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A dozen or so highly successful commercial novelists have arisen in B.C. during the past three decades. Of these, with the publication of The Forest Laird: William Wallace (2010), the first novel in his new trilogy about the Scottish Wars of Independence in the 14th-century, Jack Whyte stands a good chance of having the most enduring canon.

Jack Whyte's preceding two series of novels about King Arthur and the Knights Templar have reputedly sold more than a million copies. Simply put, his novels are gripping, well-researched entertainment, often overlooked by overtly "literary" types because they are so popular. He doesn't win prizes, he wins readers.

At age 52, Scottish-born Whyte burst onto the writing stage with The Skystone (1992), the first of a projected quartet of Arthurian novels in a series called A Dream of Eagles (and called The Camolud Chronicles in the U.S.). Nine Arthurian titles later, in 2006, he launched a trilogy about the original nine Templar Knights, commencing with the madness and cruelty of the First Crusade in 1088.

A Bard for the Calgary Highlanders, a founder of both the Burns Club of Calgary and the Burns Club of Vancouver, and a former corporate communications consultant, Whyte is also an avid golfer and stage performer who sings in eight languages. His poetry-laden memoir Jack Whyte: Forty Years in Canada (2007) steers clear of intimate information.

Other unabashedly commercial novelists of B.C. who have gained far-flung readerships include Jo Beverley (romance), William Deverell (mystery), Vanessa Grant (romance), Kay Gregory (romance), Naomi Horton (romance), Daniel Kalla (medical thriller), Spider Robinson (sci-fi), Michael Slade (horror), Ian Slater (disaster) and Chevy Stevens (thriller).

At the opposite end of the scale, sophisticated do-it-yourselfer Ernest Hekkanen of Nelson, B.C., is a literary outsider by temperament and necessity, but probably not by choice. With more than 40 fiction titles, Hekkanen has done too much, too well, too fast, too independently, too far away from Ontario, to be fashionable.

The 880 pages and 73 stories of Volumes I and II of The Collected Stories of Ernest Hekkanen: Naturalistic, Modern Gothic & Postmodern (2010) represent an astonishing range and depth of over 40 years of highly original storytelling. His work has been seriously comic, absurdist, theatrical, iconoclastic, psychologically probing and shrewd. Along the way, the Seattle-born Hekkanen, of Finnish descent, has rivalled Adolf Hungry Wolf as B.C.'s most prolific and dedicated self-publisher.

FULL ENTRY:

At age 52, Jack Whyte burst onto the writing stage with the Penguin Canada release of The Skystone, the first of his projected quartet of Arthurian novels in a series to be called A Dream of Eagles. His work has subsequently been published in more than a dozen countries with far-flung commercial success.

Entering the fictional field of Thomas Mallory and T.H. White, Jack Whyte was determined to trace, in his own way, the origins of the sword Excalibur and the formative years of King Arthur. "Arthur is the quintessential hero who surrounds himself with other heroes of equal stature--Lancelot, Merlin, Percival," he said. "The story of the Holy Grail contains in and of itself the nucleus of man's search for the unachievable." Whyte's tales of violence, romance and heroism have since led to a twin-volume novel, The Sorceror, in which Arthur, at 16, makes his first journey to Gaul and meets Lancelot. Returning to England with his mentor Merlyn, Arthur must prove himself on the battlefield while Merlyn transforms himself from soldier to powerful mystic. Ultimately Arthur must gain the unified support of his people by declaring himself Champion of the Christians and famously pulling the sword from the stone. With this event the dream of the original 'Eagles' (Caius Britannicus and Publius Varrus) had come to fruition. Whyte's published-in-Canada series was repackaged for the United States, with new artwork and a different overall title--The Camulod Chronicles instead of A Dream of Eagles--after U.S. rights were sold to St. Martin's Press of New York and his novels came under the control of the marketing division of Forge/Tor, a subsidiary of St. Martin's. Jack Whyte moved from Vancouver to Kelowna and published several more Arthurian novels including Uther, a saga about Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon, cousin of Merlyn. This was followed by Clothar the Frank, the story of King Arthur's friend and betrayer Lancelot during the reign and downfall of Riothamus. Clothar (Lancelot) dedicates himself to reclaiming his birthright and avenging his parents' deaths. The series of nine novels and eight books [see list below] concludes with The Eagle [see review below].

