By Force Alone (Anti-Matter Quartet of Britain #1), by Lavie Tidhar

Arthuriana is that set of myths and stories I've always loved to return, especially as there are many versions and retellings centered on it; so the proposal of a grimdark one, historically set but with a cheeky sense of humour and blurring the line between genres, was something I was bound to eventually read. And honestly, By Force Alone is all that it promises and more, especially with all the pop/literary culture references sneakily included.

The Roman abandoning Britain created a power vacuum, plunging the country into a dark and bloody power struggle where control was reached by force alone. After dealing with an usurper called Vortigern, Uther, a former mercenary, takes power over his share, but his ambition is bigger: unifying Britain under a single ruler. With the counsel of a mysterious man called Merlin, he starts laying a path that will be eventually followed by his (more or less) legitimate son, Arthur.

From this and on, Tidhar will further stray from the classic myths, starting the own Arthur arc on Londinium, a young Arthur implicated in the band wars, trying to get fees for protecting people, and what it is his first taste of power; closer to a mafia/gang story than the usual myths. As we advance in the plot, Tidhar will continue introducing more characters that are straight from the Arthuriana, but always giving his own twist (Guinevere and the Choir, for example); it's curious because it manages to keep a difficult balance between the grinner and darker details (as it is portraying a cruel, merciless world) with a sense of humour that keeps you laughing out loud at many points.
While I think most of the episodes are brilliant, the Grail search and the Zone was probably my favourite: not only because of how the tension is kept at any point, but also how it feels as an homage to one of my favourite pieces of media, Roadside Picnic, and the subsequent inspired videogames, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

If you want to define By Force Alone with one word, I would choose fresh. While Tidhar still follows most of the myths, it's his approach to narrating them, far from the tradition, that makes this a really memorable book. The pacing is fast, and you fly through the pages in almost no time.

By Force Alone is an excellent novel, a different Arthuriana retelling that I totally recommend if you are a fan of the myths but prefer a more grounded but still fantastic approach; I'm really curious to see what has Tidhar done with The Hood (and hopefully, futures instalments of the Quartet)