The Wizard Hunters (The Fall of Ile-Rien, Book 1) [Mass Market Paperback]

Martha Wells (Author), Donato Giancola (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 25, 2004

Once a fertile and prosperous land, Ile-Rien is under attack by the Gardier, a mysterious army whose storm-black airships appear from nowhere to strike without warning. Every weapon in the arsenal of Ile-Rien's revered wizards has proven useless.

And now the last hope of a magical realm under siege rests within a child's plaything.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"It was nine o'clock at night and Tremaine was trying to find a way to kill herself that would bring in a verdict of natural causes in court, when someone banged on the door." So begins Nebula-nominee Wells's entrancing return to the world of The Death of the Necromancer (1998), and if the rest of the book doesn't quite fulfill the promise of that first sentence, it comes very, very close. On Ile-Rien, a world besieged by the mysterious and well-nigh invulnerable Gardier, Tremaine is recruited to help devise a spell that can break through the Gardier airships' impregnable shields. Yet instead of creating a weapon, the spell transports Tremaine and a small band of cohorts to another world with a secret Gardier base, giving them a chance to spy on the enemy of which they know so little. Tremaine makes an engaging and resourceful heroine, if a reluctant one, while her well-drawn fellow adventurers add plenty of human interest. Where the book falters is in the repetitive action, as various characters fall into the hands of the Gardier, then escape, return to rescue comrades left behind or to attack, get recaptured and escape again and again. Wells's ability to keep the reader wondering what will happen next, however, more than compensates for this relatively minor flaw.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The land of Ile-Rien is under attack by the magic and the black airships of the Gardier. Tremaine Valiarde, daughter of the protagonist of Wells' Death of the Necromancer (1998), gives the defenders the magical sphere that is her homeland's last hope of defense. But the sphere's unpredictable powers fling her and assorted comrades into another world, more primitive magically and technologically but in which the enemy has a base. The subsequent story seems intended to combine elements of high fantasy and cross-time travel, as if it were a collaborative work by Andre Norton and S. M. Stirling. Thanks to Wells' narrative skill and considerably above-average characterization, it largely succeeds in those intentions. Before starting this trilogy-opener set in Ile-Rien, it helps to have read Death of the Necromancer, which introduced it and the Gardier. But even the slightly confused readers who skip such preparation may conclude that the trilogy is off to a promising start. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Harper Voyager (May 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038080798X
• ISBN-13: 978-0380807987
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #117,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #65 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Magic & Wizards

More About the Author

Martha Wells is the author of eleven fantasy novels, including Wheel of the Infinite, City of Bones, The Element of Fire, and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer. Her most recent fantasy novels are The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea, to be published by Night Shade Books in 2011 and 2012. She has also written a fantasy trilogy: The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, and The Gate of Gods, all currently out in paperback from HarperCollins Eos. She has had short stories in the magazines Black Gate, Realms of Fantasy, Lone Star Stories, and Stargate Magazine, and in the Tsunami Relief anthology Elemental and The Year's Best Fantasy #7. She has essays in the nonfiction anthologies Farscape Forever and Mapping the World of Harry Potter from BenBella Books. She has also written two media-tie-in novels, Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary and Stargate Atlantis: Entanglement. Her books have been published in eight languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian, and Dutch, and her web site is www.marthawells.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent beginning to a new Il-Rien story, June 18, 2003

By 

Genevieve M. Ellerbee (Alexandria, Virginia, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wizard Hunters: Book One of the Fall of Ile-Rien (Fall of the Ile-Rien) (Hardcover)

I've been hooked on Martha Wells since I stumbled across The Element of Fire. She's managed to make it to a very elite list of mine - the buy on sight list. Wells has an ability to draw excellent characters without sacrificing any attention to plot or setting. In fact, throughout her books (The two stand-alones and the Il-Rien books), she's managed to explore new and interesting worlds and people them with characters you want to spend time with.

This new book, the beginning to a trilogy set in Il-Rien (at least initially) doesn't disapoint. Tremaine is one of her most engaging heroines, especially as that's probably the last way she would think of herself. As is usual for Wells, secondary characters aren't stinted; there aren't any two-dimensional people wandering around in the background while your attention is supposed to be focused on the leads. I keep reccomending Martha Wells to friends, and at this rate, I will be able to keep on doing so.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This is not for everyone, April 24, 2008

By 

Mark E. Hall (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wizard Hunters (The Fall of Ile-Rien, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Some qualifications. I am more a fan of heroic/sword & sorcery style fantasy. Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, C. L. Moore, JRR Tolkien, etc. Next, I did not realize until I finshed the book there is a prequel (Death of a Necromancer).

Ile-Rien is a land populated by wizards which is under attack by the Gardier, a mysterious enemy in dirigible like ships who use technology and magic together. Ile-Rien is slowly succumbing to the attacks, until the wizards realize they have a weapon to try against the Gardier. This mission to try the weapon against the Gardier is told from the viewpoint of a woman named Tremaine.

At 454 pages, this story plods along. There are a lot of descriptive passages throughout; while this can be seen as evidence that Wells has tried to create a convincing fantasy world, it gets in the way of telling the story and moving the plot along. I would argue, that Wells trips up in the creation of her fantasy world though when she mentions things like automobiles, coffee, and telephones.

The epsiodic nature of the book is vaguely reminiscent of the old pulps at times, with Tremaine and her friends going from "Burroughs-esque" adventure to adventure. The interspersed, detailed descriptions are what slow the story down though. (Yes, I don't need every single detail described--I have an imagination...)

The book also suffers from the plot being somewhat predictable. The only real surprise comes towards the end when the source of the Gardier's power is revealed--whether Wells develops this in the rest of the series remains to be seen.

From looking at the Amazon reviews, its clear this book will appear to some people. And that's great. If you like some of the writers I mentioned above though, I think you will find this book disappointing.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First of an exceptionally promising trilogy, June 24, 2003

By 

Neal C. Reynolds (Indianapolis, Indiana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wizard Hunters: Book One of the Fall of Ile-Rien (Fall of the Ile-Rien) (Hardcover)

The first sentence of this book should grab just about anyone. Right off hand, you know this is a suicidal heroine, but you don't know why. You also get the idea that one of the characters might be an unidentified wizard, but you don't know that for sure. And it is very much to the author's credit that both questions are resolved by the end of the book in such a way that's true to the characters involved, rather than carrying them over to the next book.

Obviously, THE FALL OF ILE-RIEN trilogy will be concerned with revolution and social change in this land of magic and of wizards. The beginning book deals with the attack and conquest of this land by the Gardier, a mysterious enemy helped by their evil wizards. Tremaine Vallarde who lacks magical skills but possesses a sphere which has within it power to defeat the Gardier finds herself along with a female student wizard, a former guardian with wizardly powers, and a young security agent who's apparantly enamored of her transported to a strange world. The Gardier are using a base on this world as a gateway to Ile-Rien. The wizard hunters referred to in the book's titled belong to a race which knows only of the evil wizards who misuse their magic.

This alternate world's distrust of those who work magic along with the initial inability of the two races to speak a common language causes an uneasy alliance, and so the story and adventures go from there.

One of the good points of this story is the lack of romantic entanglements in spite of the fact that two of the five younger characters are comely women. The strong characterization of these characters makes it obvious that there'll be no fast blooming infatuations or love here, although I expect that will change in the middle book of the trilogy.

And so vivid characterization, deft plotting, underlying logic and unanswered questions make this a most enjoyable read with a quite satisfying ending, and yet a yearning to read more about Ile-rien. Highly recommended fantasy adventure.