With The Mists of Avalon the reader enjoys a new perspective: that of the women [in the Arthurian legends]…. Furthermore, the development of the novel depends not on a contest between good and evil, Christianity and paganism, nor on the characters themselves so much as it does on the tension that frowns as a new culture overshadows and obliterates an older one. Thus Marion Zimmer Bradley has written of a present urgency in a mythical setting, and written magnificently at that! (p. 2)

Perhaps the most beautiful and wonderful image in the story is that of Avalon/Glastonbury, separated by a magical veil of mist, two worlds sharing a single island, one tradition on different planes. The passage from the real world to the mystical will linger in the reader's mind long after battles, pageants and Pellinore's dragon have faded from memory; the question, too, of which world was the more real will remain.

Marion Zimmer Bradley deserves high praise for her work since this great and sweeping book successfully ties together legend and lore. Slightly archaic usages and references to ancient events as recent or current establish the period without identifying it, thereby adding to the mythical setting. My only complaint is in the use of "karma" and "firewater," both of which evoke decidedly non-Arthurian images; but these are mere motes in a brilliant panorama.

Read The Mists of Avalon … and revel in the wonder of it. (p. 3)