The Atheling - Softcover

Grace Chetwin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552134201 ISBN 13: 9780552134200

Publisher: Corgi, 1990

Synopsis

Atheling: Anglo-Saxon for prince. 2047. Earth is dying after nuclear wars. As a new arms race builds, Pylar Fazhakian, an elderly leader of an Armenian mystic sect, appears at a Palo Alto defense installation claiming to have data that will give Pan-America advantage over the other two main world blocs. But Fazhakian-the Hesikastor-has more than secret codes. As Ellisen, the Pan-American leader checks him out, he links psychically with beings on Phrynis in the Pleiades system, a possible refuge for Earth survivors. As a new race begins to seek out the planet's coordinates, its history unfolds through the Hesikastor's mind. The link is not an idle one: there is an agenda.

Torc, the atheling, undergoes a token spiritual journey which changes him from a callow, macho heir to a brutal throne into a thoughtful, idealistic seeker whose crown is thereby at risk even before he puts it on. His struggles on Phrynis mirror Ellisen's as that one wrestles with his conscience over the fate of war-torn Earth.

About this title

From the Author

This, the first book in the The Last Legacy quartet, kicks off a 1600-page saga involving  latter-day Earth and an alien planet, Phrynis, somewhere in the Pleiades star system. The Earth story spans a few months and arcs over all four books. The alien tale spans millenia. Each book contains a completed segment of Phrynis history, and gives rise to a number of questions: What connects the two planets? Why is it made, and to an old Armenian seer of no social or political value to leaders of a dying Earth? Why is each book so long? Because there's so much to chew on. Large themes with social, political, and spiritual content simply arose as the plot unfolded. As with all my books, there was no prior schematic chart moving things along in orderly fashion. I simply posed a question then set about answering it. The odd thing is that however long the telling, the end is always contained in the beginning, the snake always bites its tail to make the ring complete. Crazy? It works - for me. When I wrote Gom on Windy Mountain I had no articulate thought of what would follow. I knew only that there would be nine books. And there are.  Accordingly, I saw this series as a quartet and it is. With me, there is always some small epiphany, a quick hook that catches, and drives. In this case, it was an aria from Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes. At the point in the opera where Peter's mind is quite scrambled, when all to him - in his own life and in the world - is entropic chaos, he enters a crowded inn with an outburst that stuns all to silence. That aria haunts me still and was the nugget long ago of the quartet, all 1600pp. One third of the aria fronts each of the first three books and each clip fits its book exactly. The whole will preface the final volume bringing everything together.

From the Back Cover

2047: Earth faces its final days, and only one man offers hope for survival - Pylar Fazakhian, the Hesikastor. Through his visions, the Atheling's history unfolds, revealing the existence of a distant planet - an unspoiled Eden and possible refuge for our world's tattered survivors.

Edition details

• Publisher: Corgi
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0552134201
• ISBN 13: 9780552134200
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 449