The Stricken Field - Hardcover

Duncan, Dave

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345378989 ISBN 13: 9780345378989

Publisher: Del Rey, 1993

Synopsis

When the mad dwarf Zinixo overthrows the Impire, a stableboy-turned-sorcerer-turned-king musters his conjuring friends to whip up the magic required to free their world from evil's grip.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The end of the millennium was turning out to be every bit as bad as the prophecies had foretold... The paranoid dwarf Zinixo had overthrown the Impire proclaiming himself almighty. With legions of sorcerers bound to his will, his preposterous claim was scarcely open to doubt. Ruthlessly he trampled all resistance. Armies - both magic and mundane - swept across the lands. Everywhere, lives were disrupted - or worse. The "forces" opposing the tyrant were paltry, their leaders few: Imperor Emshandar V, deposed the very day he ascended the fabled Opal Throne; the dwarf Raspnex, Zinixo's warlock uncle, who alone knew the depths of his kinsman's madness; and Rap, the stableboy who had become the most puissant sorcerer in all Pandemia - and then left that power behind to rule a tiny kingdom with Inos, the woman he loved. Together they set out to enlist whatever magic-users were not yet enslaved to Zinixo. But free sorcerers were scarce as hen's teeth: Shandie, Rap, and Raspnex were forced to separate, each carrying the hope of freedom to a different corner of their troubled world. Shandie rode north - into disaster. Raspnex pursued his own secret plans. And Rap toiled through steaming jungles in search of the troll-witch Grunth. He prayed that his wife and children were safe, protected by their icebound kingdom's remoteness and by the spells that guarded the tiny realm. But the end of the age was wracking every land, and Inos and the twins Kadie and Gath were far indeed from home, and further yet from any hope of safety....

Reviews

The future appears increasingly bleak for those few still free to oppose the secret rule of Warlock Zinixo in this sequel to Upland Outlaws . Emshandar V, Imperor of Pandemia, and Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar, along with her twin teenaged children, Kadie and Gath, have been taken by the goblins, led by charismatic Death Bird. Inos and Shandie convince the goblin sorcerers of the danger posed by Zinixo, but then must persuade their captors to let them get the dwarves to join the new protocol that bans votarism--the virtual enslavement of sorcerers by those more powerful--doing away with Zinixo's power base. Far away, the faun King Rap, Inosolan's husband and once a demi-god, convinces the trolls' most powerful magic makers, as well as those of the cannibal anthropophagus, to join the fight against Zinixo's powerful concentration of sorcerers, the Covin. But the real weapon is revealed in the slowly unfolding tale of the pixie Thaile. Duncan's tale is laden with gloom and premonitions of doom, but the reader is irresistibly drawn further into the lives, loves and travails of appealing--and unappealing--protagonists.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Part three of Duncan's projected tetralogy (most recently Upland Outlaw, p. 338), set in Pandemia, land of sorcerers, gods, and numerous human varieties. The insane but enormously powerful dwarf mage Zinixo has ensorcelled many of Pandemia's magicians, compelling them to join his all-but-irresistible Covin. Meanwhile, various characters resist Zinixo by one means or another. King Rap of Krasnegar journeys among the trolls, hoping to persuade the remaining free sorcerers to unite against Zinixo, and unexpectedly wins the support of a large contingent of cannibal mages, unaware that his wife and children have been captured by a combined dwarf/goblin army. The deposed Imperor Shandie's rakish aide, Ylo, believing Shandie to be dead, appropriates the Imperor's beautiful and neglected wife, Eshiala. At the same time, the pixies--hidden by powerful spells for a thousand years--are also undergoing upheavals. Thaile, potentially their most powerful mage, rejects the terrible constraints imposed upon her by the pixies' Keeper and goes traveling into the outer world, just in time to rescue Rap's daughter, Kadie. Again, not as delightful as the inaugural volume--but Duncan does retain his sense of humor and proportion. So: refreshingly lighthearted in the telling, and above-average overall. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

While a false ruler sits upon the Opal Throne as the puppet of a mad sorcerer, the real Imperor, Shandie, and his allies roam the land in search of magical support. Four separate story lines carry the protagonists closer to their goal in this sequel to The Cutting Edge ( LJ 9/1/92) and Upland Outlaws ( LJ 4/15/93). Duncan's talent for storytelling grows with each tale he tells. Most fantasy collections will want this title.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Del Rey
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0345378989
• ISBN 13: 9780345378989
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 343