Review: Once and Future

Once and Future
by Cori McCarthy and Amy Rose Capetta

Publisher: Jimmy Patterson
Publication Date: March 26, 2019

A refugee from a planet controlled by the tyrannical Mercer corporation, all Ari Helix wants is to survive. But when she crash-lands on Old Earth and pulls a magic sword, Excalibur, from an ancient tree, she is revealed to be the newest reincarnation of King Arthur. Together with Merlin, who has aged backward over the centuries into a teenager, and her friends, they must break the curse that keeps Arthur coming back while doing something she never thought possible: defeating Mercer and bringing peace and equality to all humankind.

Packed full of LGBTQ+ characters, epic adventures, an ancient wizard, and immersive world-building, ONCE AND FUTURE is definitely a book unlike any other. Because of this, it is hard to truly capture its essence in just a short review. One of the things that makes this most challenging is the world the authors establish from the first page. This includes one of the best versions of the "evil corporation" trope that I have ever seen. To describe them as omnipresent and ruthless would be doing the Mercer corporation a wrong, as it wouldn’t quite capture the power behind their actions. To back this up, the authors create offense after offense for them to commit. Though going into details might spoil the story, I found myself completely and utterly agreeing with the characters that Mercer must go, truly understanding how a corporation can be evil. The authors create different aspects of their world like this throughout the book, writing some of the best world-building I have ever read. 

This type of world-building is seen most prominently in the story of King Arthur, and how the authors find a way to expand it while sticking true to the original story. This is done through the knights--well, their futuristic counterparts--maintaining the original relationships/betrayals, and the dark aspects that the story holds. What I liked the most about this is how the authors maintain these original characters while introducing a twist of their own: each character is written, in some sense, to bypass typical gender/romance restrictions in order to give each of them their own LGBTQ+ twist. I was beyond excited when I heard that this book would be having a twist like this, and I was not let down in the slightest. The way that the authors played with gender stereotypes in a story such as King Arthur was something which I never thought I would see in YA. If you are at all interested in seeing representation in a YA space opera/retelling, I would highly recommend this book to you for this exact reason.

Besides wishing that the book was a bit longer, I don’t think that there was a single thing I did not like with this book. With characters such as Ari, who truly embody the character of Arthur with her ferocious leadership and yearning for peace, and Merlin, who is literally the most perfect wizard I think I have ever met in my life, there was little that the authors could have gotten wrong. Filled with intense emotion, kick-ass characters, lush world building, and a twist unlike any other, ONCE AND FUTURE is a book that any sci-fi or fantasy lover would like.