The Broken Lands: Farm boy Rolf returns from the fields to find his parents slaughtered and his sister missing, taken by the forces of satrap Ekuman, an agent of The East. Rolf goes looking for Lisa, his missing sister, and winds up joining the resistance against the Empire of the East. Only the Elephant can stop Ekuman. But no one knows what an Elephant is...First off, I like my fantasy to have the remnants of old technology lying around so Rolf's world is right up my alley. I'm really glad this didn't devolve into standard fantasy cliche plot #1, the farm boy discovers his mysterious heritage, which it easily could have given that Rolf's a farm boy. Saberhagen's writing style reminds me of Roger Zelazny's, another plus. The only gripe I have with is that an illustration on the back cover told me what the Elephant was.The Black Mountains: The armies of the West are joined by a wizard named Gray. Rolf's search for his sister continues. Satrap Chup, reduced to being a beggar at the end of the first book, regains his mobility and throws in his lot with Som the Dead, minion of Zapranoth the Demon Lord.I liked this better than the first book, from the flying Valkries that took the bodies of the dead back to Draffat the Beast Lord, to the machinations of Chambrian and Chup. Chup's storyline was by far more compelling than Rolf's in the first book. He's a much less of a fantasy cliche than Rolf.Ardneh's World: The war between the East and West comes to its conclusion. Ardneh takes on his evil counterpart, Orcus, in a battle of epic proportions. Rolf escapes the East with Catherine, a slave girl, and finally meets Ardneh. The origins of the technology, Ardneh, and the demons of the East is revealed.Ardneh's World brings the Empire of the East trilogy to a satisfying conclusion. I liked the revelations about the origins of Ardneh, Orcus, and the Demons. Rolf was still a pretty flat character but his relationship with Catherine was good. I love that Charmian got what was coming to her. Chup, as always, stole the show with his Chuppiness.The fantasy world that Saberhagen has created is an original one. I may have to give the Swords trilogy a shot somewhere down the line.I'd recommend this to people who like their fantasy to have some science fiction mingled with it, fans of authors like Roger Zelazny, Philip Jose Farmer, and Michael Moorcock.
The late Fred Saberhagen sure knew how to write a good story! Written in the late 1970s in the interregnum between the dominance of sci-fi and the surge in fantasy readership in the fantasy and sci-fi genre, Empire of the East straddles the line between them in unique fashion. (My purist science fiction friends won't read it, because they deem it to be not sci-fi enough; ah well, their loss.)I loved this book thirty-five years ago. I had to put it on my Kindle and see if it had aged better than others from its time period. On re-reading it I found that it had. It doesn't seem dated in the least, though I admit it leans rather more heavily toward fantasy than I'd remembered. But there are heroism, romance, the classic struggle between good and evil, and some genuinely engaging characters here.I've never been a fan of magic in fiction, but though this book contains quite a bit of demonic incantation and wizardry, there's also a lot of advanced technology left over from the Old World (which was apparently several decades ahead of Fred's time). What made it work for me was that the author provided a link between them. No spoilers here, if you want to know how magic came to be in our world, you'll have to read the book. Well, maybe just a small hint. The dominant force of the West (the good guys) is a godlike figure known as Ardneh. Of course that name turns out to be a long forgotten acronym coined by the U. S. military: Automatic Restoration Director - National Executive Headquarters. We know what that means, but the characters who populate the book don't have a clue.
What do You think about Empire Of The East (2003)?
Empire of the East is a great fast read. A fantasy story like Lord of the Rings, with the forces of good and evil battling, the story moves quickly with each chapter having a serial-like quality. The big difference would be Saberhagen's weaving in of "technology," which to the characters in this world, seems more like magic to them. It's fun to read about these warriors and wizards confronting the resurrected tools of the "past" which we realize are tanks or helicopters that have survived into this future world. I thought it was a nice way to make a potentially standard fantasy epic seem a bit special. As a teenager i had ordered a few of Saberhagen's collected "Lost Swords" books from a sci-fi/fantasy book club of which I was a member. I bought them solely based on the covers. I went on to really enjoy reading them while sitting out back in our backyard one summer, but then promptly forgot about them. They didn't stick in memory as much as say the Lord of the Rings trilogy or Weiss and Hickman's Death Gate Cycle. But last week I came across those original books while moving boxes of books around my basement and the memories came back. Hopped online and did some reading about Saberhagen and found that many of his books occur in one universe's timeline...Empire of the East falling before the Book of Swords. So I enjoyed picking up Empire...hope to reread the Swords books again, maybe sometime this summer at the beach.
—Gregory
Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East is composed of three novellas: 'The Broken Lands', 'The Black Mountains' and 'Changeling Earth' (ARDNEH's world' in my edition).'The Broken Lands' starts off with young farmboy Rolf's family being killed by the Evil forces of the Empire, whereupon Rolf joins the Rebels to help defeat the Empire. To be fair this wasn't such a cliche way back in 1968. And although this is a fantasy story are hints that deep in the past there was a kind of special magic called technology. Rolf helps find an artifact that might help defeat the Empire. (What this artifact is is completely spoiled by the back cover of my edition).'The Black Mountains' carries on the story, but here Rolf is not the main character. This segment is an improvement on the first part. 'Ardneh's world' is not quite as good but does give a background of Ardneh which is quite interesting.So a pretty good book. These stories serve as the background to Saberhagen's later Book of Swords series.
—D-day
I seem to be striking out a lot this year. I'd heard Saberhagen is awesome, but since this was written over 35 years ago, the writing seems awful compared to contemporary writers. This is coming from someone who grew up reading Edgar Rice Burroughs and Andre Norton, so I'm definitely used to reading things written more than a few decades ago, and in ERB's case, about a century ago. Here's an example:He realized vaguely that he was standing in an attitude of thoughtfulness, though in fact his mind was almost entirely blank. But he had to think.
—Traci Loudin
