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The Devices Trilogy #3
Trojans
For the first time since the Dark Ages, Britain has a High King.
The Pendragon device has returned, wielded by former paramilitary officer and eco-activist Jory Taylor. Under his rule, the UK faces an unparalleled social, economic and artistic renaissance – and an unprecedented challenge, for the original King Arthur’s reign was a brief flowering ending in devastation and betrayal.
While a man claiming the device of Corineus the Trojan foments political unrest, and other nations’ devicial agents probe the realm mercilessly for weaknesses, High King Jordan must somehow rewrite his story’s ending, and usher in a true new order.
One that stands some chance, at least, of outliving him.
The Pendragon device has returned, wielded by former paramilitary officer and eco-activist Jory Taylor. Under his rule, the UK faces an unparalleled social, economic and artistic renaissance – and an unprecedented challenge, for the original King Arthur’s reign was a brief flowering ending in devastation and betrayal.
While a man claiming the device of Corineus the Trojan foments political unrest, and other nations’ devicial agents probe the realm mercilessly for weaknesses, High King Jordan must somehow rewrite his story’s ending, and usher in a true new order.
One that stands some chance, at least, of outliving him.
- GenresFantasy
538 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2016
1 person is currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Philip Purser-Hallard
44 books52 followersPhilip Purser-Hallard is a widely published and occasionally acclaimed author, editor and critic. He has written four Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books, all favourably reviewed in Publishers Weekly, and the Devices trilogy of urban fantasy thrillers for Snowbooks, as well as a plethora of shorter fiction. He is a founding editor of and frequent contributor to the Black Archive, a series of critical monographs about individual Doctor Who stories.
From his webpage:
"In my writing I like to reimagine and question established cultural icons, hence my four Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books. Writing dialogue between Holmes and Lady Bracknell, from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, may be the high point of my career. The Devices trilogy, published between 2013 and 2016, considers some of the icons of British mythology that I loved as a child, and how they relate to the political reality of Britain in the 21st century."
From his webpage:
"In my writing I like to reimagine and question established cultural icons, hence my four Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books. Writing dialogue between Holmes and Lady Bracknell, from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, may be the high point of my career. The Devices trilogy, published between 2013 and 2016, considers some of the icons of British mythology that I loved as a child, and how they relate to the political reality of Britain in the 21st century."
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 30, 2016
Where did my morning just go? More when I'm capable...
****
30th Oct: My usual completely unhelpful reviewing abilities just want to say 'bloody awesome'.
I'm bereft at the trilogy's conclusion (not the story's conclusion - the story went where it had to go, as stories do; it's just ... no more Devices Trilogy to look forward to ... )
I'm still thinking about the characters and trying to work out who I loved most, and remembering those couple of places where I laughed out loud (including once in public, on the tube) and the bits that nearly made me cry (but not quite ... I can only recall one book that made me actually cry, and that was when the cat-narrator died).
I'm thinking of buying the paperbacks. Shelf space runs at a premium in this house, so books are only kept in physical form when they really deserve it. It's kind of the highest compliment I can pay this trilogy that I'm mentally clearing space for it. Plus, the covers are fantastic too.
I'm pleased I indulged in re-reading The Pendragon Protocol and The Locksley Exploit in the run up to publication, to remind myself of just how much I needed to find out what happened next; while I'd broadly remembered what was going on, it was definitely worth a refresh in my memory.
Tangent: last night we were watching one of the Tolkein films. I had cause to remember borrowing a Tolkein book from the library, when I was studying Myth in the Greek and Roman World with the OU. The assignment was to follow a character from Greek or Roman myth through history, I chose Orpheus, and one of my sources was Tolkein's translation of Sir Orfeo. What was also in the book was Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I was amused by the co-incidence, how the film I was watching could link to the books I was still thinking about, which led me to think how marvellous the recurring myths and stories and things we have are, and so on ... and, perhaps, after all, I'm the perfect audience for this trilogy :-)
****
30th Oct: My usual completely unhelpful reviewing abilities just want to say 'bloody awesome'.
