andrew j offut

Cormac Mac Art series

The Sword of the Gael (1976) Cormac and his faithful comrade Wulfhere Skull-splitter, are hurled through a swirling maelstrom to a faraway shore. There, Cormac joins up with the Princess Samaire and sets out to regain a throne. A tight little Howard pastiche. The action starts fast and ferocious and never really lets up; there are times when the relentless momentum can cause reader exhaustion. Vivid, archetypal characters, lots of references to Celtic myth and folklore, eternal return hints, some dark sorceries, a feisty main female character and a brooding, scarred man of battles at the focus.

The Undying Wizard (1976) Cormac Mac Art, the son of an Irish king, forced to live the life of an outlaw after he is unjustly accused of a crime, is finally vindicated and then pursued by an evil wizard who has waited centuries to seek revenge.

The Sign of the Moonbow (1977) Syagrius, the last Roman commander in the West,  accepts the aid of Cormac Mac Art and Wulfhere the Skull-Splitter in defending Sossions against Clovis. Tied in with the historical fact of Syagrius' defeat in 486, which ended Roman control of southern Gaul, and marked the end of his 10-year holdout after the fall of Rome, this final work in the series begun by Robert E. Howard ends Thulsa Doom's reign of terror as Cormac's arch-foe. With the lovely Samire at his side, the heroes do battle with Hengist, the Danish king and mortal enemy of Wulfhere, before reaching doomed Sossions. Andrew Offut also uses the novel to advance theories on the origins of the Irish race, tying in the Tulath de Danu, with their moonbow emblem, with Greek Diana, who also is identified with the crescent Moon. A good, light read, for those who like historical settings for swords & sorcery adventures.

The Mists of Doom (1977) This is a prequel to Howard's short stories and tells of the origins of Cormac. It has very good battle scenes and is an excellent introduction to the series. The narrative is such that it begins with a quest for vengeance and then, turns into potential cycles of prowess, exile, deceit, discovery, prowess and repeat.

When Death Birds Fly (1980) (with Keith Taylor) The name of Lucanor "Magus" strikes fear into the souls of all who sail the rough seas between Galicia and Britannia, for the spells of this mage and sorcerer are as evil as his heart--and he will rule these shores by whatever means he can. But he reckons without Cormac mac Art, he of the black hair and light eyes who has struck his own kind of fear throughout his native Eirrin and as far beyond as seafarers wander and tell tales of courage. Cormac is a warrior, more than a match for any other with sword or ax, but he is more than that. The blood of the High-kings of ancient days runs in his veins: the sorceries of such as Lucanor cannot overcome him though they come from the very bowels of Hell!

The Tower of Death (1982) (with Keith Taylor) brings to life the young Cormac, newly exiled,filled with the grim determination to prove his manhood on the treacherous sea lanes of fifth century Europe. Along with Wulfhere the Dane, whose name is as feared as Cormac’s own, the Irish prince turns pirate and is too successful at his chosen vocation for his own good...

War of the Wizards series (with Richard K Lyon)

Demon in the Mirror (1977)   begins the War of the Wizards Trilogy featuring the flame-haired Tiana Highrider, rapier wielding heroine extraordinaire. Much like Sonja, Tiana is brash and impulsive yet wise beyond the common perception of most. She is the foster daughter of a pirate captain named Caranga and captain of her own vessel, "Vixen." While she is a pirate captain, only the first chapter takes place on the open sea. The rest of Tiana's adventures take place inland searching for the dismembered body parts of the wizard Derramal. Her father Caranga also aids Tiana in her quest retrieving two of the pieces on quests of his own. While Demon in the Mirror is a rather short book (189 pages) it's absolutely filled with all the necessary action and adventure an epic fantasy tale embodies.

The Eyes of Sarsis (1980)  drops the interesting set pieces and episodic nature of its  predecessor (to its detriment), but like that predecessor it has a cover that's really easy to make fun of:  The likable and intriguing elements of the story--the invisible Shadow War between wizards and prehuman serpent-people, the city of strangely...bovine inhabitants, the easy defeat of the bad guy with plenty of time left in the book, and a raid upon a pirate stronghold which appears to be too late--are all overshadowed by Tiana herself, whose image of being a successful and equal-to-all-men pirate captain is continually undercut by immature behavior, a hotheaded need to prove herself (to whom?), and a weird need to attract or manipulate men by means of her appearance. There are several times when a man (especially an Older or Wiser man) has to set her straight, either by an outright rescue or by carefully explaining that the abusive, prejudicial, obnoxious Bjaine is Just Not Suitable for her. She comes off as being little better than the (purely ornamental) princess she's trying to rescue. It's as if the authors intended the successful, equal-to-all-men character, but only when she's not being a silly _girl_.

Web of the Spider (1981) Daring pirate captain! Bold-hearted adventuress! Brave and beautiful Tiana, enemy of the evil and powerful wizard Ekron, embarks on the most perilous of all her adventures at the helm of the Vixen. Armed with a black casket and its mysterious contents, as eyes track her from a distant storm-tossed island and fireballs roar from a crimson sky, Tiana, Highrider of Reme, journeys to an alien land where she will play out her awesom part in the deadly climax of the War of the Wizards!

War of the Gods on Earth series

The Iron Lords (1979) His true origin shrouded in mysteries, the youth Jarik fled with his un-sister, Torsy, to the harsh land of the Iron Lords. There he was schooled in the mighty arts of war. And there, guided by invincible gods to fulfill his twin destinies of great healer and savage avenger, he claimed the devastating Black Sword that would carve his legend in blood...a legend of a vengeance-thirst as dark and merciless as the magic weapon he wielded...born from the seeds of a manchild's Terror, sown so long ago.

Shadows Out of Hell (1980) Wielder of the god-sword, bearer of the god-bonds--Jarik Blacksword knew no peace...except the peace born of the heat of battle-rage! And this he would find aplenty on his god-sent quest past world's end, where Jarik found the warrior-sister who would be his future--and the knowledge that would bind his fate...

The Lady of the Snowmist (1983) When the Lady of the Snowmist freed Jarik Blacksword of his god-bonds, She bound him forever with a blood-tie and battle-scar to the knowledge that gods warred with gods on the earth -- and why. . . Yet even She could not contain the boundless rage of Jarik's god-sword. Or his thirst to become, throughbattle, whole at last.

King Dragon (1980) From deep space came a signal, sent just under a thousand years before: a planet called Jauhar al-Ajr, third from its sun and of a type that could be made livable for human beings, was being terraformed as an experiment in observed evolution. Aboard the now ancient ship sent to colonize the planet were embryos modified by genetic engineering: feline, canine, ursine, saurian. And perhaps--but only perhaps--human. For a thousand years these creatures have developed on an alien world--into what? What strange quirks has the planet Jauhar al-Ajr imposed on the devlopment of the species that on Earth became cats, dogs, bears, lizards...and men. After a thousand years of isolation, Earth means to find out. The mission will be dangerous, but it will be the making of everyone aboard. A lost world in space, ready for exploration, the world of KING DRAGON.

Standalones

The Galactic Rejects (1967) Stranded on an unknown planet, two men and a girl from Earth devise a carnival act to disguise their special powers and better fit in with the natives.

Evil Is Live Spelled Backwards (1970) "LET THERE BE LICENSE!" Satan spoke, and the orgy began, the writhing figures making weird patterns in the deserted churchyard.... A scene from medieval fantasy? No - 21st-century America, battleground between a religious tyranny that dominates the nation and a bizarre Satanist cult that uses the only weapons it has to fight for freedom. The Satanists are moving more daringly, the Government striking back more harshly - and the moment is coming when the word will flash out for the final battle: "This is Armageddon - repeat, ARMAGEDDON."

The Great 24-Hour Thing (1971) For one great, orgiastic day, every man on Earth could have sex with anyone he wanted!

The Castle Keeps (1972) more ambitiously depicts through an acid examination of Survivalist shibboleths the violent disintegration of Western culture through Overpopulation and Pollution; survivors, who live in armored Keeps, keep the world at bay. This is pretty much everything I hate about conservative libertarians. The characters were more one dimensional than an Ayn Rand novel. The main protagonist went to town, complaining about renting a “minik” for the day, when he only needed it for an hour, because he won’t use “public conveniences” (transport), presumably because it’s for communists.

Messenger of Zhuvastou (1973) In hot pursuit of his beautiful "fiancee", playboy Morris Keniston arrives on the mysterious and hostile planet Sovold. Before he can sample its violent lifestyle and bizarre terrain, or combat the amoral whims of its courts (and blue-haired courtesans) he needs to adopt a suitable disguise. So, with shaved head and skin dyed beige, he dons the yellow-crested helmet and green cloak of a Messenger of the mighty empire of Zhuvastou. Armed only with a heavy sword he is ready to set out on his urgent quest.  It most resembles L Sprague de Camp's Krishna series, even having the obligatory "Z" in the title: a technologically backward planet where these Earth people wander around in disguise, with some vague and frequently-sidestepped injunction against technological uplift. But Offutt doesn't manage the characterization or de Camp's mildly comic tone.

The Black Sorcerer of the Black Castle (1974) A Satire of Howard's Conan. Kimon the Konerian sets out to free the Princess Sabell, she alone knows the location of the Jewels of Chthon. Offutt exaggerates Howard's use of the word 'black' and it's many synonyms in this limited release chapbook. Illustrated by Ken Raney.