In 2006 Jack Whyte launched a new trilogy about the original nine Templar Knights, commencing with the madness and cruelty of the First Crusade in 1088. His opening novel Knights of the Black and White follows the fortunes and misfortunes of Hugh de Payens, who, as a disenchanted member of a powerful, secret allegiance of French knights, decides to dedicate his military skills to protecting pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem, so he founds The Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ. The final volume Order in Chaos follows the plight of Templar Knight William St. Clair after Philip IV arrests every Templar in France, seizes the Order's assets and launches the Inquisition. St. Clair escapes to the island of Arran in Scotland where he trains his comrades for a return to France. After a final battle with his Templar Knights, he becomes disillusioned and leads survivors to consider a search for a fabled land that lies beyond the Western Ocean.

A follow-up trilogy, The Guardians of Scotland, will recall the Scottish Wars of Independence in the 14th century. The first novel, The Forest Laird: William Bruce (2010), opens in the pre-dawn hours of August 24, 1305 A.D., in London's Smithfield Prison, where the outlaw William Wallace, who is to be executed at dawn, is visited by a Scottish priest who has come to hear his last Confession. Subsequent volumes will outline the lives of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots; and Sir James Douglas, known as The Black Douglas.

Born in Scotland, Jack Whyte was educated in England and France. He taught Speech and Drama in England for five years prior to immigrating to Canada in 1967. He has had a variety of jobs in business, advertising, public relations and the arts. In the early 1970s he wrote, performed and toured a one-man show entitled Rantin', Rovin', Robin -- A Night With Robert Burns. In 1974 he composed a patriotic ode, A Toast to Canada, Our Adopted Land, which he performed at various exhibitions and sold on parchment scrolls. He wrote several television specials for CBC, including a Remembrance Day program with the Irish Rovers. In 1978 he began to write fiction and came to Vancouver in 1986 to work as Director of Corporate Communications for Johnston Terminals Limited. In 1991 he collaborated with singer/producer Terry Jacks to narrate an award-winning documentary for Jacks' Environmental Watch organization. A Bard for the Calgary Highlanders, a founder of the Burns Club of Calgary, a founder of the Burns Club of Vancouver and a former corporate communications consultant, Whyte is also an avid golfer who sings in eight languages.

Whyte's poetry-laden memoir Jack Whyte: Forty Years in Canada includes ruminations about Canada's "two solitudes"; Pierre Trudeau; heroes and feet of clay; Alberta oil; multiculturalism; fast food; Canada's military; health care; and a broken education system, while steering clear of intimate information.

***

The Burning Stone by Jack Whyte
(Penguin Random House $36)

Review by Cherie Thiessen, 2018

At age 52, jack Whyte of Kelowna burst onto the writing stage with The Skystone (1992), the first of his projected quartet of Arthurian novels in a series to be called A Dream of Eagles, followed by his Templar and Guardian trilogies.

He has continued to look back. With more than twenty titles, in twenty languages, he is easily one of Canada's most widely-read historical novelists, although he is seldom given his due in CanLit circles.

Now Whyte, at 78, has finally produced a prequel to The Skystone, going back to fourth-century London.

Fleeing the massacre of his entire family save a single uncle, a young Roman aristocrat named Quintus Varrus arrives in Britain not knowing who is to blame for the murders of his family and their servants, nor whom he can trust.

Quintus Varrus never really liked his military grandfather much. He didn't have much to do with his father either. But both men were obviously involved in much more than young Quintus ever fathomed.