I'm bereft at the trilogy's conclusion (not the story's conclusion - the story went where it had to go, as stories do; it's just ... no more Devices Trilogy to look forward to ... )
I'm still thinking about the characters and trying to work out who I loved most, and remembering those couple of places where I laughed out loud (including once in public, on the tube) and the bits that nearly made me cry (but not quite ... I can only recall one book that made me actually cry, and that was when the cat-narrator died).
I'm thinking of buying the paperbacks. Shelf space runs at a premium in this house, so books are only kept in physical form when they really deserve it. It's kind of the highest compliment I can pay this trilogy that I'm mentally clearing space for it. Plus, the covers are fantastic too.
I'm pleased I indulged in re-reading The Pendragon Protocol and The Locksley Exploit in the run up to publication, to remind myself of just how much I needed to find out what happened next; while I'd broadly remembered what was going on, it was definitely worth a refresh in my memory.
Tangent: last night we were watching one of the Tolkein films. I had cause to remember borrowing a Tolkein book from the library, when I was studying Myth in the Greek and Roman World with the OU. The assignment was to follow a character from Greek or Roman myth through history, I chose Orpheus, and one of my sources was Tolkein's translation of Sir Orfeo. What was also in the book was Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I was amused by the co-incidence, how the film I was watching could link to the books I was still thinking about, which led me to think how marvellous the recurring myths and stories and things we have are, and so on ... and, perhaps, after all, I'm the perfect audience for this trilogy :-)
Read
October 28, 2016So, as always with the Devices Trilogy, I can't really say anything about this book without spoiling its predecessors. If you're in the market for a smart, gripping, non-sucky-urban-fantasy modern day Arthurian riff, then you really should read these. Go pick up the first book, The Pendragon Protocol. Yes, ignore the terrible cover (Trojans still has a fairly trashy one too, but at least it just looks like a cheap techno-thriller rather than a UK Turner Diaries). And assuming you want all the twists and turns to get the benefit of being proper surprises, stop reading this review!
So: at the end of The Locksley Exploit, Jordan Taylor brought peace to a divided modern Britain by ending the new civil war between the Establishment figures who had inherited the identities of the Round Table's knights, and the similarly empowered countercultural allies of the mythic Merry Men. This he did by himself accepting the devices of both Robin Hood and King Arthur, in the process being acclaimed as Britain's new High King. And all of this while privately having come to the conclusion that the whole idea of modern people being possessed by legend-memes was in fact a load of nonsense. Trojans opens seven years later, with the New Arthurian Age flowering. And Purser-Hallard's timing here was painfully good, because this reborn Camelot feels a lot like an all-things-to-all-people fantasia of the Brexit we were promised (as emphatically distinct from the racist thuggery and economic collapse we actually got). Britain is strong, independent, a source of envy (and perhaps a little concern) to the rest of the world, what with now being run by an acclaimed but unelected High King. And yet, for all that this set-up might seem retrograde, the High King in question is a thoroughly decent cove bearing the device of a legendarily just monarch – so the NHS and infrastructure are doing better than ever, innovative industries are booming, the privatisers have been repulsed, and as such even the most determined leftie complainers can't really get too exercised about it all. A golden age, in short - but that can only ever be one side of the coin. For so was the original Arthur's purported reign, but that was beset by enemies within and without, ending in division, bloodshed and woe. Meaning Jory and his people must somehow overcome the narrative compulsions of the very devices which empower them, and ensure the new world they've built doesn't gutter and fail like its model.
