The Golden Shrine - Hardcover

Turtledove, Harry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765317125 ISBN 13: 9780765317124

Publisher: Tor Books, 2009

Synopsis

Continuing the alternate-Bronze-Age epic begun in Beyond the Gap:

The glaciers came and covered the world with ice. Now they are in retreat. North of the city of Nidaros, north of the forest, north of the steppes where the nomadic Bizogots hunt, a gap has opened in the ice-wall. And down through that gap come the men who call themselves "Rulers."

Their terrifying cavalry rides wooly mammoths. Their bows can shoot arrows farther than those of the southerners. Their wizards wield power that neither the shamans of the Bizogots nor the wizards of Raumsdalian Empire can match, a magic that can melt the stone beneath a man's feet, call down blasting fire from the sky, or decimate a tribe with plagues that have no cure. Scattered survivors of the Bizogot tribes hide from the Rulers. The Empire is shattered. The feckless Emperor Sigvat II is in hiding.

Against the Rulers stands Count Hamnet Thyssen and his small band of friends.  Jarl Trasamund of the Three Tusk Bizogots. The adventurer Ulric Skakki. And, most important, Marcovefa, the female shaman of a cannibal tribe that lives atop the Glacier itself. Marcovefa has magic that the Rulers cannot counter.

But there are many Rulers, and they have many wizards. Marcovefa is but one.

Perhaps Hamnet and his allies can save their lands from the Rulers.  But first they must seek out the legendary Golden Shrine – and the Golden Shrine has not been seen by human eyes since the time before the glaciers came.

About this title

About the Author:

HARRY TURTLEDOVE, “the modern master of alternate history,” lives in Los Angeles

From Publishers Weekly:

Master alternate historian Turtledove stumbles with his third novel set in a parallel Bronze Age. Picking up shortly after the events of 2008's The Breath of God, the book continues the exploits of Count Hamnet Thyssen and his allies as they struggle to defeat the mammoth-mounted Riders, who are aided by powerful wizards. The count's ace in the hole is Marcovefa, a cannibal and shaman whose magic enables his forces to hold their own. The skirmishes with the enemy and the quest for a legendary Golden Shrine that holds promise for repairing their world form the bulk of the plot. Anachronistic word choices (You say the sweetest things, darling) consistently undercut suspension of disbelief, and while the imagined universe is accessible to newcomers, there's little to make readers rush out and read the earlier or future books. (Oct.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0765317125
• ISBN 13: 9780765317124
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336