The King With Ten Friends is the factional autobiography of William Windsor, a character in Sylvia La Some's Alchemy Cycle.
Plot edit
The book chronicles the young King's messianic mission to bring Peace to the World.
The Robing Room edit
The first volume of the series begins with the terrorist attack on the Houses of Parliament which leaves Windsor trapped beneath the rubble of the Robing Room for three days.
The volume centres on the visions Windsor experiences during his entrapment. These include being gored in the right eye and side by a unicorn, being anointed and proclaimed Messiah by the Archangel Michael, being identified by a voice Windsor equates with Merlin as King Arthur (the "Once and Future King") who has returned from Avalon to save Britain in its hour of need, and a variety of other visitations. The narrator attributes these to having his head and chest crushed by an ornamental fireplace, plus spending too much time as a kid looking at the art in the room in which we has now trapped.
The conversations take the form of dialogues on the nature of "hospitality, generosity, mercy, religion and courtesy", as depicted in the William Dyce works which adorn the Robing Room.
When Windsor is miraculously pulled, alive and conscious, from the rubble he announces from his stretcher to the attendant media that his response will be to make Peace with his greatest enemies, and thus begins his messianic mission to end war.
Peacemaker edit
Windsor spends some time recovering from his physical ordeal. This chapter introduces the first of the "Ten Friends" of the title.
Remaining volumes edit
The later volumes cover Windsor's meetings with the other "friends", against a backdrop of growing personal controversy and world events of the day. Each introduces another of the friends, each of whom shapes his ideas about himself and provides the contacts he needs to sign a comprehensive treaty with the Islamic Republic of Iraq and Iran, based on Windsor's official "confession" of his country's "colonialist stupidity and shameful xenophobia", to reunite the Anglican and Catholic churches — in a personal arrangement with a new Pope who would go on to dismantle the financial apparatus of Catholicism — and to successfully broker a peaceful conclusion to the conflict in the Middle East, all within a period between January, 2007 and July, 2009, when he is diagnosed with schizophrenia and hospitalised after publicly declaring a "New Gold Age for a United Planet", under his personal leadership.
Narrator edit
The Archangel Michael, who claims to be Windsor's Holy Guardian Angel, produces a running critique of his performance as "Peacemaker" throughout the work. At times witty, but generally cynical and snarky, the commentary serves as a counterpoint to the apparently mystical apotheosis of the self-proclaimed Second Coming of Christ.
The Ten Friends edit
During his post-accession "pilgrimage", Windsor visits a number of world leaders and prominent thinkers, often spending hours in conversation during which he attempts to elicit reaction to his personal theories of international peacemaking. According to the novel, ten of these meetings had a significant and lasting impact on Windsor's philosophy.
Criticism edit
The use of a "cynical narrator", intended to reflect Windsor's position from the vantage point of his full recovery, was widely felt to be heavy-handed. Sir Michael Parkinson's biography Wills includes a quote suggesting Windsor believed his publisher had been pressured to provide the narration, which Windsor had been contractually required to approve.
Publication edit
The King With Ten Friends (a reference to Jay Williams' The King With Six Friends, a childhood favourite of Windsor's) was published as a webcomic from June to December 2010. It was collected and released as a 320-page graphic novel and a variety of electronic formats in early February 2011.
Access to the first webcomic written by a sitting King was made available via viral invitation, and pre-publicity saw unique visitor counts rise from an initial 1.5 million per hour to reach 69 million within 24 hours. During the six months of its publication, unique visitors were estimated at 1.17 billion, although return readership had peaked in late August, 2010.
The POD graphic novel saw paper sales of 28 million in its "first imprint" and, by late 2012, 168 million copies internationally. A further 822 million download sales (excluding unauthorised copies), many at significantly reduced cost, were recorded.
External links edit
- Michael the Archangel has been associated with Mithraism
- Robing Room photos: