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Amy Rose Capetta, Cori McCarthy: Once & Future (Paperback, 2019, Rock the Boat) 3 stars

I've been chased my whole life. As a fugitive refugee in the territory controlled by …

Review of 'Once & Future' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

The 42nd reincarnation of King Arthur begins when Ari takes Excalibur and she’s trained by the reverse-aging Merlin fresh out of magical hibernation. She takes on an intergalactic megacorporation in between with space travel, a renfair planet, plenty of queerness, magic and sort-of-dragons.
It’s okay as YA books go (I don’t mean to be too dismissive of YA quality, plenty are awesome, but they have a particular vibe to appeal to their targets). It shakes things up and has fun. It feels very much derived from more modern adaptations than anything pulling from the original folklore (which would have been more interesting IMO). The evil megacorp is a little generic and I feel there was a lot more potential to the premise of the book than it achieved. But if the idea of a space-age King Arthur with queerness and genderbending of characters fighting against capitalism appeals to you, then you should check it out.