After unknown assassins have inexplicably burned down the family estate with a deadly fireball, Quintus, in disguise, wants to keep a low profile in Londinium (London).

There he meets the love of his life, a young Irish woman named Lydia Mcuil. Quintus will declare his love to the beautiful Lydia and manage to convince her father and brothers that his intentions are honorable.

An ambush is barely thwarted, bringing the young Roman into friendship with his rescuer, a hardened former military policeman known as Rufus Cato, who has his own score to settle with the powerful man behind the attack. Quintus is introduced to the secrets of an ancient brotherhood that is trying to halt the rot that is destroying their beloved Empire.

Lydia's father offers to set up the young Roman as a smith (under an Irish alias) to assist Mcuil's brother, Liam, at his forge, in the town of Colchester, along with his rebellious youngest son, Shamus. Our young lovers get to know each other from a distance.

A serious accident has threatened to undermine Liam's production of special armour, ring mail tunics he needs to supply to the army by a certain date. The Mcuil family hopes that this 'banished' hero, who seems to know something about the trade, will help with productivity.

Quintus, who remains within distance of regular visits from Lydia and family, carries with him a labarum (an official seal) that is known as 'the Emperor's license.' It denotes its bearer is an imperial envoy, giving him or her considerable power and importance. It's possible that Quintus is being hunted for this document. He still doesn't know.

While the plotline involving Quintus and his forged identity is the major one, near the outset readers will also follow Rufus Cato (called Rufus because of his red hair) and his team of dedicated members of the Mithraic Brotherhood. This was a mystic and ancient religion that involved initiation levels and bonds of brotherhood to oppose military corruption, stemming the number of raids on the shipments of iron ore ingots to battalions.

Corruption has been worming its way into the highest echelons. A monster called Appius Endo, nicknamed The Basilisk, who had already escaped from them once, is believed to be the chief culprit. Ultimately, fate will bring Rufus and the Basilisk together. But what if Appius Endo is not really the ultimate enemy?

Near the outset of The Burning Stone, Roman aristocrat Titanius Varrus, grandfather to our hero Quintus, has described the day he and his cohorts narrowly missed being killed by a screaming ball of fire that decimated the landscape and annihilated some 1,000 soldiers in a Roman legion.

The burning stone shows up again at the conclusion of this epic tale of intrigue, betrayal and passion, as Whyte tidies up a complex plot in which two different sets of characters finally mesh. But part of what we learn is that all is not quite revealed. So, does this mean a prequel?

Whyte has recently forewarned on CBC radio that he might not have another book in him. Meanwhile he has again masterfully melded legend, fact and fiction in his usual style in order to flesh out a shadowy time of which we know very little.

978-0-670-07000-8

Cherie Thiessen reviews fiction from Pender Island.

* [The Western Roman empire is generally believed to have existed until 476, a date popularized by the British historian Edward Gibbon. In that year the Roman Army in the West was defeated at the Battle of Ravenna by Odoacer who became the first King of Italy. The previous Western emperor Julius Nepos was assassinated in 480, so 476 is considered a transition point between antiquity and the Middle Ages.]

***

FICTION:

A Dream of Eagles (The Camolud Chronicles in the U.S.)
I. The Skystone (1992)
II. The Singing Sword (1993)
III. The Eagles' Brood (1994)
IV. The Saxon Shore (1995)
V. The Sorceror (Vol. 1): The Fort at River's Bend (1997)
The Sorceror (Vol. 2): Metamorphosis (1997)
VI. Uther (2001)
VII. Clothar the Frank (2004)
VIII. The Eagle (2005)

Knights Templar Trilogy
Knights of the Black and White (Penguin, 2006)
Standard of Honor (2007)
Order in Chaos (2009)

The Guardians of Scotland Trilogy

The Forest Laird: William Wallace (Penguin, 2010) 9780670068463 $36.00

ALSO:

Jack Whyte: Forty Years in Canada (Heritage, 2007) 978-1-894974-22-6

[BCBW 2010]