The Scar [Hardcover]

Sergey Dyachenko (Author), Marina Dyachenko (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 28, 2012

Reaching far beyond sword and sorcery, The Scar is a story of two people torn by disaster, their descent into despair, and their reemergence through love and courage. Sergey and Marina Dyachenko mix dramatic scenes with romance, action and wit, in a style both direct and lyrical. Written with a sure artistic hand, The Scar is the story of a man driven by his own feverish demons to find redemption and the woman who just might save him.

Egert is a brash, confident member of the elite guards and an egotistical philanderer. But after he kills an innocent student in a duel, a mysterious man known as “The Wanderer” challenges Egert and slashes his face with his sword, leaving Egert with a scar that comes to symbolize his cowardice. Unable to end his suffering by his own hand, Egert embarks on an odyssey to undo the curse and the horrible damage he has caused, which can only be repaired by a painful journey down a long and harrowing path.

 

Plotted with the sureness of Robin Hobb and colored with the haunting and ominous imagination of Michael Moorcock, The Scar tells a story that cannot be forgotten.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Egert Soll, born into the ancient, militaristic city of Kavarren, is a confident young soldier who believes himself invincible. He takes whatever and whomever he wants, with no consideration of the impact on others. However, his careless actions have serious repercussions when he takes the life of a young scholar, a weaker opponent. This unnecessary death draws the attention of a mysterious man known only as the Wanderer. The Wanderer slashes Egert with his blade, from cheek to chin, leaving him with a deep wound and a festering curse of unimaginable constraint. The curse is reserved for those who destroy the weak to inflate themselves. Reduced to a broken coward, Egert flees his home and embarks on an odyssey that will either heal or destroy him. Although this novel taps into the predictable theme of redemption, the authors take two-dimensional characters and place them in an unorthodox story fringed with magic, romance, secret societies, and whispers of the end of time. --Alison Downs

Review

"Rich, vivid, tactile prose, with a solid yet unpredictable plot—and an extraordinary depth and intensity of character reminiscent of the finest Russian literature.A truly spellbinding work even audiences jaded by standard U.S./U.K. fantasy will devour."
--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Sergey and Marina Dyachenko’s The Scar blends the simplicity of a parable with the complexity and richness of a Russian novel."
--Library Journal

“…An unorthodox story fringed with magic, romance, secret societies, and whispers of the end of time.”
--Booklist

 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; First Edition edition (February 28, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780765329936
• ISBN-13: 978-0765329936
• ASIN: 076532993X
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #513,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Crime & Punishment & Sorcery March 2, 2012

By Hank Peace

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

The Scar is the type of book that makes you weep for the limitations of sub-genre delineations. Not epic in scope and apparently intended to stand alone despite being part of a larger cycle. The epic and fantastic elements that presumably tie together the larger cycle are there, but very much in the background. This is really a novel about three people. Where so much fantasy is so very epic, The Scar is incredibly intimate. At the same time, it does not share the heavy reliance on action and violent conflict of most Sword & Sorcery. It perhaps better resembles a fully formed, and in many ways very traditional, fairy tale.

At its heart, The Scar is a tale of two people (and another person linked to both) whose lives are eternally altered and inextricably linked by a senseless murder. It is a tale of a terrible and well deserved curse. It is a tale of arrogance, fear, humiliation, cowardice, and redemption. It is a tale of pride, grief, and forgiveness. The great strength of Russian literature is its ability to plumb the depths of the tortures of the human condition. The Scar shares this ability and brings it to a fantasy setting.

The other tremendous strength of Russian literature is, oddly enough, the language. The prose is halting, haunting, and lyrical, as that of all great Russian literature seems to be. E.g., "A delicate, sweetish, slightly smoky fragrant was soon added to the bitter smell of the velvet. As he gazed at the black partition in front of him, Egert's hearing became unusually acute. He heard a variety of sounds: far and near, subdued and susurrant, as if a horde of dragonflies were creeping about the inside of a glass jar, brushing their wings against the transparent walls."

As I implied above, The Scar is very light on action and very heavy on character development and depth and the interrelations of the characters. All three main characters are exceptionally well drawn and three-dimensional. Of course not everyone cares for this sort of thing and it's hard to do for any author not named Dostoevsky, but when it's done right it can, to my mind, create something of spectacular beauty that leaves an imprint on one's soul, a true artistic masterpiece. I humbly submit that The Scar is such a work (and it still reads much easier than Dostoevsky, not the least because it dispenses with Russian naming conventions).

The world of The Scar is adroitly drawn, albeit only with the broadest of strokes. The book takes place almost entirely within two cities. Fantastic elements are largely limited to mages and the mysterious and ominous Order of the Lash (neither of which are fully explained), oblique references to some great threat to the entire world, and the enigmatic Wanderer.

This review is of the Kindle edition. The Scar was originally published in 1997 in Russia. Elinor Huntington deserves great praise for her English translation. Let's hope we see more Huntington translations of the work of this talented Ukrainian (and Ukraine is NOT weak!) in the near future.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and sharp February 28, 2012

By Sergey V. Berezhnoy

Format:Hardcover

15 years ago I'd got the original manuscript of THE SCAR from Marina and Sergey - it meant to be published soon, one of the novels initiated "Spellbound Worlds" series of Russian fantasy books, Terra Fantastica and AST publishing houses joint project.

By 1996 I'd read Dyachenkos' debut novel already, THE GATE-KEEPER, and I liked it. Some of their shorts and novellas were really nice too. But THE SCAR turned to be something completely different. Absolutely new level of artistry. Not just good, but literally masterpiece - compelling, deep and sharp, frighteningly strong. Could it be the second novel of the newcomers? It was really hard to believe.

Being published in 1997, THE SCAR got a notable success and immediately placed Dyachekos' name on the list of most valuable domestic writers, border-breakers of the genre. In fact, the book never was out-of-print since the first edition in Russia, and it's no wonder that it was translated abroad in time - for example, in Poland, the country with a strong traditions of genre reading.

And now THE SCAR casts overseas, thanks to Tor Books. I just hope the novel will be as impressive in translation of Elinor Huntington as original was, but my English is far from perfect and I cannot judge this.

But you can. And you will.

I'll read you soon. Take care.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A series worth waiting for March 11, 2012

By Holly

Format:Hardcover

If you've been bemoaning the wait for the next Patrick Rothfuss book, or wondering why nothing modern ever reads like Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, read this. The Scar is epic in a personal sense, lyrically haunting, and felt on every human level. (New incentive to learn Russian: I don't think I can wait for the sequels to be translated!)