“The Bright Sword” by Lev Grossman

The absence of any archaeological evidence has not diminished the ability of Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere, Merlin and the rest to enchant writers and readers. Modern versions include those by Tennyson, Mark Twain, TH White, Bernard Cornwell, Mary Stewart and Marion Zimmer Bradley, to name just a few. Now Lev Grossman, bestselling author of the Magician trilogy, takes up the search in his wonderful new fantasy novel, The Bright Sword.

Arthur is dead at the beginning of the novel, but his protagonist, 17-year-old Collum, doesn’t know that yet. Collum is an orphan and has been entrusted to the care of his stepfather, Lord Alasdair, who promises to raise him as a knight. Instead, Alasdair treats the boy cruelly, beating him and forcing him to sleep on the stone floor with the servants. But Collum manages to attract the attention of Alasdair’s marshal, who teaches him the basics of sword fighting. Finally released from servitude, Collum steals Alasdair’s armor and horse and fulfills his dream of swearing allegiance to King Arthur.

“Like him, the Knights of the Round Table were despised and renounced, but unlike him, they were unfazed,” Grossman writes. “They lived in a warm, safe world of old gold, rich in strength, love and companionship, where evil was great but good was greater, where God was always watching and even sadness was noble and beautiful. That was the world Collum wanted to live in.”

Soon after, he reaches Camelot. But it is not the castle of his dreams, teeming with knights courting the legendary king. Instead, he finds a few disheveled men dozing drunkenly around the huge round table. “You’re in luck,” one of them tells him. “We currently have several free places.”

Collum arrives too late. Arthur was killed in battle by Mordred, his son by his own sister Morgause. Most of the great heroes of the Round Table—Gawain, Gareth, Bors, even Galahad—are dead, and Arthur’s champion Lancelot is missing. Collum has come across the few survivors who remained loyal to the king—Bedivere, Dinadan, Constantine, Palomides, and a handful of others, including Nimue, Arthur’s magical advisor. She brings news that finally jolts the grieving knights out of their lethargy. Without a legitimate heir, “everything Arthur built is falling apart. The Saxons already have half of Essex, and you can bet the Hibernians have heard about it by now. … Then there are the Franks and the Picts and John Strongarm and the Free Companies and the fairies. Cantium has a Witch King. In Londinium they’re forming a commune, they’re going to choose their own king!”

And there are other contenders for the throne: Mordred’s son and Arthur’s grandson Melehan; Arthur’s wife and queen Guinevere; possibly even Lancelot. How to choose between them?

The disheartened knights have no answer, but Collum does. Pray for a miracle, as Arthur did with the Holy Grail, and let God show them the way. No sooner asked than done: a miracle appears in the form of the Green Knight, and the shaky band of second-class knights sets out in search of a Holy Lance.

“Each era and each narrator leaves its mark on the story, and as it passes from one hand to the next, it evolves, changes, and flows like water,” Grossman admits in his author’s note. Bradley gave the epic a feminist-pagan twist, White a Freudian one. Bernard Malamud set his story in a baseball stadium. Grossman uses a breezy, 21st-century style that still leaves plenty of room for magic. He gives each knight a new and detailed story that frees him from the original narrative while honoring it.

Bedivere, a fine warrior despite having only one hand, is deeply in love with Arthur, a passion that is one-sided and unrequited. Dinadan, too, has a secret he must keep in order to survive. Sir Palomides, the learned, cultured Muslim aristocrat from Baghdad, is constantly confused by the barbaric ways of Arthur’s men. Scipio is a Roman commander assigned to guard Hadrian’s Wall before joining Arthur’s ranks. Their backstories are cleverly woven into the main quest for the Holy Lance and Arthur’s sword Excalibur, a journey that leads in and out of the realm of the fairies where Morgan le Fay reigns supreme.

The biographies of other important characters have also been updated. The Machiavellian Merlin is solely committed to power. Nimue, often portrayed as a seductress who keeps Merlin captive, asserts herself as a sorceress who helps the loyal knights even as she ties up Collum. Guinevere, usually confined to the thankless role of traitorous wife, here acts as Arthur’s beloved confidante. Lancelot, still the greatest hero of the Round Table, is a pretty cold fish who plays an unexpected role at the end of the saga.

Grossman’s take on the Arthurian legend may lack the grandeur and tragic dignity of White’s classic The King on Earth, but it boasts colorful characterization and tense action scenes, of which there are countless. Like White, he uses humor liberally and masterfully (the book’s motto comes from The Holy Grail). And he includes more scenes that are genuinely strange, particularly when Collum finds himself in Morgan le Fay’s kingdom. As Grossman’s grand, unusual quest comes to a close, we see Arthur’s waves of Saxon invaders and their many predecessors in a different light that helps illuminate our own turbulent, battle-torn age in a way that only the best epics can.

Elizabeth Hand’s latest novel is “A Haunting on the Hill.”