Avilion is a fantasy novel by British author Robert Holdstock

Robert Holdstock

Robert Paul Holdstock was an English novelist and author best known for his works of Celtic, Nordic, Gothic and Pictish fantasy literature, predominantly in the fantasy subgenre of mythic fiction....

. It was published in the United Kingdom on July 16, 2009. It is his first Ryhope wood novel since Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn

Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn

Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn is a fantasy novel by British author Robert Holdstock. It was originally published in the US in 1997 The story is a prequel to Mythago Wood and explores the Christian Huxley's quest into Ryhope Wood and the apparent suicide of his mother, Jennifer Huxley...

was published in 1997. Avilion is Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....

's term for Avalon

Avalon

Avalon is a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legend. It first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 pseudohistorical account Historia Regum Britanniae as the place where King Arthur's sword Excalibur was forged and later where Arthur was...

 in Le Morte d'Arthur

Le Morte d'Arthur

Le Morte d'Arthur is a compilation by Sir Thomas Malory of Romance tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table...

. Avilion is described by Tennyson as an island valley with ideal weather and fertile land.

The novel Mythago Wood

Mythago Wood

Mythago Wood is a fantasy novel written by Robert Holdstock that was published in the United Kingdom in 1984. The conception began as a short story written for the 1979 Milford Writer's Workshop; next a novella of the same name appeared in the September 1981 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy &...

introduces tropes, terminology and a backstory that are built upon in Avilion.

Plot introduction

Avilion takes place after the events in Mythago Wood. Steven Huxley and the mythago Guiwenneth have been living in Ryhope wood where they are raising ther two children, each half-human, half-mythago. The older boy, Jack, wishes to know about the outside world while the younger girl, Yssobel, dreams about her uncle Christian, who vanished into Lavondyss at the end of Mythago Wood. Despite being comfortably settled and living an idyllic agrarian lifestyle, events at hand will change the family's future.

Critical commentary and awards

Early reviews have been very complimentary, with The Times Online saying "This is a wonderful, grown-up fantasy about growing up and moving on, and going home." and The Guardian commenting "Mythago Wood was a seminal expression of British fantasy, and Avilion, though lacking its predecessor's narrative drive and intensity, is an enthralling reworking of myth and a haunting vision of love and loss unmatched in contemporary fantasy."

Avilion was a finalist for a 2010 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award

Mythopoeic Awards

The Mythopoeic Awards for literature and literary studies are given by the Mythopoeic Society to authors of outstanding works in the fields of myth, fantasy, and the scholarly study of these areas; the full criteria and description can be read on the Mythopoeic Society's -Mythopoeic Fantasy...

 in the Adult Literature Category. It won the 2010 Best Fantasy and Horror Award from the Czech Akademie of Science Fiction.

Chronology of works in the Mythago Wood cycle

The order in which the Mythago cycle works were written/published does not necessarily correspond to the order of events within the realm of the Mythago Wood cycle. For example, Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn and the novella The Bone Forest are prequels to Mythago Wood even though they were published at a later date. The novel Merlin's Wood (1994) and short stories in The Bone Forest and Merlin's Wood have little bearing on the events in the Ryhope wood. See the table below for a chronology of events within Ryhope wood.
!width="40%"|Followed by:
|----- align="center"
|Mythago Wood

Mythago Wood

Mythago Wood is a fantasy novel written by Robert Holdstock that was published in the United Kingdom in 1984. The conception began as a short story written for the 1979 Milford Writer's Workshop; next a novella of the same name appeared in the September 1981 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy &...

|Avilion
|Lavondyss

Lavondyss

Lavondyss also titled Lavondyss: Journey to an Unknown Region is the second fantasy novel of the Mythago Wood series written by Robert Holdstock. Lavondyss was originally published in 1988...

|}