Rereading this, I'm struck by how successful Powys was in creating a fictional world set in the past. A small corner of what is now Wales, in the 5th century, is strange and believable. The traditional feuds and resentments woven into the story and its background, interact with the characters of the participants to drive the story, though drive is probably too dynamic for a story that moves at its own pace.
His ability to create multiple sub plots, and people them with interesting characters, is evident in other novels, like A Glastonbury Romance and Wolf Solent, but in Porius what is most impressive is Powys' ability to suggest that the people of the 5th century lived differently in the world, thought differently, understood themselves differently. He may not be historically correct, there's no way of knowing, but in Porius he created a convincing 5th Century Prince who is not a modern man dressed in funny clothes, bereft of modern technology.
Compared to most modern fiction pasted into the past, it's in a class of its own.
Rereading this, I'm also struck by how good it is.
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