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Finished Peter David's The Camelot Papers, which was purchased as part of the Truly Epic Fantasy StoryBundle, I think.
Years ago, I'd previously read David's other take on Arthuriana, Knight Life and its sequels (well, the 1st anyway, I'm not sure I finished all the sequels), and this is different. Very different.
TCP purports itself to be a behind-the-scenes "true story" of what really went on in the founding of King Arthur's court, kind of like a mashup of Monty Python's Life of Brian and Holy Grail, where they actually did go to Camelot* after all and everyone kind of stumbles into filling out the destined roles they seemed entirely unsuitable for in the first place.
All this is told through the eyes of Viviana, a surprisingly literate slave from a formerly middle-class background (not that there really was all that much of a middle class back then, but if you're looking for historical accuracy, this is the wrong book for you) as she observes the gradual and never-quite-complete transmutation of a vacantly well-meaning buffoonish idiot King Arthur, a forcefully tomboy-ish cross-dressing social justice activist queen Guinevere who has a severe case of sibling rivalry with her more traditionally seemingly sweet-natured femme girly-girl sister Morgan, a drunken lecherous hemophobic-to-the-point-of-fainting Sir Lancelot, and of course the completely fictional yet marvelously inspiring Sir Galahad into something vaguely like unto a semblance of the future heroic legend.
It's actually pretty funny, and if the intersection of Arthurian satire and gossipy hidden histories where Everything You Thought You Knew Is WRONG!!!!! appeal to you, then this gets a medium recommend.
Interestingly enough, according to Wikipedia this was the first in a planned set of novels by David and others written and released directly to the fans as e-books. Apparently they didn't sell all that well and David has decided to go the Amazon KDP release route for the next ones, which is a bit of a shame, since it was a nice idea.
* 'Tis still a silly place†.
† No grammatical graffiti lessons telling you to go home, though.
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