Chieftain of Andor (1976)  aka Clansman of Andor Robert Cleve does not belong. On Earth, he is out of his depth – a semi-barbarian, an atavist in the modern world.  But one day, he answers an ad that will change his life forever. He is offered an opportunity to live in another man’s body – on another planet, many parsecs away. A man with no ties, decisive mind, and sound body, Cleve is selected to take over the body of warrior chief Doralan Andrah, who is pivotal on his world of Andor, but whose mind is dying.  Cleve’s adjustment to the semi-primitive world is hard and fast – just how Cleve thrives. He quickly adapts to the new body and skills, learning to become the warrior he knew he always could be. But his memories of Earth and our treatment of sorcery leaves him vulnerable in a way he never anticipated. Soon, he finds himself surrounded by a cloud of confusion, assaulted from all sides by unfamiliar and unalloyed powers. His odyssey begins into the deepest depths of Andor, but he is woefully underprepared for the nameless terrors that await him…

My Lord Barbarian (1977) Valeron car Nadh swore violently. It was an impossible situation. The Emperor was dead – killed by the vilest sort of treachery. And, if that weren't bad enough, his beautiful daughter, Aleysha, was being forced into marriage... a heinous marriage to her father's assassin! Valeron had but a few days in which to halt these nefarious schemes... only a few days in which to rally the Kings on the other worlds of Carmeis... only a few days to catch the villain before he became the most powerful ruler of all. Unfortunately, there was one small problem. Valeron car Nadh, Warlord of Branarius, was locked in prison, accused of murdering the Emperor... and they had left him there to rot!  It plays in the same space as The Rebel of Rhada (Alfred Coppel), The Planet Wizard (John Jakes), and Star Barbarian (Dave Van Arnam), and is therefore a book that I would leap into with the greatest of enthusiasm, especially because Offutt seemed determined to have more fun with the concept than the others. What he produced is a fairly conventional sword-and-sorcery story with a veneer of setting that may ultimately have been more harm than good. I like the idea of an artificial solar system mysterously and catastrophically reduced to Iron Age technology (especially where the actual facts behind "The Wrath of Siense" and the Ancients in general are left murky), but the scale of it invites questions that Offutt wasn't prepared to answer, and offers opportunities he wouldn't take advantage of.

Conan series

Conan and the Sorcerer (1978) The mightiest barbarian returns in an all new illustrated adventure, matching wits with a Black Magician to regain the Eye Of Erlik - and his very soul.  Even more so than Robert Jordan, Andrew Offutt can write a fantastic Conan tale. He gets the character of Conan, gets the dialogue and manner of speech, understands his actions and reactions. Offutt clearly went out of his way to understand both the author and his creation.

The Sword of Skelos (1979) With the beautiful and fierce Isparana at his side, Conan must cross a brutal and deadly desert in order to deliver their precious cargo-a magical amulet known as the Eye of Erlik. But rather than collecting untold riches for their rare treasure, they are betrayed by a ruthless tyrant and his evil mage. Conan has faced many mortal dangers, perils of magic and perils of steel. But when the treacherous prestidigitator unleashes the bloodthirsty Sword of Skelos, a weapon of both magic and steel-a sword that can fight on its own-Conan faces one of his most dire challenges. How will Conan survive this battle, when there is no foe to slay?

Conan the Mercenary (1985) Conan is in Shadizar pursuing his career as a thief when he stumbles across a noble woman being robbed. He saves her life and she decides to hire him as a bodyguard, which pays much better than thievery. Conan is thrilled to find that she is cousin to a foreign queen, for he needs a crowned noble to break the curse which traps his soul. He follows her to Khauran and finds that the queen is cavorting with a suspicious young nobleman of questionable lineage. He also finds that his first foray into life as a palace guard is not to his liking. There is too much palace intrigue and not enough assassins. It's boring. His boredom is broken when he is drugged and betrayed, then he comes up with one his most clever plans to reveal the culprit. He kills a bunch of bandits, argues theology with some drunks, and engages in a bit of pedophilia. A short novel with 50 pages of illustrations. Much of the book is spent describing the elaborate clothing of rich noble women. And people are once again subject to horripilation. Entertaining but lacking the amount of action normally found in a Conan novel.

Thieves' World spin-offs

Shadowspawn (1987) Mignureal is the daughter of the first person to show Hanse kindness in his harsh upbringing. He was once a lonely and ostracized orphan who was denied food by all those around him save her mother. A sort of whimsical tale about two people traveling from their homeland, across a desert and all the perilous conditions they fall into.

Deathknight (1990) He is honour-bound to preserve the peace – at any cost… Falc of Risskor is feared, respected and obeyed throughout the land.  Known as Deathknight, he is an infamous member of the Sons of Ashah – honour-sworn men who preserve the peace had protect the citystates of Sij. Feared. Respected. Obeyed. And perhaps hated… The Deathknight is about to realise just how true that is. When knights of the Order start being killed, Falc must bring justice and seek revenge on the brutal murderer With an unlikely companion and a loyal darg, Falc ventures across the land to seek vengeance, and avoid being killed himself.  On the way, he will have to encounter those who know him, those who hate him, and those who want to kill him. His task is a difficult one, but will Falc uncover the truth and protect the Order?  And what else will he learn along the way?

The Shadow of Sorcery (1993) The most popular character in the Thieves' World series returns. Shadowspawn is more than a mere thief. He is lord of the night, king of adventure. In his latest quest to find the fabled Rings of Senek, Shadowspawn is plunged into a labyrinthine maze where demons lurk--and where deadly illusions trap the unsuspecting.

Anthologies

Swords Against Darkness (1977) Contains the following: "Nekht Semerkeeht", this was a decent story. I really liked the attitude of the lost conquistador. I can fully imagine them being like that. The action is quick paced and the ending is almost tragic enough to make me laugh. "Tale of Hauk", pretty much a modern rendition of a classic story a Norse Saga hero taking on a Draugr. Vergy good. "The Smile of Oisia", great story of a theft just gone awry. I particularly enjoyed one of the heroes having to roll the dice with Chance herself. "Pride of the Fleet" Awesome story, never seen the ending coming until right at the end. She was the kind of heroine I would of liked to have more stories of though. "Straggler from Atlantis", I loved this story. I just wish there was a little more to it. "The Ring of Set", excellent story. Wish I could get a hold of a ring like that, well, maybe not..... "Largarut's Bane" A very good story. I think the daughter was my favorite character of the entire story. "Dragons Teeth", now this was an awesome story. Action, magic, and WTF! Interesting times on the Roman frontier. "The Sustenance of Hoak", rounds out the stories in impressive fashion. I couldn't imagine the horror of living in a place like Hoak, but neither could the ones living it, now isn't that a conundrum?

Swords Against Darkness II While not quite as strong overall as the first volume, this book still contains many fine stories, and an interesting mix of authors. The first is a Witch World story by Andre Norton, that I found had a fine atmosphere, but the plot was rather weak and uninspired, though their were many elements of interest for me in the world building, and many mysteries she opens up that I hope she solves in other Witch World stories. Ramsey Campbell's Ryre story in this volume is magnificent, and I look forward to reading all the stories involving this character. Many Wade Wellman's Kardios story is fun and well written and highly enjoyable. David M. Harris' Coming of Age in Zamora is one of the weaker stories of this volume, by the end I came to enjoy it, as it is a humorous and ribald tale well told. Richard Teirney's Simon of Gitta story is well told and well written. Then we have a story by Tanith Lee, well written with many of her distinctive trademarks and a very unique voice. The story by Dennis More, a pseudonym for Keith Taylor is also well done. andy j. offutt's entry in this volume is fairly decent, not my favorite, but pretty good, some inventive bits and some nice twists. Worth the price of admission, yet again.

Swords Against Darkness III  The contents are all good, and the poetry is short and quick to read (but probably good if you like that sort of thing). Drake, Wellman, Campbell and Madison were the best stories in the book, I think, and Poul Anderson's essay an interesting look behind the scenes.

Swords Against Darkness IV (1979) . So far the instalments had been quite enjoyable, each with a solid table of contents, and this one looked to offer up the same level quality. Included are Charles R. Saunders tales set in ancient Africa instead of pre-historic Europe.

Swords Against Darkness V Slightly weaker than the earlier volumes, but Ramsey Campbell returns with a great story.

Lloyd Alexander

I RECENTLY came upon my tattered paperback of The Book of Three. The stylized drawing on the cover of a young boy, a red-haired girl, and a white pig was like a forgotten photo of old friends. Taran, the young boy, struck a special pang of remembrance; at various points while reading of his exploits I wanted to be him, befriend him, and date him (or at least, the prepubescent equivalent). His creator, Lloyd Alexander, remembered that children both long to grow up and fear it, and gave me a protagonist with whom I could empathize. In The Book of Three and its sequels, Alexander tells a complex tale of fear, grief, pride, compassion, dawning knowledge of romantic love, and the terrible sadness of looking for an answer to the riddle of one’s own identity. But he never forgets to speak directly to his target audience: children.

The book, the first of Lloyd Alexander’s five-book high fantasy series The Chronicles of Prydain, came out 50 years ago this past August, and in honor of the anniversary, the original cover, by famed illustrator Evaline Ness, is being re-released by Henry Holt in a tasteful red, black, and gold hardback version. (Ness was married to Eliot Ness, whose work as a Prohibition agent in Chicago was made famous in the book and then movie The Untouchables, but she divorced him during his very public downfall.) My copy, however, is from the 1990 reprint, with hilariously ’80s cover art by Jody Lee that seems modeled directly after a Renaissance Faire; let’s just say that everyone is wearing some sort of circlet, always. This version will forever be my gateway to Prydain.

The series revolves around Taran, a young orphan living with his guardian Coll and the enchanter Dallben in a sleepy homestead. Frustrated by farm life and forced to make horseshoes instead of swords, Taran sulks and whines until Coll bestows a title on him, though it is not the one young Taran had hoped for. Instead of Taran the Knight or, even better, Prince Taran, he becomes Taran the Assistant Pig-Keeper. After all, our young hero’s job is to care for Hen Wen, an oracular pig.

