Damiano [Mass Market Paperback]

R. A. MacAvoy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1984

"I am greatly impressed with Ms.MacAvoy's Damiano. Her style is masterly and her sorcerous duels hold one spellbound. You seldom find such telling evocation of striking witchcraft scenes, and the weaving of the whole tale is like viewing one five-hundred-year-old masterpiece just about to be cut finished from an artists's loom. I recommend it highly." -Andre Norton "Damiano is a treasurable read. Roberta MacAvoy is undeniably a writer to watch." --Anne McCaffrey Set against the turbulent backdrop of the Italian Renaissance this alternate history takes place in a world where real faith-based magic exists. Our hero is Damiano Dalstrego. He is a wizard's son, an alchemist and the heir to dark magics. But he is also an innocent, a young scholar and musician befriended by the Archangel Raphael, who instructs him in the lute. To save his beloved city from war, Damiano leaves his cloistered life and sets out on a pilgrimage, seeking the aid of the powerful sorceress Saara as he must walk the narrow path between light and shadow, accompanied only by his talking dog. But his road is filled with betrayal, disillusionment and death, and Damiano is forced to confront his dark heritage, unleashing the hellish force of his awesome powers to protect those he loves. The further volumes of this tale are Damiano's Lute and Raphael.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Bantam Books; First Edition edition (January 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553235753
• ISBN-13: 978-0553235753
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,957,210 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique and Memorable Fantasy Trilogy, August 14, 2000

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: DAMIANO (Damiano Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)

I think the reason Roberta MacAvoy's fantasies are not better known is that they are so hard to classify. Is the Damiano trilogy an alternate history of a time when the pope was exiled in Avignon, and the Black Death and the condottiere made life miserable, brutish, and short for almost everyone else? Is it the story of a witch who wanted to be a musician, and his little talking dog? Is it the tale of a struggle between two brothers, who happen to be the Seraph, Raphael and Lucifer, Prince of Darkness?

MacAvoy has a way of bringing me into every scene, using precise language and memorable detail:

"His mind was flooded with the memory of this very pasture in the green of summer, when his father would treat the sheep with tar poultices and incantation. Grass up to his half-grown knees, except where the flocks had cropped it. It had been cool then, in the mountains, but pleasant. Sheep's milk. Napping at midday, surrounded by curious, odorous, half-grown lambs."

I wish MacAvoy hadn't killed off my favorite characters, one by one, but it is a tribute to the power of her writing that I kept reading, anyway. I was hooked. I had to know how her trilogy ended.

If history is fair to fantasy authors, Damanio and his lute and his little, talking dog will outlast all of the overblown 'ologies' of Brooks, Goodkind, and Stephen King.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trio for Lute are three of my all-time favorites., August 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: DAMIANO (Damiano Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)

Macavoy's Damiano trilogy is rare in that she maintains the suspense and the interesting characters through all three books. It is one story which I find myself thinking about again and again. The ideas about God and life which Damiano considers on his journey come back to me in my own journey. I wish she would write more.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MACAVOY WROTE THE PERFECT STORY IN THREE PARTS., March 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: DAMIANO (Damiano Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)

Its a historical, realistic fantasy that takes place in Northern Italy, Provencal France, and Moorish Spain in the thirteenth century at the tail end of one of the Bubonic plagues. For 600+ pages, with Damiano, Saara, and Raphael, I ate, slept, journeyed, witched, and loved, and also fought with Satan, while safely ensconced on my livingroom couch. Every sentence in all three books is a perfect little facet on this beautiful gem of a medieval epic about good vs. evil. My two regrets are that I bought the trilogy a decade ago but didn't read it until this week, and that it was not 1000 pages longer. It seems R.A. MacAvoy's books are out of print so Northern California used book stores beware: I'm on my way over to beg, borrow, or steal the rest of her stories. I must have them and you must also.