Icefalcon's Quest (Darwath, No. 5) - Softcover

Barbara Hambly

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345388240 ISBN 13: 9780345388247

Publisher: Del Rey, 1998

Synopsis

Chaos reigned in the Eastern Lands: as the fearsome Alketch army mounted siege, the young Prince Tir was snatched from the heart of Dare's Keep. Behind the terror was the depraved, hook-handed general Vair na-Chandros. He had learned that the royal child possessed forbidden wisdom; a secret the bloodthirsty Vair intended to use to conquer the world.

One man posed a threat to Vair's vaunting ambition: the legendary warrior known as the Icefalcon. Banished by his own people and scorned as a barbarian by others, only he could hope to free the boy from Vair's clutches. With his sister Cold Death--a sorcerer whose magic was as sharp as her tongue--the Icefalcon embarked on a dangerous mission of rescue and redemption that would force him to wage his greatest battle . . . for his prince, for his honor, and for all eternity.

About this title

Review:

Hitherto, Hambly's books about Darwath, a world menaced by awakened malign sleepers and an ice age, have been classic portal fantasies, in which the emphasis is on two transplanted Californians, Gil and Rudy, who are learning to cope with a world of magic and swordplay. In the original Darwath trilogy, the menace is the Dark, hivemind beings with a taste for human flesh who wreck civilization in a matter of weeks when their brainless hominid herds die; in the singleton Mother of Winter, it was devouring fungi and the old cold mind behind them. This new book shifts emphasis to Icefalcon, the exiled plains nomad who has come to value civilization without feeling a part of it, and to the corrupt magus who kidnaps Rudy's young royal stepson for his ancestral memories. Lost in the wastes of the North is another refuge against the cold and the Dark, a Keep which has, rather literally, a mind of its own. Icefalcon has to cope with the cold and the vividly evoked claustrophobia of old dark places; he also has to comprehend the rejection of his barbarian clan. This is an intelligent fantasy thriller about choices, particularly the ones you never knew you made. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk

From the Publisher:

Hambly takes us back to the world of _The Darwath Trilogy_ and MOTHER OF
WINTER and puts readers through the wringer with a story that snaps with
cold and deadly danger. One of the warriors of the Keep of Dare, the
outcast barbarian known as the Icefalcon, is the only person who can give
chase when enemies steal away the queen's son. The Icefalcon follows the
kidnappers into the ice-locked lands of his tribal people and beyond, to a
long-lost fortress and a fiendishly devised plot that could well cost him
his life, and the lives of the young prince and all the people of Dare.

About this edition

• Publisher: Del Rey
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0345388240
• ISBN 13: 9780345388247
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368
• Illustrator: Donato Giancola