This humble title will follow Taran through his adventures, chronicled in the five books of the series. Much as they do in Harry Potter, these books grow in scope and ambition as their protagonist ages, reaching a peak of sophistication with the final volume, the Newbery Award–winning The High King. At the beginning, however, there is just young Taran, dutifully minding his porcine charge when she takes fright and runs into the forest. He heads in after her, and his adventures begin. After barely escaping from the roaming warriors of an evil king, he stumbles upon Gwydion, prince of the land, who is journeying undercover through the realm. They, in turn, meet Gurgi, a furry, vaguely humanoid creature who speaks in childish rhymes and whose provenance is never fully explained. (We never meet another creature of his kind, and he’s vaguely referred to as being something between a human and an animal, making him some sort of Prydainian missing link.) Taran disregards Gwydion until his status as royalty is revealed, and reviles Gurgi for his seeming weakness. As Gwydion tells him, “It is not the trappings that make the prince, nor, indeed, the sword that makes the warrior.” But Taran, like most of us, doesn’t learn this lesson the first time. Throughout the series the young boy struggles with yearnings for grandeur and with a prickly pride born of his own insecurity.

Taran and Gwydion are soon apprehended by the evil Queen Achren, who throws them into her standard-issue villainous dungeons. When all seems lost, Taran meets the chattering, willful Princess Eilonwy of the red-gold hair. She lives in the castle as Achren’s ward and leads our young hero to safety through a series of hidden tunnels she uses to evade her cruel guardian. Through a case of mistaken identity, they meet up not with Gwydion but with Fflewddur Fflam, a king attempting to be a bard, plagued by a harp whose strings snap when he succumbs to his penchant for exaggeration.


While most of these central characters are his own creation, Alexander drew heavily on the Mabinogion, a collection of medieval Welsh myths, as well as on scholarly works such as Robert Graves’s The White Goddess. From these influences and others Alexander developed his own version of what Joseph Campbell called the monomyth: the universal pattern of many epic stories. The parallels between this series and Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and countless other fantasy epics are clear: an unrecognized hero accepts a quest despite great odds against him, learns he is stronger/greater/more important than originally thought, defeats an evil leader, and returns home in triumph. That could as easily apply to young Skywalker as to our own Assistant Pig-Keeper.

Like Bilbo before him and Harry after, Taran is an unlikely hero, and he stumbles his way through the book, realizing fairly quickly that he is in over his head. “At home, nothing ever happened,” he says. “Now, everything happens. But somehow I can never seem to make it come out right.” He leans heavily on Fflewddur, Eilonwy, Gwydion, and even Gurgi, whose bravery and selflessness become clear. At the end of The Book of Three, Taran laments that he actually did very little except make poor decisions and fail to complete his mission. Dallben, who tends to bookend the adventures with some helpful nuggets of wisdom, replies, “There are times when the seeking counts more than the finding.”

Alexander certainly understood what it meant to toil in a world without guarantees. He was determined to be a writer at a young age, but his parents, worried about his financial security, discouraged him, and found him a job at a bank instead. (Alexander later used the experience as the basis for his first novel, published 15 years later, And Let the Credit Go.) The would-be artist then decided to enlist in the army, seeking an adventure that would inform his writing. It was during his military service that he was sent to Wales, an experience that piqued his interest in Welsh culture and its myths. Alexander would write for seven years before his career began to take off. That was not his only struggle: his (now out of print) biography, My Love Affair with Music, chronicles his decades-long attempt to become a musician and his eventual realization that he would never succeed.

And so Alexander doesn’t shy away from having his characters pursue different paths on their way to a vocation. In Taran Wanderer, the fourth book in the series, Taran sets out to find his parents and, he thinks, his identity. He is beset by false starts and, in a particularly nuanced plotline for a children’s series, wrestles with guilt over his disappointment after finding a man he believes to be his father. Alexander charmingly weaves in archetypical philosophies of life, pairing them with a series of apprenticeships that Taran undertakes. There is one with a blacksmith, who tells him life is like a forge (“You’ll be roasted, smelted, and pounded […]. But stand boldly to it!”), another with a weaver (“Life a forge? A loom, rather where lives and days intertwine.”), and one with a potter, whose lessons are a bit too complicated for a simple slogan. He speaks to a very real question for children: What will I do with my life? Will I be a veterinarian or an astronomer or a poet (as I once wondered)?
Alexander doesn’t leave his characters with the boundless possibilities of childhood, however; he is willing to let them fail, sometimes in ways that are binding. After spending time as a potter, Taran decides this is what he wants to do, only to realize he doesn’t have the touch that would make him a master artisan. Fflewddur is not an official bard, lacking the skills to pass his entrance exams. Eilonwy loses most of her powers as an enchantress, trains as a court lady, and is predictably bad at that, too. Doli, the ill-tempered dwarf, is granted the power of invisibility that he longs for, only to find it intolerable. Like all children do, they sometimes realize what they want just in time to learn that they cannot have it. But Alexander doesn’t let them wallow, or at least not for long. He prods them gently along, showing his young readers how each failure adds to who these characters eventually become.

The series is not without problems. At times, Alexander is so ham-fisted that to call his endings deus ex machinas is generous. And what do you do with a problem like Eilonwy? When we meet her in The Book of Three, she is relatively plucky for a young girl in a fantasy epic, a genre not known for its progressive representations of women. (Hence the decision to plant a female character in the film adaptations of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, which would otherwise be almost entirely male.) Eilonwy saves Taran from imprisonment, steals the sword that turns out to be pretty much the most important object in their world, and throughout the series does her fair share of sword fighting, horse riding, and the rest. Especially considering that the series began in 1964, it’s not a bad showing. But at the end of the series (spoiler alert) she flippantly casts away her powers as an enchantress — not to mention the possibility of eternal life — to marry Taran. A moment of careful consideration might have helped (after all, Taran spends days agonizing over whether or not to leave Prydain for paradise himself), but instead, Dallben, dispenser of wisdom, intones, “Yet you shall always keep the magic and mystery all women share. And I fear that Taran, like all men, shall be often baffled by it.” Personally, I have always found and continue to find Eilonwy a supremely annoying character: her chatter, meant to be endearing, is not, and her endless silly similes (“I hate crying; it makes my nose feel like a melted icicle,” she’ll exclaim) are like nails on a chalkboard to my ear. Young readers of course will have their own opinions.

But on the whole, Alexander’s strengths outweigh his weaknesses. The humor and vulnerability with which he imbues his characters makes them more than vehicles for life lessons; at the same time, the noble ideas on which the story rests speak to the universal contradictions of growing older. These are books that revel in the absence of adult supervision while simultaneously expressing a deep longing for the security of home. We want to be free, we want to be safe; we long for one when we have the other. After each of his adventures, Taran returns to Caer Dallben, a place of golden fields ringed by forests, where the scent of apple blossoms seems always to be in the air. As a child, I loved the battles and strange encounters abroad. I’m almost sad to admit that as an adult, I find myself longing — like Coll, the warrior-turned-farmer who serves as a father figure for Taran — for the sunny rooms and well-plowed fields of Caer Dallben.

Alexander reminds his young readers that it is up to them to reconcile these competing needs; their happiness and security is largely their own to create. While help is available, it comes not in the form of the divine but from old farmers, new friends, wise weaver-women, and many others, if you’re willing to ask them. Taran does have run-ins with three powerful, changeable hags — Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch — who serve as not-so-subtly disguised Fates. Like so many of us, including, one guesses, Alexander himself, Taran tries to bargain with them, willing to sacrifice “the greatest treasure that comes into my hands” for favors and information in Taran Wanderer. But as the series draws to a close, they appear to him one last time, handing Taran a tapestry with scenes from his own life. Taran is amazed to realize that it was he, not they, who has chosen the pattern. They reply:

“Naturally,” said Orddu. “You must still choose the pattern, and so must each of you poor, perplexed fledglings, as long as thread remains to be woven.”
“But no longer do I see mine clearly,” Taran cried. “No longer do I understand my own heart. Why does my grief shadow my joy? Tell me this much. Give me to know this, as one last boon.”
“Dear chicken,” said Orddu smiling sadly, “when, in truth, did we really give you anything?”

Perplexed fledglings we are indeed — or as Alexander might put it, assistant pig-keepers — without fate’s help to guide the way. But in Alexander’s Prydain, there are sources of wisdom that can aid Taran, in the form of experience and friends, if he is willing to work hard and seek them. In our own world, children could do worse than to begin their own journey alongside this hero. (Cara Parks, Los Angeles Review of Books)

Richard Adams

All writers love the book that allows them to give up their day job. And although Richard Adams’s debut novel, Watership Down, is his most celebrated, it was Shardik, his second, that convinced him to quit the office. Published in 1974, it is a heady piece of fantasy centred on the creation of an animal-based religion, in which a giant bear is the object of worship of a developing human society riven by territorial and ideological dispute. It’s hard to see direct similarities with the work of other writers, although there are echoes of CS Lewis and Tolkien. And big animals were definitely in the air (or sea); Jaws was also published that year.

Shardik had taken Adams three years of evening working to finish, until, as he writes in the introduction to this 40th anniversary edition, “at last a point came when the story was complete and only needed polishing. I knew then that writing was to become my full-time occupation, and I was able to leave the civil service for good”. But Adams’s regard for the book extends beyond the reinforcement of a hoped-for career change. It is, he says, his masterpiece, one that fulfils all his requirements for a good novel: a beginning, middle and end, a hero or heroine, and a villain or, alternatively, “a villainous situation calling for redress”.

The villainous situation – progress that is built on the back of enslavement – is not apparent at the start of this 600-page, multi-sectioned novel, and a lot of complicated things have happened by the time we get to it. We start with a simpler scenario: a hunter who encounters a great big bear in a burning forest, “such a bear as never was, a bear tall as a dwelling-hut, his pelt like a waterfall, his muzzle a wedge across the sky”. Kelderek realises that this is no ordinary bear: returning to his settlement on the river island of Ortelga, he defies the local baron, and refuses to tell his story to anyone but the Tuginda, the head priestess on the neighbouring island of Quiso.

When finally he is brought before her, he confesses his earth-shattering suspicion: that the creature he encountered is a reincarnated Lord Shardik, the mythical beast slain long ago by a slave trader, whose return the inhabitants of Quiso await. Through Shardik, it is believed, God will reveal his secret truth, and his chosen auxiliary vessels are a man and a woman, roles into which Kelderek and the Tuginda quickly slot themselves.

