Subject: Review: _The Far Kingdoms_

From: [email-masked] (Aahz)
Date: 20 Jun 1994 19:48:38 GMT

Review of _The Far Kingdoms_ by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch
Reviewed by Aahz ([email-masked]), copyright 1994

Did Homer's _Odyssey_ make your blood sing?  Did H. Rider Haggard make
you long for still-unexplored lands?

_The Far Kingdoms_ is a solid piece of adventure fiction; not a classic
by any means, but not trivial fluff, either.  Cole and Bunch do a fine
job of a derivative work, evoking their predecessors without seeming to
do too much plagiarism.  

They do cater to modern sensibilities, though: instead of placing the
adventures on (or in) an unexplored area of Earth, they create a new
world where magic works.  Fortunately, the magic doesn't intrude much on
suspension of disbelief (as Eddings' so often does).

_The Far Kingdoms_ is written in the first person, which lends a
different tone from Cole's and Bunch's previously better-known Sten
books, though the writing style is not much different.

Overall, if you like travel stories set as fantasies, I'd recommend
buying this, but I wouldn't necessarily reserve space for keeping it.
This is the first book of a series, but it looks like each book will
stand alone; this one certainly does.

%A Cole, Allan & Bunch, Chris
%T The Far Kingdoms
%I Del Rey/Ballantine
%C New York
%D July 1994
%G ISBN 0-345-38056-8
%P 426pp
%O paperback

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