Outlaw - Angus Donald

Outlaw produces two conflicting opinions in me. One is that it's undoubtedly a more realistic depiction of how Robin Hood would have operated/did operate. The other is that it's a grim n' gritty updating of the character.

This King of Sherwood Forest is a bit harsher than what you see most of the time in films and books. He operates as sort of a ruler himself, or maybe a mob boss. People can come to him with problems or disputes, and he'll make a decision, for a price. He'll promise to protect villages from the Sheriff Ralph Murdac, or other bandit groups. When one of those groups attacks a village in his territory, he hunts them down, kills all of them save the leader and one other, then has Little John lop off all the man's limbs save one. Then has the stumps cauterized so the man won't bleed to death, and tells the other man he spared to care for the leader, so I guess he'll survive long enough to spread word of what happened. That's the sort of thing I'd expect of a Garth Ennis character, rather than Robin Hood.

It isn't all like that. He takes in orphaned children (to train them as part of his army, but still), will treat prisoners who met him honorably in battle well, and is quite loyal to the people who are loyal to him. He takes some amusement from stealing arrows from the stores of Murdac's forces, and he has big feasts where he invites people from all across the countryside. OK, those are also sort of recruitment drives or attempts to win hearts and minds, but again, he does enjoy it.

It's probably a wise decision on Donald's part that the story is at least as much Alan Dale's. He's the one telling the tale, who was taken in by Robin to save him from the Sheriff, and the book is as much about his growth as it is Robin's struggle with Murdac. Alan struggles with fear, with disappointment, with the realization things aren't always as simple as we'd like them to be, both with our heroes and our villains. He learns to look at things from different perspectives from those he was raised with, or at least not to cling so doggedly to those beliefs that he can't recognize the validity of others'.

As I said, the book produces that strange disconnect inside me. I did enjoy it, once I decided to accept the tone and violence for what they were. Donald writes it pretty well, makes it easy enough to understand some of the more archaic words, keeps the plot moving. Certainly, if you're going to consume some sort of Robin Hood based entertainment, I'd absolutely recommend you read Outlaw as opposed to watching that Russell Crowe movie from a few years ago.3. Even so, I still prefer the more lighthearted, gently playful Robin Hood of the Disney animated movie for example, to the more vicious one Donald opts for here.