Perhaps Purser-Hallard's greatest idea here is what he calls story-blindness – the tendency for modern actors not only to play out echoes of their device's original story, but to be oblivious to the fact that they're doing so. Obviously, a lot of fiction (and film, and TV) requires characters to act like idiots sometimes, but seldom has anyone had such a great excuse for it, or been so able to make it feel unforced while it happens. And the narration is done well enough that sometimes the reader is holding their breath as the characters dumbly set themselves up for the same fall as their original's legend - but at other times, even the most legend-aware of us fall for it, and are then hit with the same queasily-dawning 'Ohhh' as the unwitting character. Indeed, I'd put this book especially up there with Stross' Glasshouse for being able to seduce the reader into following along with a character's train of thought without twigging how compromised that thought has become. And more generally, Purser-Hallard is great at shuffling cards to the back of the deck for a while and then bringing them forward just so, such that you say 'Oh, yes, of course,' without ever feeling cheated. The mastery of effect, of making some of them dawn gradually while others explode as if out of nowhere, is incredible - and part of why I feel I have to begin with that spoiler warning, because I really wouldn't want to compromise this experience for anyone (which, alas, can also make the books quite tricky to recommend).
This also means, obviously, that I wouldn't want to go into any specifics of how Trojans unfolds. What can I safely say?
• That title, though! The supposed origin point of British myth, and the most modern idea of how an idea can be undone from within, all in a single short word. The sheer economy of that!
• The theme, running through the whole series but right to the forefront here, of how the very same stories which bring the best out of us can also lead to our most grievous errors if not kept very carefully in check. Purser-Hallard is, I believe, a christian of the non-awful variety, so given the hordes of hypocrites and arseholes who've spent two millennia dragging that particular legend-complex through the dirt, you can see how this could have a particular resonance there.
• The ending felt a little wrenching at first, a little like a cop-out. But then I realised the extent to which that too was a deliberate effect, and settled in to the new new status quo, and oh my, it's wonderful. This whole damn series was wonderful, really. One day it'll be rediscovered and raved about and republished in a suitably respectable edition with nice tasteful covers and covers that don't curl and ink that doesn't bleed from the block capitals to the facing page. And I'll be glad, but also secretly even gladder that I was there first, and had longer for it to sit at the back of my mind, whispering about the power and the danger of legends.
Correspondences to Jerusalem, because they seem to arise in every book I finish while reading Jerusalem (except possibly the sub-par Doctor Who anthology, and the sex blogger's memoir, for which I skipped this bit): the lineaments of myth shining through the veil of modern Britain, of course. Also, it includes a literal rewrite of Blake's 'Jerusalem' (yes, it's from 'Milton', whatever - you know full well what I mean).
So: at the end of The Locksley Exploit, Jordan Taylor brought peace to a divided modern Britain by ending the new civil war between the Establishment figures who had inherited the identities of the Round Table's knights, and the similarly empowered countercultural allies of the mythic Merry Men. This he did by himself accepting the devices of both Robin Hood and King Arthur, in the process being acclaimed as Britain's new High King. And all of this while privately having come to the conclusion that the whole idea of modern people being possessed by legend-memes was in fact a load of nonsense. Trojans opens seven years later, with the New Arthurian Age flowering. And Purser-Hallard's timing here was painfully good, because this reborn Camelot feels a lot like an all-things-to-all-people fantasia of the Brexit we were promised (as emphatically distinct from the racist thuggery and economic collapse we actually got). Britain is strong, independent, a source of envy (and perhaps a little concern) to the rest of the world, what with now being run by an acclaimed but unelected High King. And yet, for all that this set-up might seem retrograde, the High King in question is a thoroughly decent cove bearing the device of a legendarily just monarch – so the NHS and infrastructure are doing better than ever, innovative industries are booming, the privatisers have been repulsed, and as such even the most determined leftie complainers can't really get too exercised about it all. A golden age, in short - but that can only ever be one side of the coin. For so was the original Arthur's purported reign, but that was beset by enemies within and without, ending in division, bloodshed and woe. Meaning Jory and his people must somehow overcome the narrative compulsions of the very devices which empower them, and ensure the new world they've built doesn't gutter and fail like its model.
