5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Eight stories, no two in the same setting, March 24, 2002
"Daughter of Regals" - Magic, in this land, is the art of manipulating images of the Real: the Wood of the Ash tree, Wind, the Fire deep in the earth, or images of Real creatures: the Basilisk, the Wyvern, the Phoenix. Such magic is inherited by those who descend from some Real man or woman: someone who can shapechange into a Real creature. The Regals who unified the three kingdoms of Canna, Nabal, and Loden into an uneasy realm are such people. Now Chrysalis, on this night of her 21st birthday, must ascend to the Seat in full view of the realm's nobles and take her Real shape and her place as Regal, or watch the Realm shatter. And she alone knows that she's already failed once. (Excellent story, taking place in the single night that will mark Chrysalis' ascension, death, or flight, told by her.)
"Gilden-Fire" - This tale of Korik of the Bloodguard and the mission to the Giants of Seareach was cut from THE ILLEARTH WAR, not because the sequence isn't good, but because 1) Donaldson needed to cut about 150 pages, and 2) using Korik as the viewpoint character caused problems when set beside Covenant's Unbelief. Enjoy; Korik fills in some of the background of the Bloodguard as lagniappe.
"Mythological Beast" - Norman lives a perfectly sane, perfectly safe life as a librarian, in an age when violence has been eliminated by eliminating the causes of fear. Not that many people can read, or that anyone uses the library. He can't understand why the new nub of horn on his forehead doesn't register as anything odd on his biomitter, or why nobody seems surprised by his other gradual changes.
"The Lady in White" - The narrator, Mardik the blacksmith, tells the tale of how his 'mad' dreamer of a younger brother came to be blinded, in rescuing him from the mysterious Lady in White, who had lured many men to their deaths in the Deep Forest.
"Animal Lover" - The narrator is a cyborg government agent, for whom serious injury just means a few more experiments with new equipment. In this age of overpopulation, genetic engineering is outlawed, and the government subsidizes anything that'll act as a pressure valve: slamming cars around a racetrack, game preserves. But the exclusive game preserve the agent's asked to investigate has a *far* higher death rate than normal, and seems to advertise only by word of mouth. The narrator's the best pick, since he'll be inclined to root for the animals rather than slant his report the other way, if no criminal activity is going on.
"Unworthy of the Angel" - The title comes from the saying, Let no man be unworthy of the Angel who stands over him. The narrator, a guardian angel (literally) whose memory of each assignment is wiped away by the next, has the unsavory task of coping with a charge who's selling his soul to become a better sculptor. This isn't a blatant diabolical contract in brimstone, nothing so crude; the sculptor just has to be willfully blind to the consequences of his actions. But an angel can't help you unless you give him permission...
"The Conqueror Worm" - Welcome to the not-quite-right home of Creel and Vi Sump. He's got a good job, but maybe a dead end; the place has some expensive electronics, but a water-damaged ceiling; and so on. Tonight, a centipede is loose in the apartment after they've both been drinking at a party, and they're trying to kill it. (More of a character study than anything; the only story in the collection that's not to my taste.)
"Ser Visal's Tale" - Some of the wild young men of the town regularly buy Ser Visal's drinks at the tavern with the deaf bartender, to hear tales that, while not quite openly heretical or seditious, wouldn't help him any with the Judica or the King. Now they want to know the *real* story of Dom Perralt's excommunication, in this land that's become a theocracy in one generation.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
LOVE IT!, April 4, 2003
I LOVED the book! I like all of them though my favorites happen to be Daughter of Regals, Ser Visal's Tale and The Conquerer Worm. But I liked Unworthy of Angel and Mythological Beast a lot too. Overall, just read the book. I found them all interesting (except Animal Lover, which I didn't read yet hehe) and there's something for everybody.
The Conquerer Worm isn't really a fantasy or sci-fi story at all- it's the shortest (I think) and it shows how much trouble a centipede causes. It has a psycological "creepiness" abput it and I loved it. It is more about developing the characters than anything.
I LOVED Daughter of Regals because of the complex storyline and all the twists it has.
Ser Visal's tale has an unexpected ending- tho it took me a few minutes to realize it. I was like *GASP*. I found that telling the story through a storyteller was interesting.
Gilden-Fire is great because I loved Thomas Covenant and it ties in some info about the bloodguard that is not in The Illearth War. Great read but might be a little confusing for anyone who didn't read the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Short form not his strength., June 3, 2006
Truthfully, I found these pieces lackluster. I felt they had very little of what makes Donaldson so strong as a novelist. Somehow the short form never gives him the chance to create the worlds for which he is so justly famous.
I was particularly disappointed in the first two stories, the longest in the collection. "Daughter of Regals" was quite predictable, and "Gilden-Fire" read like a failed sketch for Illearth, rather than a story set in its mythos. I did enjoy the book more as it progressed, and the stories towards the end were the strongest. I was particularly fond of "Animal Lover" and "Unworthy of the Angel". "Unworthy of the Angel", to my mind, started to approach the quality of the novels-- it was bittersweet, surprising and well-crafted.
Recommended for readers who are already fans. If you have never read any Donaldson before, then pick up Lord Foul's Bane or A Man Rides Through instead.
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