From archive (archive) From: BRIAN@qucdnast.BITNET Subject: Magician's Law Date: 21 Apr 88 21:48:00 GMT I do not normally read fantasy but I have just finished reading _Magician's Law: Tales of the Bard_ by _Michael Scott_ and I found it to be very interesting, for two main reasons. (1) The gods are very concerned with what happens to mortals, as their strength depends on how many people worship them and how faithfully they are worshipped. This makes the gods responsible to the people in a way which (in my limited reading of fantasy) I thought was unusal. (2) The fight is not good versus bad, but old gods versus new gods. A new religion has sprung up, and as more and more people worship the new gods, the stronger the new gods get, and the weaker the old gods get. Thus, all of the old gods (good and evil) are aligned against the new gods. As I said, these ideas ingtrigued me, and I was wondering if there are other fantasy books along the same lines? In addition, the title shows this to be volume 1, but no mention is made of future volumes and I was unable to find any. Have any been published and if so, how many are there? Brian Chaboyer Physics Department Queen's University Kingston, Ontario Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!sunic.sunet.se!news.luth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!nobody From: Noctua Subject: Review of _Silverhand_ by Llywelyn and Scott Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Trinty College, Dublin Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 16:48:19 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 80 _SILVERHAND_ by Morgan Llywelyn and Michael Scott. Reviewed by Maura McHugh I have read books written by Morgan Llywelyn and Michael Scott separately before, and liked them, so it was with great interest that I approached their first fantasy collaboration - _Silverhand_. Warning, for all you people who hate serial fantasy: this is the first in a three book series collectively called _The Arcana_ _Silverhand_ is set in the troubled land of the seven nations, where the laws of nature are increasingly breaking down - more and more mutations such as the Madra Alta (werewolves) are occurring. The main character is Caeled, initially a young boy whose mother was a thief. At the beginning of the story he witnesses the destruction of the small hamlet he and is mother are living in by a Void - a vortex of energy which destroys everything it touches. He is the only survivor and when he leaves the town he encounters Armadiel, a Seeker from Baddalaur who protects him from a roving gang of Madra Alta. Not before Caeled loses his hand to one of the werewolves. Unknown to Caeled, the Seekers at Baddalaur (a bardic-style College) have predicted Caeled's coming as the Silverhand, he who will save the land from the chaos that is slowly consuming it. The main antagonists in the story are the Duet - twin brother and sister who rule one of the nations and have plans for the conquest of the rest. They practise a perverted sex magic and have been creating and controlling the Voids in order to destroy whoever or whatever they want. This is a well-paced and tautly written novel which has enough new concepts and strange twists in its fantasy environment so that the reader does not think this is just "more of the same". One thing that struck me was that Llywelyn and Scott conjured up a very _gritty_ world. In this world the reader gets the sense of the very real hardship of peasant life (no happy shepherds gambolling under sunny skies), and the utter nastiness of violence and fighting. Nothing is glossed over to look pretty, the reader gets to see all the horrible details of battle. And, this is a rather depraved world. Nature is breaking down (helped by the breeding programmes of the Duet) and this is reflected in many of the encounters that Caeled has throughout the book. Caeled himself is a well developed character, growing from a curious boy to a well trained Scholar and warrior. However, this is not a one character story. There are numerous other characters - such as the Stone Warrior and a Vampire - who also feature in the storyline. Even the characters who are only glimpsed briefly glow with life. Thankfully, Llywelyn and Scott have not fallen into the common fantasy trap of making the female characters either insipid or dependent - they are all very believable. The villains are also interesting - the Duet are both beautiful and deadly, and utterly cold. Personally, I am looking forward to the next book and I would recommend _Silverhand_ to anyone who is looking for a fantasy novel which is cut above the average. Rush out and buy it now, you won't be disappointed. %A Llywelyn, Morgan & Scott, Michael %T Silverhand %I Baen Books %C New York %D 1995 %G ISBN 0-671-87652 %P 405pp %O hardback, US$22.00, CA$29.00 Maura McHugh mmmchugh@tcd.ie ********************************************************** "What is written without effort is read without pleasure." Dr. Johnson ********************************************************** mmmchugh@tcd.ie ********************************************************** -- --Alan Wexelblat, Reality Hacker, Author, and Cyberspace Bard MIT Media Lab - Intelligent Agents Group finger(1) for PGP key Voice: 617-253-9833 Pager: 617-945-1842 wex@media.mit.edu http://wex.www.media.mit.edu/people/wex/ "Are we fugitives from the law?" "Yes." "Idiocy is our only option."