The action is under way: Kelderek and assorted priestesses find the injured Shardik, nurse him back to health and even manage to get rid of the baron. Then, naturally, things begin to go wrong, as Adams expands the plot to introduce territorial disputes, political rivalry and corruption. The Ortelgan people, it transpires, have been driven from the city of Bekla, and many believe that the reappearance of Lord Shardik is a sign to try to regain their lost kingdom. From the outset, men tailor the situation to suit their own purposes. “Shardik has been sent to restore us to Bekla,” says the young nobleman Ta-Kominion, before adding that “the peasants need to know no more than that”.

Shardik comes in pretty handy on a battlefield, and quickly vanquishes the Beklan forces. Indeed, he would scare anybody, with his appearance of an animal “created in hell to torment the damned by its mere presence”, his blood-covered claws and the “streaked, ochreous foam” that froths from his mouth, and his eyes, “the eyes of a mad creature, inhabiting a world of cruelty and pain”. (No wonder this awe-inspiring creature stuck in the mind of Stephen King, who gave the same name to the cyborg bear in the Dark Tower series.)

For Kelderek, Shardik brings mixed fortunes: in the wake of the Ortelgans’ victory, he is installed as a sort of priest-king of Bekla, “a city more marvellous than a mountain made of jewels”; but as the years pass, he becomes increasingly mired in realpolitik and desperate for the incarcerated Shardik to deliver more revelations. In need of funds, he revives the slave trade despite his intrinsic goodness: “We can’t afford to be benevolent and generous,” he argues. It is this plot development that provides Adams with his most intensely felt material; the arrival of the sadistic slave-owner, Genshed, who abuses the children he also trades in, provides the catalyst for Kelderek, portrayed from the very beginning of the book as a protector of children, to come to his moral senses.

Shardik is fantastical to a degree not seen elsewhere in Adams’s work, although he did publish a companion book, Maia, in 1984, and there are mythological elements in Watership Down. Its themes are serious: the power of religion and belief to sway and distort human behaviour is underlined by the fact that Adams never reveals whether Shardik is anything other than an entirely mortal bear; the treatment of slavery and child abuse is similarly considered. Whether the novel’s setting and language function as a distraction – its characters with names such as Zilkron of the Arrows, and its fairytale landscapes – is a matter of personal taste; it is certainly a story told with conviction and creative zest. Those rabbits, though, are unlikely to yield their place as his readers’ favourite characters, despite their creator’s preferences. (The Guardian)

Maia is set in the same world as Shardik, the Beklan Empire, a few years before the events of the latter book; some characters and situations overlap. Maia is a peasant girl "as pretty and about as cultivated as a gazelle," fated to become an heroic legend. Yet to call Maia merely an exotic fantasy is to say that War and Peace is a Russian war novel. Maia is more than the sum of its parts and a cliffhanger in the bargain that kept me turning its thousand pages to find what happened next, and nowhere along the way, bless him, does Richard Adams give you more than a few pages to stop and catch your breath. Never rambling or indulgent, Maia moves like a well-cut film: where one scene ends, the next takes up exactly where it should. To achieve this in a densely-populated narrative, Adams wisely keeps his story tightly focused on a few central characters.

Sold to Bekla as a slave, Maia meets Occula, a strong-willed black prostitute who has contrived for reasons of her own to be sold into the city. Occula takes the naive Maia under her protection as both are sold to Sencho, the city's High Counsellor, an obese voluptuary who has murdered his way from the gutter to the top. The Bekla Maia sees is a city recently overthrown by one faction (the Leopards), which puts forth Durakkon, a well-meaning but ineffectual High Baron against the rebels of the old Heldro order still prowling the edges of their usurped power. Behind the puppet front of the weak Durakkon, Sencho struggles for power with Kembri, the Lord General.

Beautiful, a willing concubine and a born dancer, Maia is soon recruited by Kembri for spying on the side, and she becomes a piece on the board in the plot-counterplot between Leopards and rebels. As Maia grows in popularity, she becomes a very expendable pawn while learning more of her own background, which is not entirely as it seemed. When she betrays the one man she has found to love (through Kembri's orders and her own humanity), Maia becomes the heroine of the empire. With new wealth and the popularity of a goddess, she attracts the attention of a far more formidable adversary than Kembri or any rebel: the Sacred Queen, Fornis.


Fornis is as fascinating as a cobra with legs, a Titian beauty, able and ambitious, and psychotically fearless. Every excess in her rapacious character stems from a trait that might have made her admirable. A natural leader, able to inspire her followers by example, equal to any risk or hardship, Fornis is as hypnotic as Hitler, with the same perverted needs and appetites. These appetites are nursed along by gritty Occula for her own purposes; yet she still tries to protect Maia, who is sure to be acclaimed Sacred Queen in Fornis' place by the populace and the rebels who need to use her. The title is a religious honor, now turned into real power by Fornis, who has no intention of stepping aside. Kembri wants his own daughter-in-law nominated for equally potent reasons. As a popular mascot, Maia was one thing (albeit a little too kind for Fornis' murky sexual tastes), but as a rival she's as good as dead. Although courageous and helped by a widening circle of friends high and low, Maia feels the noose tightening around her neck. She is betrayed again and again as she tries desperately to get herself and her lover out of the empire while it collapses about her in a welter of colliding armies. Planning Maia's death, Fornis is ready as always to dare the impossible, even the dreaded Curse of the Streels (a beautifully understated menace), but she must have her prized Occula with her -- which is exactly what purposeful Occula planned. . .

Maia is a delicious contradiction: a big, fat adventure read with no fat at all. Adams' artificial language is as skillful here as in Shardik or Watership Down. Very quickly the reader understands and accepts the foreign words for common things, contributing to the depth of the large tapestry. Fastidious purists (myself not among them) may cavil at dialogue choices. The various social strata of the Beklan Empire speak with recognizably English idioms, from Leslie Howard-Cambridge to Maia's Yorkshire glottals. Occula sounds much like her modern counterpart, a street-tough, gutsy black hooker, but none of this matters at all except to make the characters more immediate and real. You believe these people, larger than life as they are -- the calculation, the cynicism, folly, sick indulgence, desperation and heroism.


Adams has the good dramatic sense to play against the high romance of his theme. While maintaining epic sweep and pace, his totally realistic style gives the picture grain and depth. There are minor quibbles: Maia remains naive and impulsive long beyond the dictates of her circumstances, and there is a tendency to wrap up loose ends too neatly, but Maia's actions flow from real need, love and fear. So do Occula's and those of the others, for good or ill. What raises Maia leagues above the boundaries of exotic romance is Adams' characterization. These are people you have seen striding across your own times or even down the hall. Legendary setting does not obscure them. You know who and what they are and why they move. And you will remember them. (Washington Post)

Lynn Abbey

Daughter of the Bright Moon  In this novel, Rifkind is the daughter of a clan chief. She had been born during a lightstorm.  In this story, Rifkind returns to her father's camp to find the tents burned and everybody dead or missing. She had warned them of a coming attack, but they would not listen to her. Now her father is missing and her brother is dead.

I dug up my old copy of this book at my Father's house where it has been moldering in the basement for the last 20 years. Out of curiosity, I brought it back with me to Holland because I had the notion that I remembered it. Funny how *well* I remembered it. As I turned the pages, I could clearly remember what I was reading and had a sense of what was coming next. Rifkind is a loner in a tribe of loners-- outcast from her desert tribe, she turns to her goddess to help her find her destiny. I'm not sure how well it holds up over time (my real review is something more like 3.5 stars) but there was a fair amount to hold an adult's interest, just like there was enough to hold that of a teenager. Some of the aspects feel visionary in light of the fiction that came after this book and others simply fall flat. Worth reading if you can find it. (Amazon)

The Black Flame  In sharp contrast to its predecessor, I found the sequel to Daughter of the Bright Moon to be a talky, tedious affair. I should have been tipped off by the unpromising prologue, which shows Rifkind in the undignified act of running weeping from a ballroom when she realizes it is not her destiny to marry Ejord, the studly scion of Chatelgard manor. I beg your pardon? Romance novel histrionics? Is this the Rifkind I've come to know and love?

Fortunately, this claptrap doesn't last long and is merely a plot device to get Rifkind out of the manor. By the first chapter, she's hacking the tentacles off a slimy swamp thing. Having left Chatelgard with Jenny, a former lady-in-waiting to the court, finds herself in the swampy land of Felmargue, inhabited by raft-dwelling folk known as the Quais. The Quais are clannish and nomadic people whose legends tell that the swamp exists as a form of punishment by the gods, who didn't like what a group of magicians were getting up to in their nearby castle. One day, the legends say, the swamps will be destroyed by the Leveller, who will come when the gods decide the Quais have been punished enough, and the land will return to dry habitability. Rifkind's business in Felmargue is personal. Somewhere in this humid, slimy land is the Hold, an enclosure housing the Descendant, who guards the Well of Knowledge. Here is located a magical substance called the Black Flame, with which Rifkind has been told she can replace the ruby pendant lost in the first novel, and enhance her ability to channel the powers of the Bright Moon. To put it simply: the book is too cool to dismiss, but too lumbering to enjoy. . (SFReview)

Rifkind's Challenge In this story, twenty years have passed. Rifkind is still the best Healer among the clans, but her students are very proficient. Her special patient -- Tyrokon -- has agreed that further healing will not help him. And Rifkind is having dreams of the Wet-landers that she has known.  This tale takes Rifkind and the boys to Epigos. They get in trouble there and have to flee without most of their supplies. Rifkind then tries to get the boys to return to the clan, but Cho disagrees. After Cho asks whether she can prevent them following her, she gives in and starts teaching the boys about the strange Wet-lands. Highly recommended for Abbey fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of personal magic, political intrigue, and women warriors. (Arthur W Jordin)

