"The Hollow Hills " by Mary Stewart

Second part of Stewart's Merlin Trilogy - magical as it is, it suffers from the fact that the focus of the novel is on a character who for the most part is yet still absent, so the authoress sets the stage for his arrival, dealing with not-really-so-exciting whereabouts of Merlin (because of political intrigues, Merlin should avoid meeting the boy before the right time occurs). Stewart takes her sweet time to describe every single meadow, glen, valley and the chestnut tree there ever was, which sorely tests reader's patience - its all done with great sophistication and class but I became so disenchanted that I left the novel simmering on the side for a while, pondering should I continue at all. Once young, luminous Arthur arrives, galloping on the scene, things pick up very quickly and from than on, the novel is pure pleasure but I still have some misgivings about the pacing of the story, it just feels as we wasted far too much time on irrelevant side stories that serve nothing but delay the action.

Once we are introduced to Arthur, the novel moves very fast indeed - Stewart is all starry-eyed when she describes him and manages to engage reader into her worship, though it makes one wonder how nobody else noticed his radiance trough the long years of anonymity. Just like before, Stewart avoids almost any mention of female characters, except that troublesome vixen Morgause - the all-too-short scene where Merlin clashes head on with her is one of the highlights of the novel. Thought it seems that nothing can reach the same level of masterpiece that "Once and Future King" was, and I am fully aware of Stewart's strange obsession with descriptions of leaves shining on the tree for several pages, at this point I became already so hooked that there is no question that I am continuing with the third part right now. 

One interesting thing worth mentioning is that Merlin actually very rarely uses magic in a sense we could expect - he does occasional trick here and there, but mostly uses common sense and toys with expectations of the people around him, who are too awed and flabbergasted with his presence. He knows his herbs and potions for sure, but mainly he understands that, being outsider, he is destined to always inspire fear and superstition in his audience. That is why I personally find the character of Morgause so fascinating because she is literally the only one person who dares to stand up against him, in hindsight perhaps Stewart should have focused more on her than on Merlin - leave it to Marion Zimmer Bradley to explore that perspective.