His mother -- Morgan le Fay -- was called "Witch-Queen," and his father,
Arthur, is King of the Britons.
Conceived in violence, born to royalty, raised in exile -- Mordred comes of
age among his mother's mystical clan in a forest far from King Arthur's lands.
But when he meets an outlaw knight -- a man beloved of his father but a threat
to all Mordred holds dear -- all that he has ever learned of life is
challenged and threatens to destroy him.
My first book of Mordred's life is currently in trade paperback. It is the
first in a proposed trilogy, but can be read as a stand-alone novel. This is a
fantasy novel with a strong love story within it.
As with all
the videos on my website, you're invited to post this on your own site, or
blog, or anywhere you'd like. To get the code to embed on your blog or site,
just click "Menu" in the lower right hand corner. Thank you.
"Clegg has spun a
meticulously-researched and beautifully-written tale that is at
once supremely romantic and tragic, yet somehow also a poignant,
modern portrayal of sexual awakening, coming out, and being
separate from the mainstream of society at a very young age..."
From Publisher's Weekly:
"Though usually portrayed as the
worm in the bud that was Camelot, Mordred, the illegitimate
offspring of King Arthur and sorceress Morgan le Fay, gets
sympathetic treatment in Clegg's revisionist Arthurian
fantasy...Born into exile on the Isle of Glass, the young Mordred
knows his father only through the stories bitter elders tell of
Arthur's theft of Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. Mordred
flourishes under the instruction of his mother and the wizard
Merlin, but he's distracted from his education in druidic
mysteries by his adolescent passion for a hermit living in the
nearby wilds... refreshingly original..."
Booklist (Starred Review!)
"Clegg puts an inspired wrinkle in
the hoary tale of Arthur and the grail by casting Arthur's kindred
enemy, Mordred, as a gay man. An injured stranger in a cloak and
odd, paganish mask, is captured and held in a monastery, igniting
wild speculation among the locals, who believe him a notorious
traitor. And so he is. He is Mordred, the bastard son of Arthur
Pendragon and his half sister, the witch-queen Morgan Le Fay, and
he now awaits trial for murder and treason...The tale he unfolds
culminates in an unholy betrayal of his own magical talent by
someone he loved and trusted all his life. This is the riveting
first volume in a trilogy. How excellent."
Have you ever wanted to understand someone who
seemed so different from you -- to see the other side of the coin?
To not take an accepted tale at face value, but to explore the
complexity of a fascinating individual's life -- and to dispel the
myths created by only one version of the tale of his existence?
I always felt Mordred, the only son of King Arthur of the Britons,
had a darker and more complex story to tell -- after all, he's been
maligned through history as the one who destroyed Camelot, toppling
the legendary kingdom of purity and light.
Here he is, a bastard in a time when bastardy ruined lives, the
child of a half-brother and half-sister's unbridled passion (or was it
something darker even than passion?)
What is Mordred to do but follow the path that destiny has beaten
into the earth for him?
From this, I began Mordred's story, mostly in his own words, as he
grows up on the Isle of Glass within the caverns of the Lady of the
Lake, a guardian of the Old Ways, a defender of the Witch-Queen,
Morgan le Fay, and a student of the mage, Merlin -- the one who keeps the sacred knowledge.
I went with Mordred on a journey from the forests of Broceliande to
the Celtic Otherworld, Annwn, and into the arms of the other outcast
of his world, once the greatest knight from among King Arthur's court.
Betrayals, wars, love, terror, and vengeance all play a part in
Mordred's story.
Mordred, Bastard Son is very different from any novel I've
written. This tale is set somewhere between the Dark Ages of
western European history and the legends of the Arthurian world. I'd
like to ask you to come along to get to know the greatest villain of
the legend -- in his own words, with his own truth.
With best wishes,
Douglas Clegg
AUTHOR NOTE: Fans of King Arthur
legends, particularly alternative ones, of slash fiction, of gay
novels as well as those novels not classified as "gay," will enjoy
this story. I wrote it for everyone who loves an exploration of a
legend through adventure, mysticism, and even a good battle or two.
