Note: I was almost put off by the "professional" reviewers that talk about this collection anticipating the Dungeon and Dragons craze because I then thought that the books would be focusing on "Dungeons and Dragons" somehow. At a minimum, all one can say, is that she came out of the gate with a bang with her writing career. This collection is interesting for the "historical" sense that it was her first effort. I've said it before (and I'm sure I'll say it again), Tepper is one of my favorite authors. I'm always glad to read anything with her name on it. Incredibly unworldly settings-my favorite is the culture hidden away in a deep rift valley overshadowed by great trees and filled with roots and mists.The third trio is narrated by Jinian Footseer, a Wise-Ard (read 'wizard') whose mission of world-healing reveals startling facts about the origin of the Talents and the Gamesmen and the world.Tepper truly excels at world-building. Predictably, but excitingly, Peter lands in adventures of all kinds as his own Talent becomes known.The second trio of books deal with Mavin Manyshaped, Peter's long-lost mother. They spend their days learning the dizzying list of Talents, the multitudinous combinations of gifts of seeing, moving, healing, shapchanging, etc. Peter is an orphan in a Schoolhouse, a supposedly-safe nursery for the children of noble Gamesmen and Gameswomen. They start off with that semi-cliched pretext of living chessmen, of people with fantastical psi-powers waging battle on various scales with each other.But it quickly escalates into truly grand adventure. They've been out of print awhile, but there's an omnibus paperback of these three novels published a few years back, which may be easier to find, called simply The True Game. This is actually a sequence of nine books, starting with King's Blood Four, Necromancer Nine and Wizard's Eleven.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |