Okay, here’s the thing about me. I am not afraid at all of a long book. If there’s the promise of a good story inside of that menacing looking tome, I’m happy to dive right in. That being said, even I was slightly taken aback by the sheer length of The Bright Sword. I’m by no means an expert on the subject, but I know that there is plenty of Arthurian lore to pull from out there. Still, what magic could this book hold that required so very many pages? That’s what I was determined to find out.

The beginning of the story centers on Callum, a young man who is Camelot bound and determined to become a knight of the round table. He was the type of character that I could get behind. Callum was full of grit and grace in equal parts, while still feeling relatable because of his deep worries about actually being good enough to become a true knight. For the first few chapters, I was hooked. I especially loved when Callum first met the remaining knights of the round table. Broken though they were, you could tell why each of them had managed to get to this place of honor and how much they truly loved their former king.

I also really loved the fact that Grossman gives the reader ample time to meet each of the main characters in turn. As a reader, there is nothing that makes me happier than a good backstory. With his signature witty writing style, Grossman unveils the history behind each of our famous knights. We get the opportunity to see what made them the strong, capable, and also of course deeply flawed men that they are today.

However, here’s where my complaints about this book begin. The backstory portions were lovely, but they didn’t really flow with the overall story. There is a constant flipping between present day and the past, but not in a way that feels cohesive. It almost felt like the knight’s stories could have each been their own novella, while the main story continued on with Callum’s journey in the new Britain that is now missing its king. Even worse, and this is one of my biggest pet peeves, it truly felt like nothing these poor, brave men did actually mattered at all. I suppose that does somewhat stay true to the original King Arthur lore. They often set off on trivial quests that seemed to come to nothing. In this context though it just seemed to add a lot of unnecessary length to the overall story.

Which brings me the answer to the first question I had at the start of this book: what could it hold that made it so long? The answer is, a lot of rambling quests, and so very many heavy explanations. The Bright Song started to drag for me about halfway through, and I only kept on because I’d already made it to the halfway point. Happily, things did pick up towards the end again! It just felt like too little too late.

I love Fantasy novels. I love big worlds, sweeping magic systems, solidly written characters and the type of character development that makes you fall in love with the person you’re following along with. Whether the book is only 200 pages or 800 pages, as long as I feel the payoff is worth it I’ll keep going on forever. In this case, it’s my honest opinion that this story could have been much shorter and it would have had a much bigger impact. I’ll still happily award it a solid three star rating. Grossman is an absolutely excellent writer. I just think The Bright Sword tried too hard to pull too much in at once and struggled with the heaviness of it all.