Jack Whyte

Jack Whyte (born 1940) is a Scottish-Canadian novelist of historical fiction. Born and raised in Scotland, Whyte has been living in Canada since 1967. He resides in Kelowna, British Columbia.

Whyte's major work to date is a series of historical novels retelling the story of King Arthur against the backdrop of Roman Britain. This version of the popular legend eschews the use of magic to explain Arthur’s ascent to power and instead relies on the historical condition (with some artistic licence) of post-Roman Britain to support the theory that Arthur was meant to counter the anarchy left by the Roman departure from Britain in 410 AD and the subsequent colonization and invasion of Britain by various peoples from Northwestern Europe, including the Saxons, Jutes, Franks, and Angles. Whyte incorporates both traditional Arthurian names, places and events (albeit in Gaelic or Latin form) as well as the names of various historical figures that have been suggested as being the possible basis for the original King Arthur legend. The tacit implication is that Whyte's version of history is the true story that has become distorted over time to become the legend and stories of magic that we know today. The series has been published in different locations under three different titles. In Canada it was titled A Dream of Eagles; in the United States it was retitled The Camulod Chronicles, and when it was eventually republished in Great Britain with a different reading order, it became Legends of Camelot.

Jack Whyte served as the official bard of The Calgary Highlanders and performed several tracks of poetry and song on the 1990 recording by the Regimental Pipes and Drums of The Calgary Highlanders entitled Eighty Years of Glory: The Regimental Pipes, Drums and Bard of The Calgary Highlanders.^[1]

Camulod Chronicles

A Dream of Eagles (Camulod Chronicles or Legends of Camelot)

• The Skystone (published in Great Britain as War of the Celts)
• The Singing Sword (published in Great Britain as The Round Table)
• The Eagles' Brood (published in Great Britain as Merlyn)
• The Saxon Shore (published in Great Britain as Excalibur)
• The Sorcerer Part 1: The Fort at River's Bend (published in Great Britain as The Boy King)
• The Sorcerer Part 2: Metamorphosis (published in Great Britain as The Sorcerer)

The two volumes The Sorcerer: The Fort at River’s Bend and The Sorcerer: Metamorphosis were written as a single volume entitled The Sorcerer but were split for publication.

Golden Eagle (companion mini-series)

• Clothar the Frank (published as The Lance Thrower in the United States of America, and as Lancelot in Great Britain)
• The Eagle (published as The Last Stand in Great Britain)

Other

• Uther (published as Pendragon in Great Britain) is a stand-alone novel about the life of Uther Pendragon from infancy up until the end of events in The Eagles' Brood. It serves to answer lingering questions left open by The Eagles' Brood that result from the fact that the latter is told exclusively from the perspective of Merlyn Britannicus and as such is not able to explain actions and events of which Merlyn is unaware. In this way, Uther is also an effective companion novel to The Eagles' Brood as it follows the title character and others as they grow up and wage war on Uther's main enemy, Guhlrys Lot, King of Cornwall.

British editions

When the series was first published in Great Britain in 2013 and 2014, the books were retitled as indicated above, placed in a different order, and organized into several sub-series. The Saxon Shore and the two parts of The Sorcerer became the first sub-series, Arthur the Hero; Clothar the Frank and The Eagle became the second sub-series, Arthur the King; The Eagles' Brood and Uther became the third sub-series, Arthur the Son; and The Skystone and The Singing Sword became the fourth and final sub-series, Arthur the Dynast. The British editions thus came close to reversing the internal chronological and publication orders of the series.

The Templar Trilogy

• Knights of the Black and White (released August 1, 2006 in Canada)
• Standard of Honor (released August 28, 2007 in Canada)
• Order in Chaos (released in August 2009)

The Guardians of Scotland

• The Forest Laird (2010)
• The Renegade (2012)
• The Guardian (2014)

Short fiction

Though primarily a novelist, Whyte has also written and published at least one short story:

• "Power Play" in Paradox Magazine, issue 8 (Winter 2005-2006), an exploration of the nature of power, set in Roman Jerusalem.

References

1. "Regimental Bard of The Calgary Highlanders". The Calgary Highlanders. Canadian Department of National Defence. Retrieved 2008-11-02.

Further reading

• A Way with Words in Okanagan Life Magazine (includes a profile of Whyte)

External links

• Official website for Jack Whyte. Includes biography, bibliography, book excerpts, radio interview transcripts, and an active fan forum.
• Jack Whyte's now defunct blog at the penguin.ca website at the Wayback Machine (archived January 8, 2006). Includes questions by readers and Whyte's answers to those questions, as well as general observations by Whyte.
• Jack Whyte: one pen, one sword, one million sold Feature article about Jack Whyte published in the Globe and Mail, Sept 2, 2009
• Jack Whyte at Fantasy Literature
• Jack Whyte at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database