The Chantry Guild [Hardcover]

Gordon R. Dickson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1988

Hal Mayne is lured away from important research aboard the Final Encyclopedia by the shattering news of the Younger Worlds' oncoming defeat--an inevitable triumph for the cross-cultural hybrids known as the Others. And on the planet Kultis, Hall will meet his ultimate challenge--and enter a battle that will alter mankind's destiny forever. Original.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dickson's vast Childe Cycle ( Soldier , Ask Not , The Final Encyclopedia ) is taken one further step with this story of a conceptual breakthrough by the Dorsai mercenary and philosopher Hal Mayne. The action is slim here as a frustrated Mayne, stymied in his efforts to conceive a strategy to save Old Earth from its overwhelming foe, the Others, visits the secretive, quasi-religious Chantry Guild on the planet Kultis. While absorbing their teaching, he helps the Guild evade local soldiers and has an unexpected meeting with his nemesis, Bleys Ahrens. Although the protagonist's quest and Dickson's conviction are generally engrossing, the novel suffers from many of the pitfalls of Dickson's other solemn, parable-like tales. In its weaker moments, the prose teeters toward psychobabble as bland superman Mayne pushes a reluctant human race toward a level where they "would have more, be more, and choose more wisely."
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 428 pages
• Publisher: Ace Books; First Edition edition (October 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 044110276X
• ISBN-13: 978-0441102761
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,724,674 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The development of Hal and Amanda's relationship is intense., February 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Chantry Guild (Paperback)

If you like an epic, this series by Gordon R. Dickson is for you. The scope and intelligence of Dickson's writing can only be compared to Frank Herbert's Dune. The subtle development of Hal's and Bley's relationship is interesting. Dickson writes so that you do not feel the need to hate Hal's enemy, Bleys. Hal's relationship with Amanda also develops, but with more intensity, with the importance of Amanda's wisdom and thinking becoming more apparent. Hals develops a block in his thinking and travels to a Younger World to regain his "optimism", achieving this, he returns to the Final Encyclopedia to continue his epic battle with Bleys. It is now 1998 and I still see no new release continuing this grand story. I wait impatiently for the news of this release. I recommend The Final Encyclopedia as possibly one of the greatest science fiction books ever written. Mr. Dickson is a writer I would love to meet. Greg Smith [e-mail]

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poorly edited and difficult to follow, July 15, 2002

By 

R D (Springfield, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Chantry Guild (Paperback)

I was given this book a few years ago by a friend, and finally picked it up to read this summer. I have not read any other books in the "Childe Cycle" that this book is apparently part of, which perhaps is a big part of my reason for my poor impression of it.

At a basic level, there is an editorial sloppiness to the book. There were far too many sentences that clearly are missing words, as well as a couple of places where entire phrases were inadvertantly repeated in the same paragraph. Yes, it's a minor annoyance, but distracting just the same.

The author also does a bad job of giving background to readers who haven't read the previous books. I realize that coming into the middle of any series can be challenging, but even some basic introduction to important elements in the main characters' backgrounds is typical. I once made the mistake of picking up a relatively late book in Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series (Crown of Thorns) as my first, but I felt I eventually understood most of what I needed to in order to appreciate that book as a story on it's own. Not so with The Chantry Guild... Dickson is very haphazard about background, and as a result, the primary struggle in the book, the protagonist's (Hal's) effort to reach the "Creative Universe", is baffling and ultimately incomprehensible.

Or perhaps I'm being too generous by giving Dickson that out... even if I had read the rest of the series, I'm not sure it would make sense. Too much of the book is spent in rambling third-person narration describing Hal's internal monologue and thoughts as he grapples with this intangible metaphysical goal. It is hard to read, bogs down the other plots, and proves ultimately unsatisfying in that, despite being told over and over again that this task is the main character's life goal and is somehow tied to the fate of humanity, why or how is completely unclear. Perhaps by this point in the series we are supposed to be so attached to this character that seeing him achieve something very important to him is supposed to be satisfying to us by itself. But as a new reader, I didn't find myself caring about this guy much, and I want to know what the point of all the navel-gazing was and how it might actually help save humanity. In some ways, this plot is very derivative of Paul Atreides' messiah quest in Dune, and Dickson's work in this book suffers badly in comparison.

The more traditional plot in the book is not particularly noteworthy either. Dickson spends *130* pages on what is basically a small-scale action sequence that takes place over a day as the secret village Hal stays in is first threatened by enemy search parties and then caught up in rescuing a few of their own who are caught by the bad guys. The story moves excruciatingly slowly. Worse, all of the struggle and effort we are dragged through ultimately serves no clear narrative purpose, other than to physically exhaust the protagonist to the point that he can get a good night's sleep and have a breakthrough in his metaphysical journey. The "enemy" even finds them anyway as the result of very casually-noted aerial surveillance (setting up a highly contrived visit by the arch-nemesis), and the characters being rescued are discarded so quickly afterwards that we are never given the resolution of their personal stories, which Dickson had spewed many pages setting up.

Of course, it's not all bad. The "world" this story is set in is well-conceived and interesting, and there are some really innovative aspects of the protagonists' backgrounds. Refreshingly, relatively little time is spent on technology, and when he chooses to, Dickson can describe this world with clear and vivid images that one can easily imagine making a transition to a movie screen.

Overall, this is a weak book that, while potentially interesting to those who have become engrossed in the rest of the series, should be avoided by anyone else. It would be much better if it were a 100 pages shorter and provided a better explanation of what came before and the significance of the "Creative Universe".

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and powerful, October 21, 2000

By 

Kenneth James Michael MacLean (Ann Arbor, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Chantry Guild (Dorsai/Childe Cycle) (Mass Market Paperback)

The Canadian Gordon Dickson is, in my opinion, the greatest SF writer of all time. His Childe Cyle novels are the finest Sf series that has ever been written, in my humble opinion. These novels are gripping, and with a depth and scope that is unmatched in the history of SF. There have been many great SF series with scope and depth, but none with the over all vision of Dickson. He knows where he is going in these novels and each seamlessly integrates with the previous, and with each other. The Chantry Guild continues the story of Hal and elaborates on the universe Dickson has created, all the while elegantly commenting on the human condition. The depth and power of these books is consciousnes raising, but at the same time they are really fun to read. That is a combination that is nearly impossible to attain, but Mr. Dickson has done it.