While HBO Max is in the spotlight on the occasion of the premiere of season 3 of the dragon house and the new installment of the successful The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Prime Video He kept a low profile while keeping an ace up his sleeve.

After the cancellation of The wheel of time, already waiting for season 3 to premiere The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power the next November 11or the adaptation of wings of bloodthe platform added the past January 23almost covertly, an unexpected fiction that is already finding its audience.

With hardly any promotion, Prime Video has released in full The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlina seven-episode miniseries that has managed to sneak into the service’s Top 10 thanks to word of mouth or perhaps the void left by the weekly launch of the epic HBO Max series. A medieval fantasy proposal that recovers one of the most famous legends of all time from a different point of view.

Before the legend of King Arthur

Instead of focusing on King Arthur, the fiction focuses on Merlin, decades before the birth of the mythical monarch. The story explores his origin, his childhood and the events that marked the fate of the legendary magician in a post-Roman Britain plunged into chaos after the withdrawal of the Roman Empire.

The series also features characters such as the Bard Taliesin and Princess Charis of Atlantis, whose forbidden romance will end up leading to the birth of Merlin. All this in a production that relies on the Celtic setting, medieval conflicts and an agile pace favored by a season of only seven episodes.

Based on a popular literary saga

The fiction adapts the first two novels of The Pendragon Cyclethe collection written by Stephen R. Lawhead. Published in 1987 and 1988 under the titles Taliesin and Marlineboth serve as a prologue to the story of Arturo, which the author would later develop in successive installments.

Although there is still no news about a second season, the original material would allow us to continue exploring the Arthurian legend for several years and focusing, this time, on the boy who managed to tear the sword from the stone.

Prime Video also fights other battles this summer

The platform will not only compete in the field of fantasy. In the coming weeks He also wants to continue becoming strong among the public young adultwhere recent house phenomena like Off Campus and All our years will face future rivals with the imminent Netflix premiere of The map of our desires and of Heartstopper forever.