The Chapel Perilous (The Iron Druid Chronicles)

In his typical style Kevin blends legend with our favorite Iron Druid. In this Grail story our hero faces the undead while on a mission from God. Well, one of them. I highly recommend this short as well as the rest of this series. Funny, dramatic and tremendously entertaining!

I have it when people are always making absolute statements without ever thinking. In the before, the author makes a statement about how Christians make a mistake about the Holy Grail being associated with Christ. He claims it is based on a different legend that predated Christ. Has he never once considered there might have been two legendary cups. just because there was an older one doesn't mean the latter didn't also exist. I can't see why both couldn't exist and then their legends intermingled. Just because one is older doesn't make it the only one.

Huge fan of the Iron Druid series, but this novella seemed to lack substance and felt like it was a way to earn a quick buck from his fan base. Found the story uninspiring and unimaginative compared to his usual books.

I thought this would be interesting because I have studied the grail legends. But instead it is some kind of necromancer plot which is just dumb and not even told in a scary way. I am so tired of bad and overly short Kindle books, I just cannot let it go unpunished.

This story is amusing, but the story is as anachronistic with its knights, sirs etc as Geoffrey of Monmouth. One could also wish that Hearne could find a villain or even a god as powerful as his Druid.

The talking animal hook was old after the first time and now it's horses that talk? A 6th century horse that understands the opposable thumb concept when most 21st century Americans don't know what opposable means?

Seriously, see if the horse understands this: the bit is old. Move on.

The Chapel Perilous is a short story that takes place about four years before the events of Trapped and during Granuaile’s training period. It’s a play on the grail story of Gawain in which he visits the aforementioned Chapel Perilous and encounters a Black Hand (of doooom!). Sorry, couldn’t help it. Anyway, Oberon and Granuaile have some downtime and want a story, so Atticus gives them one. Atticus is Gawain (much to Granuaile’s amazement), and the “grail” in this story is actually a cauldron (Dagda’s Cauldren) that just keeps shootin’ out food. Well, not shooting exactly, but it’s definitely the gift that keeps on giving. Anyway, someone stole that awesome cauldron and Atticus was tasked with stealing it back. His quest leads him to a village surrounded by magic and of course, the Chapel Perilous, and that nasty hand. Also, necromancy and the walking dead…’cause Atticus is a trouble magnet. I love that about him, though, and The Chapel Perilous is a creepy, fun little “side quest” for Atticus, and is just a perfect little ball of goodness (a certain horse named Apple Jack doesn’t hurt.) My only problem with it is that I just KNOW that there are about a million story possibilities where Atticus is concerned, and I want them ALL. I mean, he’s really old, and, and…history! But, I’ll take what I can get and wait *patiently* for Shattered.

I am a Hearne addict so any little fix is a good thing to me. This story fit the bill. Very short of course and not clear that it is as important to the overall narrative as Two Ravens, but it explores Atticus's earlier life (after skipping most of 2000 years, Hearne has quite a bit to work with) in an interesting way. I only give it 4 stars since it is short and doesn't seem to be critical to the story (although he does reference it in Shattered), but it is still a must-buy for anyone who cares about the Iron Druid.

In The Chapel Perilous, Atticus tells Oberon and Granuaile how he was conned by Ogma of the Tuatha De Danann into retrieving Dagda's Cauldron from a thief in England. He claims that his adventures were later used as the starting point for the Grail adventures of King Arthur's knights and other such tales. Not a bad adventure tale.

This is a very short story, but it's typical Atticus-level fun. It's really neat seeing him before he created his amulet and some things that inspired him to start doing very important things for the main series. (Sorry that's vague, but I don't want to post any spoilers.)

I realize it's 99 cents, but there must be a way to just not offer a sample if you think it's a waste of your time and money to let my read even a short excerpt of your book. It's a waste of my money to buy a book that I just became upset about. I'm bound to go through the whole thing going "not good enough, you lied to me earlier, so I'm going to be super critical of every aspect of this book". Which is why I might as well leave this review now.