The Guardians There's a witch on Riverside Drive...
Lise Brown was thrilled with her new apartment; it was more than anyone fresh from the Midwest had a right to expect in Manhattan. She loved it for the river view and the high old ceilings, but even more for the unexpected way she felt instantly at home there - as if the place had been waiting for her.
She could not know that apartment 647 contained a rift into another world, a frightening world of malevolent spirits kept contained only by the rituals of the previous tenant. She can feel the evil on the other side of the rift, growing stronger, feeding on her fear, waiting for the moment when it will be powerful enough to break through into a helpless world. To stop it, Lise must learn what it means to be a witch...Though I haven't read this book in ages, it was one of the first urban magic fantasy dramas I had ever read, and I was surprised to see it unlisted and with no pictures. So I'm adding a picture and the back of the book text below. It was a good book, at least I remember enjoying it. And seeing how popular this genre is now, perhaps people may be interested.  (Amazon)

Unicorn and Dragon I stumbled across this novel recently and found an interesting historical fantasy. The setting is England in 1065 as the Saxon and Norman tensions are escalating. The focus is on a Saxon family stronghold and the events that occur as war inches closer to their home and old way of life. While the book has all of the raw details of such a rough age such as bloody fighting and the rowdy drinking of warroirs, the story is tamed and made interesting in that the women of the house are the main characters. The two daughters, Alison and Wildecent, and their aunt, Lady Ygurna, are the ones who truly run the place and keep the men in order. One reads of their story as their lives are changed by the shifting politics of the country. This occurs quite suddenly when a young Norman, Stephen, is brought wounded into their home. Both girls discover what intrigue and love mean as the result of his presense. While the characters try to occupy the modern world of politics and Christianity, one soon realizes that an ancient Celtic magic is practiced secretly by the women. This magic is hinted at throughout the book, but is shown fully as everything climaxes at the end. Lynn Abbey has created a very realistic world in this novel. One gets a good picture of Saxon life during this period. The characters are personal and believable. I think that this is a good read for anyone interested in this period where England hovered on the brink of a new era. (Amazon)

Conquest The fate of eleventh-century England depends on two sisters--the compulsive Alison and the White Raven. Good stuff. (Amazon)
crafty Wildecent--as the dark forces of the outside world invade Malfwynder Manor. Great follow up to a strong first volume. The only negative is she leaves you wanting for the third volume that never got written. the characters are well fleshed out and interesting. In the vein of Diane Paxon's

The Wooden Sword Trapped in stasis for twenty years in the bark of the oldest tree in the ancient forest of Walensor, Dart is finally released by the trees, given three magic gifts, and sent on a mission to save his world.  This would merely be a throwaway setup for the second book in a fantasy series if it weren't for the absorbing characters who are developed. Berika ought to be a stock peasant with a calling, but somehow she rises above simple explanations by the tragedies that shape her fate. Her need to escape from her limitations is not just theoretical, but a life-and-death struggle. Similarly, Dart is not just the handsome savior prince with a mission, but a confused man without a past and imperative drives he cannot understand. Both figures are compelling in their all-too-human failings and conflicts. This purchase may commit readers to following a series, but it has virtues that make it a standout in the genre.

Beneath the Web As the Walensor Web, a magical artifact that joins together the souls of gods and humans, begins to die, only Berika, a young shepherdess with untried magical powers, can stop the destruction of her world. In the world patiently crafted Lyn Abbey lets her characters lose to solve the mystery of 'Dart' and wether he is man, demon, fetch, or who knows what. Berika the sheperdess came off relatively poorly in the first book, still gaining her feet. As she finds her power that changes. The obsessive reader of science fiction for some thirty five years, I rarely find a book who's ending I can't guess, but Lyn Abbey makes the whole thing a unique experience with her depth of detail and characterization. I only wish I could say of her that 'she doesn't know when to end a series', as two books seems to be her limit. A pity, because the rich worlds she carves out have the potential for much more. These two books are worth finding. (Amazon)

Out of Time Emma Merrigan, long-time librarian at a Midwest University cherishes her quiet, comfortable life as a librarian for a large, Midwestern university. The last thing she wants or needs is a Capital-D Destiny, especially one that's rooted in the nightmares she's endured since childhood. But her efforts to deny that destiny take her to the brink of disaster and an unimaginable reunion with the one person who can teach her what she'll need to know to survive.  Lynn Abbey is a well-established fantasy novelist best known for some pretty gritty fair -- Thieves World, Forgotten Realms, Magic, and the like. This is a book much closer to her -- a middle-aged, unassuming, well-educated woman from Ann Arbor, Michigan who just happens to travel through time fixing things. Her figure isn't perfect, her breasts aren't perky, she doesn't look fabulous in a leather bikini. Instead, she has a job, a house, civic commitments, dysfunctional family issues -- oh, and this whole time traveling thing. This is fantasy that I can relate to. (Amazon)

Behind Time When it comes to fulfilling her newly revealed destiny as a hunter and destroyer of humanity's curses, Emma Merrigan has exhausted her supply of beginner's luck: She's saddled with a secret life her best friends cannot share. Her lover's been dead for four centuries. Her mother's in coma. Her stepfather's up to no good. And, if that weren't enough, now someone---or something---is attacking her where she's most vulnerable: in the past.

Taking Time It wasn't easy, but Emma Merrigan,librarian and curse-hunter, has finally gotten her life in order. Her mother's disappeared again, to Emma's great relief. Her stepfather's behaving himself. Her hair's back to its youthful color and, thanks to her nightly rounds in the Wasteland, she no longer has to worry about that mid-life "spread." A more paranoid woman might have gotten suspicious, but Emma isn't paranoid, at least not until she starts attracting attention from curse hunters as well as curses.

Down Time Even a Curse Hunter needs a vacation once in a while. And what could be better than the Caribbean cruise Emma Merrigan's mother suggests? Emma could write a list, but in a weak moment, she agrees to a week of much-delayed mother-daughter bonding. How bad could it be when no sensible curse-hunter would ply her trade from the decks of a moving ship? She learns the answer to that question the hard way after a stranger leaps to his death in moonlit water and a ghostly child begins stalking her through the tropical heat.  Aninteresting urban fantasy featuring a heroine who is smart enough to know she doesn't have all the answers and is savvy enough to listen to people who have more of them. The wastelands are an interesting place, a barren dimension with a magnetic sky where curses and rogues abound. Emma is obsessed with destroying as many as she can to make the world a better place. Lynn Abbey is a spectacular urban fantasist. (Amazon)

Siege of Shadows Aristocratic twin siblings--Kyle, a young Hart-lord, and his sister Kiera, haunted by a dream of Rapture--set out to solve the mystery of the Siege of Shadows, a golden throne rumored to hide the mystery of life.

Jerlayne Jerlayne, the youngest child of Elfin heroine Elmeene, ventures through the Veil that separates the worlds of Faerie and humans in order to unlock mysterious secrets that date back to the very origins of Faerie and that now once again threaten the realm. This is one of those odd books that is remarkably hard to categorize, even though it does fit quite neatly into the fantasy section of any bookstore. You see here we have a book about Elves, who live in faire, and the women can all "shape" things (such as fabric flowers out a piece of a thread, or pain into flesh, or healing) while the men forage for any supplies needed-in the mortal world. These elves don't really do anything but farm (or their servants, the gnomes, dwarfs, and so on farm), so they need almost everything from the mortal side of the "veil." Meanwhile the elves have tons of children, since they're immortal, and most of these kids turn into gnomes or dwarfs or some other kind of fairy creature, occasionally even a dragon. There are also ogres about, and to be protected from these beasts, goblins make bargains to protect the homesteads of each elf couple (yup, just like in the Wild West) in exchange for iron chains which the women shape as their induction into adulthood. But this land is full of secrets, upon secrets, upon secrets. Mostly about why all of the children that our heroine has keeps turning into something else when she so desperately wants them to be elves. And there's some kind of goblin conspiracy, a whole lot of weird religion stuff (and I do mean weird) and some fairly odd interactions with the mortal world. All in all this isn't a bad book, it's just strange.  (Amazon)

Sanctuary Long before the gritty, realistic and, perhaps, perverse protagonists written by GRR Martin, Robert Jordan, Greg Keyes and R. Scott Baker, Robert Asprin and Lynn Abbey's world was populated with heroes but predominantly rogues in the "cess pit of the Empire", the city of Sanctuary. For those overdosed on the stock characters promulgated by, predominantly, the success of Tolkien, the denizens of Sanctuary were all too human (even if not completely human, themselves) in their desires and pursuit of self interest. In contrast to the popular and prevalent high-medieval settings of the day, Thieves' World was, at latest, analogous to the late pre-Christian Roman Empire. Sadly, the series stopped rolling out installments in the mid-1990's.

In Sanctuary, the novel by Abbey from 2005, we return to the mean streets of an even more ravaged city
for a much needed update. The cult of the mother goddess, Dyreela, has been expelled and, seemingly, eradicated, allowing the denizens of Sanctuary a tentative breath of relief. Molin Torchholder, former high priest and architect of Vashanka (god of war and storms), discovers a vengeful remnant of the cult, however, and scrambles furiously to complete certain plans and set others into motion in order to protect the city he detests with a passion. Caught up in his plans are Cauvin, formerly a novice of the bloodiest of Dyreela's splinter cults and rescued from death by Molin 15 years before, and Bec, his brother through Cauvin's adoptive family. Cauvin is essentially trained as a thug, and puts his former training to use breaking ruined mansions up for stone to sell through his adoptive father, while Bec is the sheltered child fascinated by his brother's more visceral abilities while remaining confident in his own abilities as a scholar. As Molin, Cauvin and Bec wind their way through the story, we catch up with the stories of those characters prevalent in the previous five anthologies of the series, some of whose ultimate fates proved a bit anticlimactic. Unlike previous Thieves' World installments, this story is concluded within the pages of one volume, and is written solely by the one author (Abbey). As a result, it's also a frenetic page-turner, my having read all of the approximately 500 pages in a day. The level of action, detail and sheer genius of the writing is akin to the best of that of the previous various anthologies. (Amazon)

Catwoman When the crime lords of Gotham City declare war on both the human and feline population, Batman and Catwoman unite to combat this deadly menace.