Perhaps Purser-Hallard's greatest idea here is what he calls story-blindness – the tendency for modern actors not only to play out echoes of their device's original story, but to be oblivious to the fact that they're doing so. Obviously, a lot of fiction (and film, and TV) requires characters to act like idiots sometimes, but seldom has anyone had such a great excuse for it, or been so able to make it feel unforced while it happens. And the narration is done well enough that sometimes the reader is holding their breath as the characters dumbly set themselves up for the same fall as their original's legend - but at other times, even the most legend-aware of us fall for it, and are then hit with the same queasily-dawning 'Ohhh' as the unwitting character. Indeed, I'd put this book especially up there with Stross' Glasshouse for being able to seduce the reader into following along with a character's train of thought without twigging how compromised that thought has become. And more generally, Purser-Hallard is great at shuffling cards to the back of the deck for a while and then bringing them forward just so, such that you say 'Oh, yes, of course,' without ever feeling cheated. The mastery of effect, of making some of them dawn gradually while others explode as if out of nowhere, is incredible - and part of why I feel I have to begin with that spoiler warning, because I really wouldn't want to compromise this experience for anyone (which, alas, can also make the books quite tricky to recommend).
This also means, obviously, that I wouldn't want to go into any specifics of how Trojans unfolds. What can I safely say?
• That title, though! The supposed origin point of British myth, and the most modern idea of how an idea can be undone from within, all in a single short word. The sheer economy of that!
• The theme, running through the whole series but right to the forefront here, of how the very same stories which bring the best out of us can also lead to our most grievous errors if not kept very carefully in check. Purser-Hallard is, I believe, a christian of the non-awful variety, so given the hordes of hypocrites and arseholes who've spent two millennia dragging that particular legend-complex through the dirt, you can see how this could have a particular resonance there.
• The ending felt a little wrenching at first, a little like a cop-out. But then I realised the extent to which that too was a deliberate effect, and settled in to the new new status quo, and oh my, it's wonderful. This whole damn series was wonderful, really. One day it'll be rediscovered and raved about and republished in a suitably respectable edition with nice tasteful covers and covers that don't curl and ink that doesn't bleed from the block capitals to the facing page. And I'll be glad, but also secretly even gladder that I was there first, and had longer for it to sit at the back of my mind, whispering about the power and the danger of legends.
Correspondences to Jerusalem, because they seem to arise in every book I finish while reading Jerusalem (except possibly the sub-par Doctor Who anthology, and the sex blogger's memoir, for which I skipped this bit): the lineaments of myth shining through the veil of modern Britain, of course. Also, it includes a literal rewrite of Blake's 'Jerusalem' (yes, it's from 'Milton', whatever - you know full well what I mean).
May 9, 2023
The storyline behind this trilogy is extremely well thought out. All three books should be read in sequence and, if possible, one after the other.
November 22, 2016
The title jars in comparison to the first two volumes - The Pendragon Principle and The Locksley Exploit. Would a Camelot riff really have given too much away? This bugged me a little more at first than perhaps it should - probably because it just doesn't look right on the shelf. But books aren't about aesthetics, and the judging really is in the reading, and this is the best of the three.
Picking up seven years after he ended a War between Camelot (The Circle) and the rather more eco-anarchic Sherwood (The Green Chapel), Jory Taylor has become the living embodiment of the Pendragon Device (a sort of Jungian memeplex that defines him as The High King of Britain), Jordan, the One True King, ushering in a new age of art, culture and prosperity. Camelot has returned, offering us a completely different type of Brexit to the one everyone is worried about.
Of course, the book's length belies the brevity of the title, exploring the themes of Blake, Mallory, White and Moorcock, but as seen through the eyes of Torchwood characters. That may sound like a mash-up, but it isn't, and the concept behind the 'Devices' is modern, unashamedly intelligent, with a good dose of wry wit whilst adding a twist that sets the trilogy apart from its comparators. For all of this the characters, and the dichotomy of knowing what they are yet being oblivious to the themes they represent, are what this book is about. Philip has hit his stride with this final volume, and I can only hope he gets to revisit the trilogy, perhaps as an audio drama series, or perhaps as a set of special hardback editions, where the first two volumes can be that hindsight sometimes affords.given the "author's preferred polish".
While I shan't spoiler the book, I will say that the while the ending worked, it wasn't where I expected the book to go. That's probably because I don't quite share the author's values. Or because I wanted more.
