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Camulod
Ok, so my father’s name is Jack Whyte, and he has been a professional artist for well over 45 years. Some time back in the early 90’s a book came out called “The Skystone” by a Canadian author named, oddly enough, Jack Whyte. Well, this caused quite a bit of confusion, as the book started to become quite popular. A friend of mine bought me a copy as a bit of joke, but for some reason I decided to read it and it turned out to be really good.
The basic idea of the story is focusing on what could have possibly been the historical basis for the King Arthur legend, starting just before the fall of the Roman Empire into Britain’s “Dark Age”. The only trouble is that the book was the first of a trilogy, so I was left waiting for quite a while for the next part of the story, “The Singing Sword”. By the time the 3rd book came out the series was revised to contain 5 books. I bet that astute observers can see where this is going, every time another book was released the series expanded to include more books. I believe that by the time it finally came to an end it contained a total of 8 books, 9 if you count the fact that one of the middle books was published in two parts. I recall that the wait between the third and fourth books was particularly long and there was much strangeness as the seventh and eighth books (counting the total as 9) jumped back in time to retell parts of the previous story from 2 different perspectives before finally getting back to the main story in the ninth and final volume.
Anyhow, way back when, just as the series was getting rolling, I was contacted by a gentleman who was looking for Jack Whyte the author, but who had found an early website belonging to my dad, Jack Whyte the artist. After clearing up the confusion the gentleman went on to find the proper Jack Whyte and start an official website for him at camulod.com, which helped to alleviate most of the confusion.
I highly recommend the series, called “A Dream of Eagles” in Canada and “The Camulod Chronicles” in the USA (What an awful name!).
For reference, here are chronological links to the whole series at Amazon.com, which means these are the US versions (I think the Canadian versions have nicer art).
The Skystone: The Forging of Arthur's Britain Vol. 1 (Camulod Chronicles)
The Singing Sword: The Dream of Eagles, Volume 2 (Camulod Chronicles)
The Eagles' Brood (Camulod Chronicles)
The Saxon Shore (Camulod Chronicles)
The Fort at River's Bend: Book Five of The Camulod Chronicles
The Sorcerer: Metamorphosis (Camulod Chronicles)
Uther (Camulod Chronicles)
The Lance Thrower (Camulod Chronicles)
The Eagle
Jack Whyte has also just launched a new "trilogy" (ya, sure, I'll buy the Brooklyn Bridge for a dollar) about the crusades. I haven't had the chance to read the new book yet (I’m waiting for the paperback), but in case you'd like to take a look, here's the link:
Knights of the Black and White: Book I of the Templar Trilogy
Posted by Dylon on November 9, 2006 2:17 AM |
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Comments
Very cool blog! I stumbled upon it while checking out the ourmanitoulin blog! So glad I happened to check this out. I have seen your work at the Mindemoya farmer's market and have bought a few pieces. You're very talented.
September 2008