Book Review: Merlin Dreams by Peter Dickinson

Illustrated by Alan Lee

Pros: beautiful pictures, variety of stories

Cons:

Merlin is trapped under the earth, dreaming of his past and things yet to come.

This is a book of 9 pseudo-medieval short stories based around the frame story of the British sorcerer Merlin, dreaming. There is a good variety of stories, including knights, kings, and villages with problems. There’s a slew of fantasy creatures: a form of werewolf, mermaids, dragons, enchanted knights, a basilisk and even a sciopod, which was kind of cool.

The stories take weird turns and generally don’t end the way you’d expect, but do often end in a more realistic manner.

The art is a stylistic pencil work (or maybe charcoal?), some in black and white, some with a hint of colour, and a few with bold colours of knight’s heraldry and ladies dresses.

The book is out of print, but may be worth keeping an eye out for if the story content interests you.
(If you have a free archive.org account you can borrow it there.)