This is my favorite book in the Magic of Ethshar series,closely followed by The Blood of a Dragon. I recorded most of them, including this one, in 50-55 minute installments for my local Golden Hours radio service for blind or reading-impaired listeners. I also made CD copies for myself.Valder is ...
It's late, so this will be relatively brief (for me, that is - which means it will probably be one of the longer reviews here on GoodReads).Lawrence Watt-Evans' Ethshar books are the preeminent modern light fantasy series. They're eminently readable, and particularly enjoyable because most of the...
All of the world is kept in a delicate balance under the supervision of the Wizard Lord. It is his duty to govern lightly and protect his domain…but if he should stray from the way of the just, then it is up to the Chosen to intercede. The Chosen are the Leader, the Seer, the Swordsman, the Be...
This is probably one of my favorite books in terms of deconstructing the fantasy trope of prophecies and chosen ones and those RPG-esque teams of adventurers with very specialized roles. Here, this magical world is so strangled by the red tape put in place by the wizards and their magically picke...
One Man Must Stand Against the Dragon Menace!It all began with Dragon Weather: a wave of incredible heat, oppressive humidity, dark angry clouds . . . and dragons. Dragons with no remorse, no sympathy, no use for humans; dragons who destroyed an entire village and everyone in it. Everyone, that i...
Lord Obsidian continues his quest for revenge on the dragons. He learns so much in this book, about dragons, magic, humanity, himself. He learns that change comes with great sacrifice and that sometimes even our most strong-held opinions must be loosened if not sacrificed entirely in order to en...
When Magic Goes Awry . . . What is an aspiring apprentice wizard to do when she finds her mentor and master frozen in his tracks by mysterious magics? Kilisha of Eastgate, a promising young student of wizardry in the city of Ethshar of the Rocks, still has much to learn before she can assume th...
Typical of the Ethshar books, the protagonist, Kelder, is an average person who finds adventure where they least expect it. After an encounter with a fortune teller, Kelder believes a grand destiny awaits him. When he meets Irith the Flyer, a girl with magic powers, he thinks he is on his way. Th...
Another entertaining entry in the Ethshar series. What Lawrence Watt-Evans excels at is writing an entertaining and humorous story without things getting too absurd or slap-stick. His books are well-written, fast-paced, and have well-developed characters.Another nice thing about this series is th...
Warlockry has been rare in Ethshar . . . until The Night of Madness, when a mysterious object falls from the heavens, sending out a wave of magic in the form of a dream. All who have the dream awaken in panic. But some of them also awaken to the power or Warlockry.Throughout the land these newly ...
The dark force known as Shadow had been defeated, but its world-spanning web of power had survived. This incredible magical weapon was now held not by a prince or wizard, but by Pellinore Brown, a marketing consultant from Germantown, Maryland. Pel Brown wished no one ill; he merely wanted his fa...
The sword that Garth had stolen from Dusarra marked him as the chosen of Bheleu, god of destruction, and gave him immense power. This power could only be used to destroy, and Garth wanted to build. He chose to refuse the god's gift. Bheleu did not intend to allow that.
With A Single Spell is nowhere near as good as Terry Pratchett's best, but it's still a fun comic fantasy. Tobas is an apprentice wizard who has only learned "Thrindle's Combustion", a spell to light any flammable material on fire before his master died. Wizards don't give up their secrets chea...
The overman named Garth sought immortal fame. The oracle told him to serve the Forgotten King to get that fame. But this King sent Garth after a basilisk whose gaze could turn men to stone. What sane use could anyone have for a monster like that?
This is a book written for the Ethshar world, created by Lawrence Watt-Evans. It concerns the spriggans, as you might have guessed from the title. In fact, it concerns their very existence; how they came to be, what they are how the world could possibly get rid of them.Personally, I'm a huge Eths...
Watt-Evans expands his story and sends Garth, via the Forgotten King, to another portion of the map, this time with the job of stealing "whatever lies upon the seven altars of Dusarra." Soon Garth arrives in Dusarra and discovers that this job is, in fact, a hell of an undertaking.What is a strai...
SORCERY, SCIENCE, AND SHADOWSPel Brown knew nothing about parallel universes, let alone travel between them. Then he stepped through a portal that appeared in his basement--and his life turned upside down.That first inexplicable doorway took him into a magic world called Faerie, ruled by the evil...
With the dawn, Nightside City would die. But someone was willing to kill to keep Carlisle Hsing in the dark...Nightside City was built on the dark side of the Epimetheus, back when everyone was sure that the planet had stopped rotating. Now, slowly but surely, Nightside City was moving toward the...
