Blackmantle Book

I greatly enjoyed most of Kennealy's Keltiad novels as their basic premise is one of the most inventive and pleasing melds of Celtic myth, fantasy, and space travel I've ever encountered. It's a shame she never finished the other books planned in this fictional world.

Blackmantle is the sole disappointment in the Keltiad, although for me this was entirely due to knowing some of the author's own background. Patricia Kennealy (which is the name most of her novels were published under) was briefly romantically involved with the late Jim Morrison, lead singer for The Doors. Though they were never legally married, the author claims that they were handfast in a pagan ceremony. Morrison was also partnered with long-time companion Pamela Courson, to whom he left his estate and who in later probate proceedings was ruled to have been his common-law wife.

Beneath all the attractive Keltic trappings, Blackmantle is a supremely egotistical and utterly self-serving retelling of the author's romantic rivalry and Morrison's dual relationships.

When I was first becoming enchanted with other novels in the Keltiad, I visited the author's website. On it, I found a dire and portentous edict warning others not to infringe on her characters, storylines, or the like. The galling part of it was that it was written to suggest that Kennealy herself was both responsible for and the sole heir of Celtic spirituality, honor, and tradition. This combined with her spiteful and selfish storytelling in Blackmantle where she so modestly casts herself as the titular warrior queen with otherwordly magic has left me with little respect for the author as a person. As a writer, she's very talented, and I love the rest of the Keltiad immensely, but it would have been better if this book had not been written.