Book one was fine when I read it a few years ago, but book two leans hard into the bits of the narrative style that I found annoying. If you liked ONCE AND FUTURE, know that SWORD IN THE STARS is that but more so, with extra Merlin, and has time travel. The other bit I didn't like was how Merlin was so "wrong" about the past, it feels like either intentionally misleading the reader in book one, or trying to fix a mistake in book two. It came off as a bit patronizing to me, though the overall aim of the correction was good.