Amazon.com Review
Katherine Kurtz has collected eleven original stories based on the legendary Knights Templar in a book that serves as a sequel to her earlier collection, Tales of the Knights Templar. The stories, written by such authors as Andre Norton, Diane Duane and Kurtz herself, are separated by interludes that chronicle the actual history of the Templars and that also set the background for each successive tale. As with most collections, the stories vary widely from about average to pretty good. What's most compelling here is the Templars themselves, a mysterious order of knights founded in the late 11th century, ostensibly to protect pilgrims in and around Jerusalem. But the Templars grew to become one of the most powerful political and religious orders in the world, only to be brought down by a jealous King Philip IV of France. In the aftermath of their destruction, tales and legends that persist today sprang up around the Templars, creating fertile ground for Kurtz's band of imaginative storytellers. --Craig Engler
From Publishers Weekly
The Order of the Knights Templar is best known for its members' zealous deeds in the Holy Land, but the organization was also a formidable financial institution?wealthy enough to earn the enmity of the Catholic church and King Philip IV of France, who, in 1307, ordered the Templars hunted down. This dark period provides the backdrop for Kurtz's second Knights Templar anthology (after the mass market Tales of the Knights Templar, 1995), a hit-or-miss collection despite appearances by some popular fantasy authors as well as by the head of John the Baptist, the Shroud of Turin and the Holy Grail. A Templar official pays off a draft authorizing payment of "an amount without limit" to protect a holy artifact in Diane Duane's slight "Blank Check." Andre Norton's surprising "Stonish Men," with its New England colonials speaking like characters in a B-grade western, does little with the intriguing idea that Templars might have fled to America. Kurtz's own "Restitution" merely allows modern-day reincarnated Templar Sir Adam Sinclair (from her popular Adept series) to tie up a loose end from another story. Robert Reginald's "Occam's Razor," however, is a lively tale, with William of Occam called in by the pope to investigate some suspicious deaths. Also noteworthy is the dry, neo-noir "Selling the Devil" by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald. Educational interludes by Kurtz knit the collection together and fill in the context that too many of the stories leave out.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
