PotsandPlots

Sometimes a book just speaks to you. Feels as though it was written with you in mind. Perilous Times by Thomas D. Lee is one such book. It was the best book I read in 2025.

Perilous Times chimes with so many things I feel about life, whether that be corporate greed, George Cross wielders or humanity’s ability to willfully kick itself in the balls.

The story transports the Knights of the Round Table into a near-future and scarily plausible Britain. If you want to see how Arthur, Lancelot and the other knights of legend deal with corporate warfare and climate change, then this is the novel for you.

While I was writing this review, Lee announced that another book is on the way in June 2026. The Knight Watch will take place during WW2 (Perilous Times hints at the Knights’ previous actions during pivotal conflicts). I can’t wait for this one, and the need to read it may well see me override my “wait for the paperback” rule.

Growing Information:

Plant With: Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, State of the Nation

Grows Into: A riveting polemic on divided Britain.

Rating: Hardy Perennial 🌻🌻🌻 (Check here for rating information.)

Purchased copy. Available now in paperback (Affiliate Link).

The Review:

As the story opens, Sir Kay wakes beneath a tree. It’s not the first time. Whenever the nation is in trouble, the Knights of the Round Table arise to bring salvation. Merlin made it that way hundreds of years ago.

Kay almost immediately meets Mariam, who has just accidentally blown up a gas refinery. She meant to sabotage it, but not destroy it. The pair find themselves pursued by Saxons (Soldiers from the private security company, Saxon – one of many excellent references to be found in the book).

The pair escape. They talk. Mariam shoots Kay in the face. He dies. And wakes beneath his tree. He finds Mariam again, and they talk. This time, Mariam does not shoot. The pair travel together to a refugee camp somewhere between Preston and Manchester. Things at the camp are desperate.

Meanwhile, somewhere else in England, Lancelot wakes up to be met by Christopher Malowe. Yes, that Christopher Marlowe. He knows a thing or two about Faustian pacts and has been acting as a Knight’s handler for several hundred years. If you imagine an even more smug Richard Tice (difficult, I know), you get some measure of Marlowe’s character.

Marlowe has his fingers in some seriously suspect pies, and he’s not above using the Knights to do his dirty work. Yes, they’re meant to be saving Britain, but what exactly is Britain, anyway?

A key question posed by Perlious Times.

Why Read Perilous Times?

The book is so absorbing with lots of great threads. It’s bursting with ideas. First published in 2024, Lee would have no idea of the flag mania that spread through the nation in 2025, but his book encapsulates both its menace and absurdity.

Tensions with refugees and “purity” are central to the book. Kay does not want to wake Arthur, essentially because, despite the legends, he is a terrible human being. This was an interesting subversion of the myth. This depiction of Arthur as essentially Nigel Farage with a sword was unexpected. Lee uses this juxtaposition to skewer the nastiness of Farage and examine the small hatefulness of his rhetoric.

The layers continue. Climate change looms large over the book. The Lady of the Lake has been poisoned, Herne the Hunter is dying. Mariam and her friends are desperate to rescue the nation from environmental collapse, but humanity will not be helped. Money and convenience win out every time.

As a small aside, there is a hilarious parody of left-wing factionalism in the book. If Perlious Times took any inspiration from Monty Python and The Holy Grail, this bit is pure Life of Brian.

Sitting over all the myriad themes of Perlious Times is an examination of the hero. One of the characters, an older member of Mariam’s commune, says something to the effect that heroes are a convenient way of justifying doing nothing. Waiting for them to turn up and watching while they deal with your problems means you don’t have to take any responsibility yourself.

The waking of Arthur to solve the nation’s problems is the ultimate encapsulation of this idea. It’s central to Mariam’s arc in the novel. Lee’s thesis of heroes and heroism sets his story apart from the crowd. It’s an essential part of why Perilous Times was my book of 2025.

Perilous Times might draw on legend and be filled with magic, but it is a story for our times. It has a diverse range of characters that reflect the makeup of modern Britain.

Even the publication story of Perlious Realms reveals something about the times in which we live. In a recent thread about the publication of The Knight Watch, Lee wrote:

This is perhaps one of many reasons why it won't be published in the US any time soon. As I said at WFC in Brighton: Ballantine Books, who published Perilous Times in the US, wanted me to cut a major queer storyline from the book. When I refused to makes those edits, they cancelled the contract.

— Thomas D. Lee (@thomasdlee.bsky.social) 2026-01-07T14:21:40.860Z

Having read Perilous Times, there is nothing in it that needs cutting. Nothing that should be offensive to anybody with a shred of decency or a half-open mind. The refusal to publish encapsulates one of the themes of the novel: The strong will beat down on the weak. Fair play to Lee for standing his ground.

Perilous Times could have been a mere reframing of famous legends in a modern setting. It could have been just an entertaining parody. There are echoes of Pratchett in Lee’s storytelling. Yet, as with Pratchett, this is more than just comedy. It tells us truths about the world in which we live.

Some books you read and think, “Why isn’t everybody talking about this book?” I can’t remember where I first heard about Perilous Times, but I’m so glad I took a punt on picking it up. If you’ve read this far, then I wholeheartedly urge you to find a copy too.