Picking up seven years after he ended a War between Camelot (The Circle) and the rather more eco-anarchic Sherwood (The Green Chapel), Jory Taylor has become the living embodiment of the Pendragon Device (a sort of Jungian memeplex that defines him as The High King of Britain), Jordan, the One True King, ushering in a new age of art, culture and prosperity. Camelot has returned, offering us a completely different type of Brexit to the one everyone is worried about.
Of course, the book's length belies the brevity of the title, exploring the themes of Blake, Mallory, White and Moorcock, but as seen through the eyes of Torchwood characters. That may sound like a mash-up, but it isn't, and the concept behind the 'Devices' is modern, unashamedly intelligent, with a good dose of wry wit whilst adding a twist that sets the trilogy apart from its comparators. For all of this the characters, and the dichotomy of knowing what they are yet being oblivious to the themes they represent, are what this book is about. Philip has hit his stride with this final volume, and I can only hope he gets to revisit the trilogy, perhaps as an audio drama series, or perhaps as a set of special hardback editions, where the first two volumes can be that hindsight sometimes affords.given the "author's preferred polish".
While I shan't spoiler the book, I will say that the while the ending worked, it wasn't where I expected the book to go. That's probably because I don't quite share the author's values. Or because I wanted more.
November 23, 2016
There's an old Oysterband sleeve quote that goes something like "to love this land and its people while hating how it's ruled and a lot of what it stands for is a contradiction many people will find strange". It's this contradiction that is at the heart of the Devices trilogy, the struggle between authoritarian rule and anarchist do as you please. It's very political, not in a partisan way, but in exploring what it means to be British, what Britain could and should represent. That may sound rather po-faced, but Purser-Hallard writes with warmth and wit, and he keeps the pages turning. There are weighty questions of national identity, personal responsibility, and the nature of stories below the text, but there are also swordfights, explosions and secret fortresses disguised as Civil Service offices. The idea of a modern day King Arthur sparring in the shopping centres and coffee shops of modern Britain could easily have fallen prey to cliche and silliness, but the books manage to sidestep that and offer a thought provoking and very entertaining read.
December 27, 2019
The end to and awesome trilogy. Not the ending I was hoping for, kind off a bit too much, but in line with the other installments and overall story. I recommend the entire trilogy to anyone interested in something different fantasy wise.
February 9, 2017
Wow. Sure, it's a bit longer than it needed to be (there were a lot of threads to tie, sure, but there were also some unnecessary diversions), and the big finish felt surprisingly rushed, but Trojans does a magnificent job of ending a story that cannot end, and remaining true to the spirit of the mythos from which it sprung.
No spoilers here; suffice it to say that characters old and new are all treated with equal respect, the occasional surprise is properly telegraphed, and even the slightly indulgent side-trip into Irish legend doesn't feel completely shoe-horned in. And, after The Green Flag, this time we get a revised version of Jerusalem that is an equal joy.
In the end, though, for a tale that's ostensibly about determinism and story-blindness, it's the crystal clear message that actually, everything is about choice, that rings through. And whilst that's hardly an original theme, it never gets old.
I am so glad I stumbled across the first book in this series almost by accident. And now that the story is over, I feel a little bereft. (Trojans itself ought to only get 4 stars, but the series is worth an extra star as a whole.) Recommended.
No spoilers here; suffice it to say that characters old and new are all treated with equal respect, the occasional surprise is properly telegraphed, and even the slightly indulgent side-trip into Irish legend doesn't feel completely shoe-horned in. And, after The Green Flag, this time we get a revised version of Jerusalem that is an equal joy.
In the end, though, for a tale that's ostensibly about determinism and story-blindness, it's the crystal clear message that actually, everything is about choice, that rings through. And whilst that's hardly an original theme, it never gets old.
I am so glad I stumbled across the first book in this series almost by accident. And now that the story is over, I feel a little bereft. (Trojans itself ought to only get 4 stars, but the series is worth an extra star as a whole.) Recommended.
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