2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Among the Powers is a great read!, August 30, 2009
This review is from: Among the Powers (Paperback)
Watt-Evans fans will be charmed by this story which explores the difference between magic and technology. More Sci-fi than fantasy, this story is a departure from Watt-Evans' Dragon series or Ethshar novels. Yet, Watt-Evans' simple story line and clear wit tell a powerful story about human motivations and how technology affects us.
This is a reprint of the book Denner's Wreck. On the world of Denner's Wreck, the original colonists have devolved into an agrarian society. They believe that beings called "The Powers" are gods and goddesses who created the world and keep it running properly. However, it is quickly made clear that The Powers are merely humans with advanced technology who are visiting Denner's Wreck on an extended (400 years or so) holiday.
Our main character is a hunter by the name of Bredon. He runs into a power named Geste, who is fond of jokes at other peoples expense. To make up for involving Bredon in one of his jokes. Geste offers to give Bredon anything in his power as a favor. Unable to think of anything right away, Bredon asks for time to think about it. He then chances to see a Power by the name of Lady Sunlight and desires her. Geste thinks it would be amusing to introduce them, so he takes Bredon to meet her. Geste then discovers that Lady Sunlight and several other Powers are being held prisoner by an insane Power named Thaddeus the Black. Thaddeus is attempting to take over the world and set himself up as an evil emperor. Geste and Bredon each resolve to stop Thaddeus and save the world in their own unique fashions.
This is an entertaining and fast paced story.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A light, engaging, nice read., May 10, 2011
Among the Powers by Lawrence Watt-Evans.
If his main characters are any clue, Lawrence Watt-Evans is just a nice guy. Watt-Evans has taken up the burden - shrugged off by Robert Heinlein sometime in the `60s - of writing stories about basically decent young men who go out into the world and learn something.
In this case, the story is about Bredon, a young hunter from a simple, egalitarian, nice culture, whose highest ambition is to trap a really nice horse. The horse, however, is the set-up for a practical joke being played by a "Power" named "Geste the Trickster." These "Powers" are very real supernatural beings who vary from being distant mythical figures to being all-too involved in the life of the simple farmers and hunters who inhabit the land.
When Geste plays his trick, Bredon gets angry and Geste decides to make amends by granting a favor. In paying off the favor, Geste gets involved with the Powers and learns that his world is not "the world" but one world inhabited by the descendants of a shipwreck and that the Powers are just people with a higher technology who just happen to have been vacationing for the last 400 years. In true "Heinlein hero" fashion, Bredon uses his native wit to learn and plays an instrumental role in a power play among one of the Powers.
"Among the Powers" is a light, engaging, nice read. Watt-Evans' sketches of the characteristics of the powers, as seen through the folk-stories told by professional story tellers is engaging. The political story of the relationships among the Powers is engaging. For Kindle readers, there is a "value added feature" consisting of a few pages at the end where Watt-Evans explains the genesis of his story, its debt to Roger Zelazny, and two inside jokes.
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