Ken Britz. Fall to Earth. New York: Ken Britz, 2017. E-book.

This reviewer had some curiosity about Fall to Earth because it seemed to have some connections to the King Arthur legend. Most of the characters have names taken from the Arthurian stories.

Even though it is science fiction from the near future, the main character is a champion fencer—i.e., swords(wo)man. Indiana Beckham, about the only name that does not allude to Camelot, becomes the focus of a scientific experiment set up by a military agency (DARPA?) overseen by a guy named Arthur.

The fictional science is that people have figured out how to have sword-like energy transmitters (think Star Wars light sabers) guided and powered by a person’s own brain and nervous system. The lead scientist is a Dr. Di Lago. Her name is simply Italian for Du Lac, Lancelot’s surname.

Beckham’s muscle memory from fencing makes the device become a deadly weapon in her hands. Like most of the main characters in this novel, Beckham is female. She is something of an outlier, though, because all the other participants in this weapon development are military. She is the only civilian warrior, but chose for obvious reasons.

The device works, in part, because of newer, concrete discoveries made connecting gravity and electromagnetic forces. According to Fall to Earth, the Theory of Everything will help make new weapons as well as new kinds of armor and propulsion. Some people whom everyone thinks are dead really are not, thanks to the new armor. There is also a new kind of “gravitic” propulsion that people are learning to harness to simplify space travel.

Arthur’s big rival in weapons development is the officer of a competing agency named Cornwall Marks. So we have the King Arthur vs. King Mark of Cornwall rivalry in this tale. But a lot of the names are merely coincidental, like Dr. Di Lago’s.

Isolde is Mark’s daughter, not wife, though a guy by the name of Tristram does have a crush on her. Mark’s research is located in Tintagel, Pennsylvania, instead of Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, Great Britain. There is no Merlin character in this story, but Arthur’s mother Igraine has developed an algorithm, using ideas developed by Richard Feynman or Tom Stoppard, that can predict certain events with impressive probabilities based on physical cause-effect occurrences. Beckham’s waveblade (as the weapon is called) is named Caliburn. A guy named Percy has one named Grall. Percival in most version of the legends finds the Holy Grail.

There is a secret society of women scientists named the Mare de Scientia which Dr. Di Lago belongs to. It is led by three highly respected older women (the Ladies of the Lake?), one named Modesty. There are two brothers Aggy and Gavin (Agravaine and Gawain?) One project is called Avallach which sounds like Avalon or Avillion. Other allusions abound.

Because there are so many characters and at least three different technological projects, Fall to Earth is a bit hard to follow at first. It is a corporate or interagency rivalry that becomes deadly. It has an ironic epilogue.

While many of the names and even the fighting style are reminiscent of the Arthur tales, Fall to Earth is its own story, not a retelling. Instead of magic, it is science fiction. But most readers understand there is an overlap between science fiction and fantasy. While this is clearly on the sci-fi sector of the Venn diagram, its characters and setting are a shout out to the fantasy circle, even if there is no real overlap in this story.