I Am Mordred Audiobook By Nancy Springer cover art

I Am Mordred

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I Am Mordred

By: Nancy Springer
Narrated by: Steven Crossley
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After being set adrift at sea, baby Mordred is found by fisherfolk who raise him as their own. One day, a beautiful, magical lady appears to carry him back to his birth-mother's cold castle. There, alone but for his faithful dog, he comes of age and learns the horrible truth about his identity. Everyone knows Mordred as the dark, evil son who kills the noble King Arthur. But what would it be like to be born as Mordred, an unwanted child with a dreadful destiny?

This imaginative and beautifully told fantasy tale, rich with Arthurian lore, lets you finally hear Mordred's side of the age-old story. Nancy Springer is an award-winning author who has published over 30 critically-acclaimed books. This Booklist Top 10 Fantasy Novel showcases her talent for creating convincing characters and conveying their intense emotions. Narrator Steven Crossley will hold you spellbound as he brings young Mordred and his tragic predicament fully to life.

©1998 Nancy Springer (P)1999 Recorded Books, LLC Science Fiction & Fantasy Arthurian Fantasy Magic Fiction Literature & Fiction Historical Middle Ages Historical Fiction

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I loved this book! I was enchanted all the way thru and then it gets to the end and you are like.... what? What happened to the story line? It is like the writer just got tired of writing the story and wanted to hurry up and finish the damn book. So, be prepared. A good book with a good story line until the ending.

Spoiler Alert....

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Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

no...did not mesh with camolot story i'm familiar with.

What do you think your next listen will be?

something more fun

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

yes

Did I Am Mordred inspire you to do anything?

no

Any additional comments?

i put off listening to the rest of the story, it couldn't keep my interest.

hard to get through

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Would you try another book from Nancy Springer and/or Steven Crossley?

I'm not sure. To be honest, it kinda dragged on a bit. I don't think I have the attention-span required to try them again. Though I wouldn't shy away from works by them though.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

It tied itself up well, actually. I wasn't sure where the ending might go, after all, but it went well.

Which scene was your favorite?

The knight of the white bratchet hound. :-D

Was I Am Mordred worth the listening time?

It was worth it in the end, but any dissatisfaction I had, has nothing to do with the writing or otherwise. I just wanted a more richer 'Mordred'. The scenery was so full, but I didn't feel much for the characters. But as far as Arthurian legends go, it tied in very well.

Any additional comments?

I do like action a lot. I am not saying that the author had to put in more fighting, but I wanted a bit more from the characters rather than their short and often condescending banter. I started to care for Mordred at the end, but not by much.

Not a bad book, and I'd say anyone interested in it should judge for themselves.

Interesting prospective.

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the reader did an excellent job of portraying the story.. I really feel this is pretty close to the truth of what happened

wonderful story

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Originally posted at FanLit.

Almost all the modern stories derived from Arthurian legends focus on King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, Sir Lancelot, Sir Gawain, and Merlin. Why does Mordred, the man who eventually brings down the whole shebang, get such short shrift? There’s plenty of source material, most notably Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae and Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. Maybe it’s that Mordred isn’t very romantic. Or maybe we just don’t like reading about people who are hard to root for.

In her novel I Am Mordred, Nancy Springer flips the legend, brings the traitorous Mordred to tragic life, and makes him easy to sympathize with. When we meet Mordred he’s a happy child being raised in a loving home by hard-working fisherfolk. His life changes when he’s discovered and taken away. Now he lives with a cold mother, a heavy burden (Merlin has publicly prophesied that Mordred will kill King Arthur) and a huge helping of guilt (King Arthur killed all the babies in the realm when he found out about Mordred’s birth).

But Mordred doesn’t want to kill anybody. He’s a sensitive child who just wants to be loved and accepted by his scheming mother and the kind father who refuses to acknowledge him as son. Can Mordred find love? Can he defy his fate, or is he destined to fulfill it?

I Am Mordred is a short sad novel with a sympathetic anti-hero. Nancy Springer’s prose is pretty and she brings a little piece of Arthurian Legend to life as Mordred gives his candid impressions of Arthur, Morgause, Morgan Le Fay, and others. In addition Springer explores such subjects as the nature of family, love, loneliness, original sin, self-determinism, fate and free will, honor, shame and guilt, and the function of the soul.

I Am Mordred is marketed to children aged 10 and up. As far as children’s literature goes, the tale is rather somber and dark, dealing with incest, adultery, murder, and death, but it’s tastefully done and none of it is graphic or glorifying. Nancy Springer succeeds in illustrating the lesson that we should always try to look at events from other people’s perspectives. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend I Am Mordred to children, but keep in mind that it’s dark and sad. Springer doesn’t change the legendary ending.

I listened to Steven Crossley narrate Recorded Book’s version of I Am Mordred. I enjoyed this production.

A short sad novel

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