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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An underappreciated gem,
By
This review is from: The Unschooled Wizard (Ladies of Mandrigyn / Witches of Wenshar) (Hardcover)
I don't remember when or where I first lucked into this remarkable book. I do know that I've read it so many times that the characters all feel like old friends.
The book is actually two books, "The Ladies of Mandrigyn" and "The Witches of Wenshar." You can buy them separately, but I'm not sure why you would - quite apart from price and convenience considerations, there's the cover art issue. Sure, this one's art isn't anything to write home about, but please tell me who exactly the woman on the cover of the standalone "Ladies" is supposed to be? But enough cattiness. On with the review. The first book, "Ladies of Mandrigyn," introduces our heroes: Sun Wolf, a middle-aged mercenary captain, and Starhawk, his quiet, ascetic second-in-command. It tells the story of Sun Wolf's capture by the (of course) ladies of Mandrigyn, after an unsuccessful attempt to hire him and his troops to fight the wizard king Altiokis who captured their town and enslaved their men. Sun Wolf refused to fight for them, citing his two golden rules for a warrior: "Never fall in love, and never mess with magic;" and thus finds himself being coerced instead into training the ladies to fight for themselves. While the hardened mercenary struggles with the task of making soldiers out of noblewomen, fishwives, hairdressers and prostitutes, his lieutenant Starhawk is on her own quest - her loyalty is to Sun Wolf (or, as she calls him, "the Chief.") So long as even a chance remains that the Wolf is still alive after his mysterious disappearance, her duty is to find and rescue him - and avenge him if he is dead. By the end of the book, no character escapes unscathed - or at least unchanged, and the Wolf, through no fault of his own, finds himself breaking first one, then both of his rules... **Fair warning: mild spoilers below** "Witches of Wenshar" picks up not long after the end of "Ladies." In this one, Sun Wolf and Starhawk are in search of a wizard to train him - no easy feat, given that until recently, the wizard king Altiokis was hunting down and killing any that might be a rival to his power. Approaching the desert kingdom of Wenshar, it seems they may just have found what they're looking for - except that the local wizard Kaletha hates the Wolf and is jealously hoarding her knowledge, the king is a volatile drunkard, and the bishop is busy telling the king and anyone else who will listen that Sun Wolf and Kaletha both should be forbidden from working their evil in the city. Toss into the mix manipulative politics, strange superstitions, tentative race relations with the desert shirdar - and oh yes: the mysterious murders that began the night the Wolf and the Hawk arrived in the city. Barbara Hambly spins a good tale: plot weaving that seems natural and effortless, evocative language, a keen ear for diction and dialogue. She builds an elaborate world with great subtlety, with never anything so crass as blatant exposition or a prologue, but also without even a moment of confusion on the part of the reader. Yet her chief talents lie in two areas. The first is characterization - which is good, because the first book, for all its action, is at heart a character story, and to a large extent the second one is too. Starhawk's transformation as she searches for Sun Wolf is gentle and entirely believable - the woman who arrives in Mandrigyn is completely different than the one who first set out, but at no point does it seem forced, nor does she lose anything of herself during the change. The Wolf's metamorphosis, while much more drastic and violent, feels just as natural. Nor does she short the minor characters - everyone mentioned in these two books is complex and complete. They feel like real people. Even the most stereotypical ones (Drypettis Dru of Mandrigyn; the king of Wenshar) have enough humanizing touches that hint at fully-formed personalities behind the immediate image. Her second gift is in imagery. I know what Sun Wolf and Starhawk look like; I would know them if I saw them. I can see the canals of Mandrigyn and the sand-blasted walls of the abandoned city of Wenshar; I remember the clash of garish colors in Altiokis' obscenely opulent throne room, and the way the light shone through the leaves in the little courtyard where Kaletha taught her disciples. And I can still see the too-human eyes of the calf, and hear the high-pitched giggles of the demons. Hambly has the imagination to create beauty and horror equally, and the deft touch with words to let us see them too. If nothing else, this book is thoroughly unique among fantasy. I cannot imagine anyone not being captivated by it, and I cannot recommend it strongly enough. It's little-known, but it's a diamond.
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