King of the Dead (Lens of the World Trilogy, Book II) - Softcover

MacAvoy, R. A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 038071017X ISBN 13: 9780380710171

Publisher: Avon Books, 1992

Synopsis

An attack by paid assassins sets diminutive philosopher Nazhuret and his lady, Arlin, on the road to Rezhmia, a fearsome neighboring kingdom to which Nazhuret is tied by ancient blood. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author

R. A. MacAvoy is a highly acclaimed author of imaginative and original science fiction and fantasy novels. Her debut novel, Tea with the Black Dragon, won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She has also written the Damiano trilogy, the chronicles of a wizard’s young son, set during an alternate history version of the Italian Renaissance; The Book of Kells; and Twisting the Rope, the highly acclaimed sequel to Tea with the Black Dragon. She is also the author of the beloved and much-praised Lens of the World trilogy.

From Kirkus Reviews

The understated and unusual fantasy series begun in Lens of the World (1990) continues to delight in this second volume. The young student Nazhuret, who learned at the end of the first book that he was heir to a duchy, finds himself beset by assassins who want to prevent him from claiming his birthright (in which he has no real interest). But before he and his lover Arlin can discover who is behind the attempts on their lives, they are commissioned by King Rudof of Velonya to travel as his unofficial ambassadors into the Rezhmian Empire. Tensions have been rising between Rezhmia and Velonya, and Rudof hopes that Nazhuret and Arlin can succeed diplomatically where others have failed. Their journey takes them to the plains of the wild Nailish nomads, where they meet a wizard, weather earthquakes, and narrowly avoid being shanghaied into the Rezhmian army. At last, reaching Rezhmia, they fall in with a visionary eunuch slave and race against time to avert the coming war. MacAvoy's series has some of the flavor and subtlety of Gene Wolfe's modern classic The Book of the New Sun, but her own unique elements--a fascination with shifting genders and the mysteries of death--make this series distinctive in the often monochromatic fantasy field. Unlike many other series fantasies, each volume of MacAvoy's tells a self-contained story as well as advancing the larger saga, so readers will not feel cheated waiting for the next volume. The ``Lens of the World'' series promises to become a landmark of the decade, and no reader of modern fantasy should miss it. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Avon Books
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 038071017X
• ISBN 13: 9780380710171
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 286