One of the things I enjoy about Lawrence Watt-Evans’s Ethshar novels is that the main characters are so ordinary. On the rare occasions that they have inherent magic, it tends to be either so basic it’s not of much help, or it has such a significant flaw it becomes a problem in and of itself.In T...
Arlian had never left his home village in the Obsidian Mountains. The green hills, white peaks, and black glass were all he had ever known of life, and though he dreamed of travel and adventure, he knew deep in his heart that he would probably never leave.Until the dragon weather came. Incredible...
A startling tale of contemporary magic from the popular fantasy author of The Misenchanted Sword. Art Dunham's curiosity gets the better of him when his father rents his theatre to a rather odd troupe of performers. They don't rehearse with scripts, require no technical help--and then there's tha...
Garth had given the mighty Sword of Bheleu into the Forgotten King's keeping. Now he needed it back, and the King demanded that Garth bring him the Book of Silence in exchange -- but Garth feared that the King would use the Book to bring about an Age of Death.
This vessel was far more what he had always expected a spaceship to look like than Emerald Princess had been. He had little time to study it, though; he was hurried to a large, bare chamber, where he and some of the others were locked in, without any further explanation. &...
“What the hell were you thinking, agreeing to that?” I demanded. “I was thinking the bonus would be almost enough for my fare off-planet,” he answered instantly. “Almost enough,” I repeated. “Yeah, almost,” he said, and I could see he was getting angry—partly with me, but partly with himself. “I ...
“Of course, he knew immediately that this was Rawl the Adjuster. He struggled to sit up, but he could not. It took all his strength to call, ‘Hello! Can you help me?’ “Rawl heard him and paused. He looked the situation over for a moment, then came and sat beside the storyteller. ‘What do you need...
He continued, “Awir thigo lan takloz…” He hesitated. That didn’t sound right. Alir wasn’t stopping him, though, and he could still feel the peculiar pressure of gathering magic. The spell to summon the goddess Piskor the Generous was almost complete. “Takloz wesfir yu! You...
Hospital security was pretty antsy after the McPhee boy’s death, and finding me and Detective Skees in a room with a crying kid did not exactly look like business as usual, especially not with half my face scratched raw. A police badge helped, but it still took a few calls before they decided not...
Anrel supposed it was the result of Quandish cookery. Whatever its origins, the meal was entirely satisfactory. Of course, Anrel knew his standards might well be lower than they once were; it had been half a year since he had regularly eaten well. Nivain Lir and her daughters had been decent cook...
Discworld's Story Unauthorized 46 Making Money (2007) IN GOING POSTAL, we got to know former(?) con artist Moist von Lipwig, and watched him resuscitate the Ankh-Morpork postal service. In Making Money, Lord Vetinari offers him the opportunity to do the same for the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork, an...
Vond and Sterren flew three circles around them, and Sterren really did not see anything very interesting. They were just towers, tall, unadorned cylinders, made of some unfamiliar gray substance that appeared to be midway between stone and metal. One of them was broken off on a rough diagonal ab...
It was as if the snow itself were glowing, rather than merely reflecting the moon and stars; the sky was dark, and all color had been leached from the world. His boots were full of powdery snow that was melting and soaking his feet; his coat was frosted with snow that had been blown from the drif...
Lord Dorias said, his head in his hands. “It can’t be!” “I’m sorry, Magister,” Valin said, eyes downcast. “I had not intended my words—” “Anrel,” Dorias interrupted, ignoring Valin, “didn’t I ask you to keep Valin away from Lord Allutar?” Anrel saw the look of stunned dismay that flickered across...
"Would you know why?" "Hardior didn't say much after you left," Toribor said. "I have no idea what he has planned." "Then who did speak?" Arlian asked, lunging. Steel clashed, and for a moment both men were far too busy to say anything as they thrust and cut at one another. Toribor's sword blade ...
The summer sun shone brightly on a black iron framework supporting a stone wall that had been built across the narrow canyon from side to side, to a height of twelve or fifteen feet. At the center two twenty-foot towers flanked two massive iron panels, each some ten feet wide and ten feet high. A...
Queen Artemisia told Prince Arbol. “You’ll get wrinkles.” In a corner of the inmost chamber of the queen’s apartments, Prince Arbol slouched back against the wall and drummed her bootheels against the stones. “Who cares if I do?” she snarled. “Wrinkles make kings look fier...