The Simbul's Gift The Simbul, Storm-queen of Aglarond, is unhappy. Though she has triumphed over her enemies, she lacks an heir to the throne—a child to love and nurture. But now she's found the perfect father for her child: Elminster, the old mage of Shadowdale. All she has to do is win his consent. (Amazon)

The Nether Scroll  is set in the south-western reaches of the Anarauch desert where the Zhentarim reign supreme. The book describes the story of an unlikely group of adventurers consisting of a human female fighter, a human male wizard (who happens to be her ex-), a human male thief (who is her adopted son), and a goblin (who works for a mysterious lady-of-the-forest and who happens to be holding the female's husband, the wizard's best friend, and the thief's step-father) as they venture into an abandoned by the Netherese mine complex in search of an ancient scroll. The Nether Scroll is the last in a series of four novels (known as the Lost Empires series and which includes The Lost Library of Cormanthyr, Faces of Deception, and Star of Cursrah) that deal with the secrets of four of Toril's long lost ancient civilizations. The book starts off with a bang and then it's downhill all the way to the end...

Wolfsong From the authors of Elfquest and the creators of Thieves' World, this second volume is set in the Elfquest world--a time when the Wolves and the Wolf-Riders were forming their deep emotional bonds and learning how to live on the World of Two Moons.

The Brazen Gambit The best of the Dark Sun books to be published, though not the best of Abbey's own work. Possibly because of TSR guidelines, but who really knows? The book is still enjoyable, and with the exception of Abbey's sequals (of which The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King is the best, surpassing even this) the only Dark Sun book that captures the world it was set in. The book features Pavek as its hero, and while a jaded, depressed, lost templar, he is a likable hero--a stark change from the farm boys who will be king, blah, blah, blah... You understand. And he has his good sides and bad, which is another change for books shot out of the cannon by TSR. I won't go into details of the plot, since most are simplistic enough as they are, but I read the whole thing in one sitting: which says that I didn't want to put it down and turn on the TV instead. The style is Abbey's own, the characters are working well, and the dialogue is crisp--all a plus, and all making it a good read. And Hamanu is excellent. He alone is worth the price of admission (which is why Rise and Fall of a Dragon King is better). So, verdict: a pleasent book, with a good style, and likable characters that are not farm boys who will be kings and other such useless trash. I read it and I liked it.

Cinnabar Shadows Escaping a life of slavery by hiding beneath the city among other outcasts, Maribe of the "New Race" is forced to accept a contract from King Hamanu to search for the alchemist Kakaim, whose views threaten the stability of Urik.

The Rise and Fall Of A Dragon King  The much-feared sorcerer-king of Urik, Hamanu joins a plot to force a transmutation that will allow him to avoid his own corruption but that will destroy all of Urik in the process. The author is most concerned with character and motivation. We originally met Hamanu in the Prism Pentad, as a harsh tyrant and brutal defender of his city. In later novels and stories, his relationship with the land's protectors, and his humility and overall deep sadness were explored. Lynn Abbey creates a past and a set of motivations for Hamanu which (in the context of this make-believe world) are credible and profoundly moving. The dictators of our own world (both right-wing and left-wing) claim (if pressed) that they must suppress freedoms to maintain security and prosperity for their people. Are they sincere? Are they correct? I don't know. But Hamanu finds himself in their position, and struggles (as perhaps they do) with its implications. The struggle is the theme of this book. And in the end, he recovers his humanity, both literally and spiritually. (Amazon)

Forge of Virtue Lord Ironhawk's son, Jordan Hawson; Althea; Drum, the blacksmith; and Jordan's kid brother, Squirt, search for Balthan, Althea's magician brother, the only one to know the truth about the evil infesting the land of Britannia.  This is a spinoff of the long-running ULTIMA series of computer games. Unfortunately, it doesn't tie close enough with Ultima mythology to please fans, while at the same time not explaining things well enough for newcomers.

Temper of Wisdom  A plucky band of adventurers returns to Britannia to find that it has been overtaken by a dark and evil force.

Planeswalker As the follow-up to The Brothers' War (Magic: The Gathering: Artifacts Cycle), PLANESWALKER disappoints. Where the previous book was full of action and intrigue, this tedious book is contains lots of philosophy and a gradual build-up towards a climax that ends just a few pages after it begins. Additionally, the writing style of Abbey doesn't hold a match next to Jeff Grubb. Dialogue between characters who don't seem to know each other even after about three thousand years of constant companionship annoys, and dull action scenes fail to excite. All the being said, this book is worth reading. Find out what happened to Urza after he unleashed devastation at the end of THE BROTHERS' WAR, and follow characters as they travel through the Multiverse and visit bizarre but somewhat familiar realms, including Serra and Phyrexia. Also, the characters are actually quite unique and intriguing. Xantcha in particular (who is really the main character) presents a very complicated character that you'll wish you could appreciate more. The interplay between her and Ratepe is very emotionally satisfying and thought-provoking. Even the two-fold way in which the story is presented, from Xantcha's reminiscing of the past and of her adventures in the present was a good idea, just not pulled off all that well. Bottom line, this book was a disappointment, but I'm not too upset that I spent a couple of days reading it. I'll continue with the series, but wouldn't recommend it to anyone.(Amazon)

Andre Norton IV

The Elvenbane series

Elvenbane: The Prophecy is about to be fulfilled. There will come a child. One born of human mother but fathered by the demons, possessed of magic more powerful that the elven lords! The Child shall be hunted before its birth, yet shall escape the hunt and will rise up against the masters and cast them into the lowest hell… The world is run by elvenlords. Powerful, proud and secure in their dominion keep legions of human slaves for work and take their pleasure in elven or human concubines. The breeding of halfbreeds is strickly forbidden. Then Serina Daeth – the favoured human concubine of the elven overlord Dryan – finds herself pregnant. Forced to flee into the desert, Serina dreams – as she dies – of a midwife delivering her baby, Shana; the midwife is in fact the shapechanging dragon – shaman Alara. But Shana is no ordinary child: raised by the dragons, she is destined to become the Elvenbane.

Elvenblood: The powerful magic of ruthless Elvenlord masters has for centuries ruled the world. Even Shana, the legendary Elvenbane prophesied to deliver the oppressed into freedom, is helpless before such power. She and her ragtag band of outcasts, half-blood wizards, escaped human slaves, and free-thinking dragons have gained only a token victory against the mighty lords. Only the long-forgotten Iron People, a band of human nomads, have escaped the tyranny of the reigning wizards. How have they survived through the centuries? As the winds of change sweep the world, and as tensions seething beneath the surface of Elven society threaten to break into open revolt, Shana meets the ancient tribe. Could an age-old secret free Shana and her people…or will its discovery call down their doom?

Elvenborn: For generations, Elvenlords have ruled the world, holding sway over humans and half-bloods alike. But the peace was shattered when the Elvenbane emerged to lead a rebellion against them. And now the Elvenlords’ own children, grown old enough to want their own power, have begun their own revolt, and are seizing the houses of noble Elvenlords. The Elvenlords need a new military leader, and they find one in Krytian, a quiet, un-ambitious Elvenlord who has studied the art of war since his father disappeared years ago while searching for the Great Portal through which the Elvenborn came to this world. Kyrtian proves to be the Elvenlords’ best military mind. But as he fights the young lords, his scheming cousins Aelmarkin and Triana are hatching a plot to take over his estates. And his greatest supporter, Lord Kyndreth, is as wily a politician as any among the elite. Kyrtian can defeat any foe on the field of battle…but can he survive his “allies”?

The Five Senses series

The Hands of Lyr  Once the magnificent garden of the goddess Lyr, the land called the Ryrt lies blackened and desolate -- Destroyed by an ancient and cunning depravity. It is here that the beautiful child Alnosha came -- to awaken, to learn… and to hone her astonishing ability to divine by touch. Now years have passed, snd snother has made his way to this terrible ruied place – an embittered High Born youth fleeing the bloodthirsty sevants of a false god. And though he mistrusts Alnosha’s powers, the fugitive Kryn is inexplicably drawn to the reluctant young heroine. For he has been chosen to serve as her sword and champion – to accompany her into the malevolent heart of an all-consuming darkness on a perilous quest for light.

Mirror of Destiny The Industrial Monster has descended upon Varslaad, devouring all the arable land in its path. By royal decree, the displaced must venture into the treacherous woodland domain of a strange and secret race. The King's lottery has determined that Twilla, young, orphaned apprentice of a renowned wise woman, must marry -- for only the wedded can survive the terrible fate awaiting those who penetrate the primeval forest. Altered by a talisman of great power, she escapes her unwanted lot -- joining a commander's tragically blinded son on a remarkable journey from peril to peril. For they are the chosen who must rescue the vanquished of an ancient war of magic’s. . . and shape the destiny of a bloody, disputed land.

Sent of Magic Over the course of six decades, Grand Master Andre Norton has created a universe of diverse and unforgettable worlds – yet none more compelling and alive than the city Kronengred in a faraway dukedom; a place rich in intoxicating aromas that are capable of strange enchantments… and devastating malevolence. An orphaned child and captive scullery maid, young Willadene possesses an uncanny ability to sense and understand the magical odors that pervade her world. It is this remarkable talent--or curse--that carries her far from the fetid kitchen into an apprenticeship with a revered herbalist and ultimately to the highest circles of the Ducal court. But there is depravity lurking within the castle's walls, inspiring brazen treacheries and usurpations--and foul abduction as unthinkable as it is unexpected. Something horribly strange and forbidden struck at the dawn of a new day of corruption and terror. And an innocent girl finds the heightened sense that has been her fortune is now drawing her down into a maelstrom of evil.

