and it started me down a long and happy road of Arthur stories.

And before I even really knew who Arthur was I had read Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series, which has Arthurian roots, though it is not a retelling of the Arthur myth. It remains one of my favorite fantasy series even today.

That would be my short list. There are many more, of course. :smiley:

Mary Stewart’s tetralogy: The Hollow Hills, The Crystal Cave, the Last Enchantment and The Wicked Day is excellent, though the last book suffers from “Silmarillion Syndrome” – it’s not as good as your expectations from the previous three would lead you to expect.

Heretic! Stone him! Stone him!

Yes, The Wicked Day did sort of suck. But The Sil was never meant to be a sequel novel. [/knee-jerk]

Monty Python’s The Holy Grail.

Steinbeck wrote an Arthurian novel, but it’s semi-difficult to find. I haven’t read it yet, though.