Click the
Cover Picture or Title to purchase this item from Amazon.com -- a new browser
window will open.
Faery Lands
Forlorn
Dave Duncan
|
| Series:
"A Man of His Word", vol. 3. Sequel to:
Magic Casement; Followed by
Perilous Seas and Emperor & Clown |
Duncan continues to develop his fairly unique world
and his entirely unique system of magic in the second volume of "A Man of
His Word". The series as a whole is a romp through the richly-detailed world
of Pandemia, and each volume is as chock-full of wonders, adventure and
cliffhangers as the chapters in a Saturday-matinee adventure serial.
Beautiful (and, unusually for some books of
this type, intelligent) Inos, rightful Queen of Krasnegar,
and her great-aunt, Princess Kadolan (not nearly as fuddy duddy and
scatterbrained as she often appears) have been magically spirited away to
Zark (where the Djinns live -- the Arabian Nights come to life) and dropped
will she nill she into the middle of a rather nasty and dangerous palace
intrigue between the rightful (more or less, in Zark's "might makes right"
culture) Sultan and the "Sultana" a powerful sorceress who has displaced
him and rules him and his land through her sorcery, which has a strong sexual
element -- her spell on him causes his merest touch to burn the flesh of
anything female (except the sorceress herself) like red-hot iron.
Rasha, the sorceress, soi-disant "Sultana", hopes to use Inos in a political
game among the Wardens, the four powerful sorcerors who control the world's
sorcery under the Compact.
Inos, though apalled by the treatment and place of women in Zark, sets out
to make an ally of Azak, the Sultan, in an attempt to thwart Rasha.
Meanwhile, Rap the faithful stableboy, Little Chicken, and the Gang (those
who have read the previous book will understand that reference, a fuller
explication would be a spoiler if you haven't read the previous book yet)
find themselves in Faerie, where Much Is Not As It Seems, and Rap meets Captain
Gathmore, a genuine berserker Jotunn (Norse/Viking) who will be important
for the rest of the series.
Caught in a magical trap set for those who know Words of Power, Rap learns
a little more both about the Words themselves and about magic and sorcery
-- i always like the explanation that sorcery is permanent, magic fades sooner
or later after the magician turns his attention away, but the end result
is often the same -- a mage explains: "I could turn your head into an anvil.
It would be a temporary anvil, but you'd be permanently dead."
Rap and Little Chicken manage to escape, join Gathmore's jotunn crew and
escape Faerie.
Both Rap and Inos seem to be on their way to saving themselves and making
progress toward saving the other -- but the book ends with disasterous reverses
for both.
With two more books to go, all looks hopeless.
But, like all good serials, the next chapter will save us from this cliffhanger
and give us even more more thrills, chills and adventure...
And, of course, another cliffhanger. |
|