Wind in the Stone Once the Wind united the Valley with the Forest, enveloping them in the strongest of magics which protected the land and banished the threatening Darkness. And there was peace for many centuries…Until the Dark returned. A mage, seeking to enslave the Valley and destroy the Forest, has brutally sundered a family. A mother has fled into the woods with her infant girl-child, while the depraved sorcerer holds the babe's twin--a boy--captive in a black tower. The mother dies but the girl survives. Adopted by the strange denizens of the Forest--safe from the mage's malevolent influence--she grows to young womanhood, cultivating a cherished skill that has been denied the others of her kind: the ability to truly hear the sounds of her world. But her future will be fraught with trial and terror, for only she can smash the chains that shackle the Balley and its inhabitants. It is her destiny to confront sorcerer and demon minions, and to oppose the one she must conquer and free: the magician's protégé and her most powerful adversary. Her bane and blood. Her brother.

A Taste of Magic Wisteria is magically attuned to the world around her. Her senses relish the tastes of magic that the wonders of nature offer. But the peacefulness of her backwoods existence is shattered when her village is attacked by the raiding force of the bellicose Lord Purvis, who leaves only this twenty-something magic wielder and an adolescent lass as the inadvertent survivors. Wisteria has pledged herself to a mission. Now she and her young ward must brave the wilds beyond their home in pursuit of the ravager who destroyed everyone near and dear to their hearts. The woman with the Taste of Magic now has a taste for vengeance, and the blood oath she has pledged must be satisfied with the life of Lord Purvis.

Carolus Rex series

The Shadow of Albion (with Rosemary Edghill)  Emperor Napoleon had kidnapped the Princess of Denmark in a plot to upset Europe’s tenuous balance of power. Only Lord Wessex, Agent of King Henry IX, can recover the princess and thwart Napoleon’s plans, or all of Europe could fall to France. But Wessex has an unsuspected ally in his perilous mission. Magic has replaced his fiancée Sarah,, the vain and haughty Marchioness of Roxbury, with the passionate and courageous Sarah of another world, one where England’s American colonies are called the “United States.” Sarah quickly becomes the wild card in a deadly game played out across Europe with players ranging from Sir John Adams to the Marquis de Sale. As Sarah and Wessex tread a path toward destiny, they discover that tyheir mission is more important than they could imagine. For if they fail, Napoleon will control more than Europe – he’ll rule the world….

Leopard in Exile (with Rosemary Edghill) Under King Charles II, England's New World colonies are flourishing, as is France's colony Louisianne. Napolean is the dreaded Master of the European continent . . . And Sarah Cunningham, a woman from our own world, knows all too well what a difference this makes, for not long ago she was ripped from her life as a United States citizen in our history. Sarah, now the Duchess of Wessex, journeys to North America with her new husband, the Duke - but this is no pleasure trip. The fate of the world - New and Old - rests on her saving her friend Meriel, rescuing Louis, rightful King of France, from the clutches of the Marquis de Sade, and finding the Holy Grail. But she and her beloved Duke are beset by perils that will test their strength and spirit to the utmost.

Oak-Ash series

To the King a Daughter: The Book of the Oak (with Sasha Miller)Oak, Yew, Ash, and Rowan: the four powers of the world, all once great and mighty, now yielding to the effects of centuries of war. A Kink of Oak and a Queen of Yew sit on the thrones of the land – the King a drunken lout, the Queen a magical schemer. Ash and Rowan are nearly dead, their totem trees in the sacred square withering away to nothing.
All is falling into place for the power hungry Queen Ysa, who will stop at nothing to ensure the continuation of her line. Her Expertise in the dark arts all but guarantees her success, and the wooden rings of royalty have transferred themselves to her hands of their own accord. Nothing and no one escapes her notice or her wrath. Only one thing may stand in her way: a long-ago prophecy that a Daughter of Ash will one day rise again to reclaim her rightful place on the throne. Queen Ysa’s shrewd machinations have seen to it that none of the House of Ash remains alive. But deep in the swamps, in the care of the witch-healer all need and fear, there is a young girl who cannot be the witch’s daughter; a girl who by virtue of her beauty, elegance, and simmering power can only be a Daughter of Ash, the one who will rise to fulfill the prophecy - and the destiny of her birthright.

Knight or Knave: The Book of the Yew (with Sasha Miller) Times are changing in Rendelsham. The old King is dead, and the foolish Prince Florian has assumed the throne. Florian's mother, Queen Ysa of the House of Oak, still controls the land from behind the scenes, but her job grows more difficult every day. Her unworthy, headstrong son is harder to control than her husband was, and she must spend more time than ever masking her own movements. The barbarian Sea-Rover clan presents problems from the edge of the Bog, Ysa's newest magical ally has been exposed as a traitor, and still the unknown yet encroaching threat from the North continues to grow. Ashen, heir to the nearly dead House of Ash and illegitimate half-sister of the boy king, is the only force for good in the kingdom. To keep her further from the throne, Ysa has arranged for her to be married and far from Rendelsham—and Ashen, eager to be away from the predatory politics of the palace, is happy to go. But duty overwhelms personal desire in matters of the court, and soon she must return to Rendelsham for the good of the kingdom. Through births and deaths, marriages and duels, love and betrayal, magic and force, the four Houses of Rendelsham can only survive by the strength of their unity—but is unity possible in such a court of intrigue as this one?

A Crown Disowned: The Book of the Ash and the Rowan (with Sasha Miller)The Earth is shaking and splitting as the forces from the North draw nearer. The Ice Dragon Riders are speaking to the land, and more fire mountains awaken in the Bog. Rohan seeks to join forces with Tusser, leader of the Bog-folk, as Queen Ysa raises an army to clear the Bog. War draws closer until even the Queen cannot deny it any longer. Raids from the North increase and for the first time, the Riders of the Ice Dragons appear. It is time for the Queen to give up her game of pitting one faction against another. Four great armies assemble and they all march under the same banner. Though they do not and cannot represent the Four Trees, this is nevertheless seen as a good omen. Many good men from all four armies fall in battle, yet the Great Foulness is still at large. Is the combined might of the four powers enough to free the land from evil?

Dragon Blade: The Book of the Rowan (with Sasha Miller) Over a year has passed since the defeat of the Great Foulness, and the ravaged earth has begun to heal. Lost for generations, the signet rings of the Four Great Houses—Oak, Yew, Ash, and Rowan—have been restored to their rightful heirs. And Ashen NordornQueen, mistress of the Land of Ever Snow, looks forward to a life of peace and happiness with her beloved husband and their newborn son—only to learn that an ancient evil still threatens all that she holds dear. The Mother Ice Dragon, the fearsome progenitor of her deadly breed, has awakened from slumber to menace the world anew. Legend holds that only the Dragon Blade, forged from the scales of her vanquished mate, can slay the deadly female dragon, but the Dragon Blade has been lost for ages. As Ashen embarks on a perilous quest to find the mystic sword, she leaves her castle and homeland in the care of her closest friends, including Rannore, Lady of the Rowan, who soon faces danger of a different sort....

Knight of the Red Beard (with Sasha Miller) Having rebuilt the NordornLand from rubble, Ashen and Gaurin rule justly and fairly over a reinvigorated land. Beloved by their kingdom, they now turn their attention to the next generation of Nordorn royalty. Responsible Bjaudin, heir to the throne, focuses on his studies and Hegrin, Queen of Rendel, rears her own growing brood. But the youngest siblings, Elin and Mikkel, seem destined to alter the future of the NordornLand—for better or for worse. Thirteen-year-old Elin craves power, and believes her new alliance with the evil Ysa may help her achieve it. Eleven-year-old Mikkel stows away on a Sea-Rover ship, hoping for a brief adventure. But when the ship is attacked, Mikkel is taken prisoner, and soon his bonds to the NordornLand are the last thing on his mind. Through births and deaths, celebration and wars, Ashen and Gaurin have worked tirelessly to bring peace and prosperity to their kingdom. But it appears that this era of peace may be at its end. This final installment of the Cycle of Oak, Yew, Ash, and Rowan brings the series to a thrilling climax worthy of these fascinating characters.

Trillium series

Black Trillium Ruwenda is a pleasant, peaceful land -- but the magic of its guardian, the Archimage Binah, is waning. Binah must pass along her protector-ship to the triplet princess of Ruwenda. She bestows upon the infant girls the power of the rare and mystical Black Trillium-badge of the royal house, symbol of an ancient magic. While the sisters blossom into beautiful young women, neighboring Labornok use a dark magician to sunder Binah's protection. As invaders pour into Ruwenda, the Archimage orders the princesses to flee-and changes them to search for three magical talismans which when brought together will be their only chance to regain their kingdom and free its people. Each must accomplish her task separately-and to succeed - each must also confront and conquer the limits of her own soul.

Blood Trillium (by Julian May) Twelve years after the princess Haramis, Kadiya, and Anigel wielded the three-part Scepter of Power to vanquish the sorcerer Orogastus, the Archimage Haramis is visited by a fugitive who brings dire news. A sorcerer has escaped from the Klimilon, remote Land of Fire and Ice, to established himself through force of magic as Portolanus, Master of Tuuzamen. Haramis's talisman cannot--or will not--tell her whether Portolanus is the long-banished Orogastus, but it brings ominous intelligence: The sorcerer has brought from his exile a magical object that can unbound the three talismans of the Scepter, transferring their powers from the sisters to Portolanus himself. Even more fearsome, Haramis's talisman reveals a grave threat to the unity of the sisters and the future of Ruwenda . . .for the sacred Black Trillium contained within the amulet worn by each sister has changed, its petals stained the color of blood.

Golden Trillium One of the famed triplet princesses who defeated the evil sorcerer Oragustus, Kadiya ventures forth into the choked swamplands of Ruwenda to seek her own destiny among the Oddlings she once led in battle. Armed with her mystical three-eyed sword, she reaches the lost city of the Vanished Ones and discovers a strange race of dream-catchers called Hassitti whose vision brings chilling warning of a lethal plaque that sows the land with death. Now Kadiya, with only three companions to aid her, journeys into the Thorney Hell, realm of the cannibalistic saurian Skritek, to stop the carrier of the evil disease. Here they discover a portal leading to a universe of awesome darkness – an entranceway to a horror that threatens the very existence of the world of the Three Moons.

Lady of the Trillium (by Marion Zimmer Bradley) When the aging princess Haramis, Archmage of Ruwenda and protector of its lands, senses her impending death, she settles upon young Princess Mikayla as her successor-heedless of the fact that her plans ignore Mikayla's own desires. Set against the background created in Black Trillium (co-authored with Julian May and Andre Norton, LJ 8/90), Bradley's latest novel focuses not on the cliched battle between good and evil but rather on the more subtle war of the misunderstanding and intolerance found between old and young. Poignant in its depiction of old age, this is a strong addition to most libraries. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Bradley writes the latest sequel to Black Trillium (1990), the fantasy she created with Julian May and Andre Norton that has generated several successful progeny, all by her lonesome. Her tale concerns the triplet princesses of Ruwenda and their fight to save their homeland. Some time back, Princess Haramis became, on next to no notice, archimage of Ruwenda and had to learn how to handle both her powers and her office as she went along. Now she is aging and must groom a successor. Her determination unleashes a storm of personal and political intrigues, both mundane and magical. With her well-established talents for depicting female characters, political shenanigans, and potent magic, Bradley turns out a thoroughly satisfying yarn that brings to a fine conclusion a project that might have been a disaster in lesser hands.

Sky Trillium (by Julian May) After high fantasy grandes dames Marion Zimmer Bradley, Andre Norton and Julian May collaboratively created a quest saga on the magical World of the Three Moons with Black Trillium (1991), May carried on the series by herself (Blood Trillium, 1993). Now, in order to save that world, the series' three sister-heroines must battle the power-hungry Star Men in order to forge a mysterious Sceptre of Power from the supernatural talismans that are relics of the Vanished Ones who nearly destroyed the world. One of the sisters, Queen Anigel, pregnant with triplet princes and dismissing herself as the least courageous of the three Petals of the Black Trillium, has lost her talisman. A second, Kadiya, warrior Lady of the Eyes, wields an impotent sword despite her dashing bravado. And the third sister, Haramis, Archimage of the Land, finds the third talisman, The Wand of the Wings, key to unifying the Sceptre, threatened by her unwilling love for Orogastus, leader of the Star Men. May traces her characters' paths through the inevitable bog, battle, ambush and torture chamber.  It opens with evil magic from the ancient "war of enchantment" reasserting itself and unleashing a host of natural disasters. Only the Sky Trillium can defeat this evil, and only the talismans of the three princesses in unison can control the Trillium. Unfortunately, one talisman is missing, another has lost its power, and common court intrigue threatens to sabotage the search for the lost one and the relationship of the three princesses. The princesses remain engrossing characters, and the rest of the story, though leaning more toward standard fantasy than its predecessors, displays May's usual brisk pacing, command of the language, and deftness at world building. Maybe this is not the book with which to start the saga, but it is an admirable continuation of it that will gratify readers already hooked by it.

Witch World - The Turning

Storms of Victory  The Witches of Estcarp defeated Pagin of Karsten when they caused the Turning, a massive cataclysm that moved mountains to block the invasion. But the witches’ enormous use of magic crippled their powers and brought chaos and destruction to all of Witch World. At the Lormt sanctuary, a solitary chronicler is trying to bring people news of those lost or missing since the cataclysm. And to him come two rousing epics of heroism and triumph, one of a young Sulcar woman who awakens to her Power only to do battle with an Ancient Evil; the other a saga of a Dales Lady and the falconers who help her defend her lands from marauding pirates.

Flight of Vengeance  The only way the Witches of Estcarp could save their realm from the invaders was to combine their power in a vast Turning. So they willed a massive earth-movement that toppled mountains. But victory was bitter. Rivers shifted; the shape of the land was changed; hordes of innocent people lost homes, families, heritage…and the Witches’ power were spent in the enormous effort. Here is the saga of the heroic survivors who struggle to resurrect their world from its ruins: a young healer and a lost borderer find new hope and the means to thwart an ancient evil awakened by the cataclysm; while a Lady of the Dales and a Falconer lord fight a common otherworldly enemy. Excitement and adventure fill the pages of this second volume in the culminating epic of Andre Norton's Witch World, one of the most beloved fantasy worlds of all time.

On Wings of Magic Tumultuous changes reverberated throughout Witch World. The witches of Estcarp lay decimated by the massive mountain-moving magic of the Turning. Saving their world from invasion by Pager of Karsten wreaked a havoc all its own, and the face of the world has been racked by catastrophe. Now is a time of chaos; former enemies are thrust together; ordinary people must become heroes. A simple scribe holds the key to her village’s survival; the parents of a kidnapped girl challenge the mighty Hounds of Alizon, Karsten’s ally. Their fight against all odds to defeat the malicious magic of the Hounds is their only chance to win their way to freedom. This is the stuff of high adventure; memorable, enchanting.

Secrets of the Witch World series

The Key of the Keplain For time beyond memory, the fire-eyed Keplian horses have lured riders to their death, sating the blood lust of the Dark Tower. All Witch World knows that the hunted, hated beasts serve Evil--all except one young woman. Fleeing her home after her beloved grandfather dies, the orphaned Navajo-Comanche girl Eleeri follows an ancient and magical trail to Witch World. When she discovers the Keplian mare Tharna and her newborn colt in the hands of men eager to destroy them, Eleeri fights for their freedom. Running for their lives, psychic Eleeri and telepathic Tharna bond. And in a hidden canyon, they discover the awesome truth: The Keplians were created to serve Light, and to ride with humans.

The Magestone  They were sworn enemies compelled to join forces against a greater foe... Mereth, a 75 year old woman from the Dales, has traveled to the famed archives at Lormt in search of her heritage. She was hoping to learn both her father's identity and the origin of an unusual jewel her mother had once given her as a betrothal gift - an ancient magestone that was stolen long ago. Kasarian, a nobleman of Alizon, had come to Lormt unintentionally - through a glowing portal he'd found in the lowest levels of his castle.
The two had no reason to trust one another. Magic was a way of life in the Dales while the Alizonders abhorred it, and the two lands had been at war for a millennium. Yet Mereth and Kasarian discovered they had a great deal in common - and a reason to join forces. For Kassarian was desperate to thwart the schemes of one of his countryman, an ambitious tyrant who was plotted to seize control of Alizon through an alliance with the dark wizards of Escore. And the key to his success was a strange magical device the mages possessed - Mereth's long-lost magestone.

The Warding of Witch World Millions of readers have thrilled as Andre Norton – named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America – created an immense, vibrant tapestry of untamed magic and limitless adventure known as Witch World, a place where mountains dance and sorcerous gates draw good and evil from other universes. Now Andre Norton surpasses herself in the breathtaking scope and brilliance of this, the final novel of the classic series. Estcarp faces apocalypse: in a battle of Powers the great key to the gates has been lost. The portals stand open: and pan-dimensional evil is poised to invade. All of Witch World’s champions must band together and dare unknown dangers in a desperate race to find and close the planet’s uncharted gates. But if they succeed, the Witch World will be shut off from the cosmos – forever.

Anthologies and Collections

Magic in Ithkar (4 vols) is a shared world anthology of fantasy stories edited by Andre Norton and Robert Adams.  The book collects thirteen original short stories by various fantasy authors which share the setting of an annual fair in the city of Ithkar, together with an introduction by Adams and notes on the authors by Norton.

As described in the introduction by co-editor Robert Adams, the world of which Ithkar is a part has suffered from some past holocaust which wiped out an earlier, higher civilization. Subsequently, the area which became Ithkar became a base for the explorations of three godlike visitors, who came to be worshiped as actual deities after their departure. A temple and priesthood dedicated to them developed over succeeding generations, which held a yearly fair on the anniversary of the visitors' first arrival. The city of Ithkar grew up about the temple on the strength of the commerce the fair attracted.


The historical background provided appears science fictional in nature; the war that destroyed the previous culture is related in terms which suggest a nuclear war, complete with radiation-derived mutations of life-forms in the vicinities of the nuclear strikes, while the story of the visitors resembles an expedition of interstellar explorers. Present-day Ithkar is, however, a fantasy setting, in which wizards and sorcerers are rife, and magic works.

Catfantastic (6 vols) Two of the biggest names in the fantasy field have put together a unique collection of fantastical cat tales for friends of furry felines. Cats work a special magic in these stories from the future, from the past, and from dimensions people never dream of.

Tales of the Witch World (3 vols) Almost 25 years after Norton created her much-loved Witch World series, she has invited 16 other writers to use that background. Her own contribution, a typically darkly imagined fragment, is followed by Robert Bloch's droll rewriting of the same story from another character's point of view. The other colorful, clearly told stories include Wilanne Belden's moving account of a strange child's survival in war and wilderness, Charles de Lint's tale of a wondrous white road, Ardath Mayhar's narrative of a young boy coming to terms with his ""witch borne'' powers and Elizabeth Scarborough's fable of a warrior meeting a new challenge: a baby needing a foster mother. This collection is a welcome exception to the tedium of most shared-world anthologies.

Four From the Witch World Four long stories, that is, not people or monsters or things: sort of a companion volume to the various Tales of the Witch World collections (most recently 1988). Again, Norton s role was limited to encouraging the authors to contribute. Thus, Elizabeth H. Boyer explores some problems with an inheritance; C.J. Cherryh writes of a Dale warrior and an Estcarp witch; Meredith Anne Pierce meditates on Gates and ecology; and Judith Tarr's Javanne masquerades as one of the traditionally all-male Falconers. 

Moon Mirror A collection of stories from the Grand Mistress of Fantasy which are mostly from the seventies, with an general theme of environmental problems. My favorite was "The Toymaker's Snuffbox", which didn't fit the collection and was written in 1966, quite a bit earlier than the rest. (Goodreads)

Wizard's Worlds collects thirteen novellas, novelettes and short stories by Norton,most of them previously published in her collections High Sorcery (1970) and Lore of the Witch World (1980). The title story was previously published as "Wizards' World". Included are seven stories set in Norton's "Witch World" series ("Falcon Blood", "The Toads of Grimmerdale", "Changeling", "Spider Silk", "Sword of Unbelief", "Sand Sister", and "Were-Wrath".