This Rough Magic (Heirs of Alexandria, 2) - Hardcover

Lackey, Mercedes; Flint, Eric; Freer, Dave

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743471490 ISBN 13: 9780743471497

Publisher: Baen, 2003

Synopsis

Corfu in the sixteenth century. Key to Asia. Repository of a magic older than history itself. No wonder the demon Chernobog must possess the island - for with it in his grasp, Chernobog can finally crush Venice and defeat his immortal enemy, the Lion of San Marcos, who thwarted his previous bid for absolute power.
Now all hope depends on the derring-do of the small band of heroes who fought against the demon before - and the inner strength of one reluctant young heroine. For the ancient powers of Corfu care nothing for either Chernobog's lust for power, nor the human desire for freedom.
And anyone who would wield the island's primordial magic must pay with a piece of his - or her - soul.

About this title

About the Author

Eric Flint was the creator of the New York Times best-selling Ring of Fire series, the best-selling alternate history series of all time. Beginning with 1632, Flint—along with dozens of cowriters—chronicled what happened when the 20th-century town of Grantville, West Virginia, was transported through time and space to 17th-century Europe. In addition, Flint was the author, with New York Times best seller David Weber, of the Crown of Slaves Saga, as well as the Belisarius series with best-selling author David Drake. Flint was the editor of Jim Baen’s Universe, as well as numerous short story anthologies. Before becoming a writer, Flint worked as a trade union organizer, longshoreman, truck driver, auto worker, steel worker, oil worker, meatpacker, glassblower, and machinist. Eric Flint passed away in 2022.

Dave Freer is an ichthyologist turned author who lives on Flinders Island (between mainland Australia and Tasmania) with his wife, four dogs and four cats, and two sons. He has coauthored a range of novels with Eric Flint (Rats, Bats and Vats, The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly, Pyramid Scheme, Pyramid Power, and Slow Train to Arcturus), with Mercedes Lackey and Eric Flint (The Shadow of the Lion, This Rough Magic, The Wizard of Karres, Much Fall of Blood, Burdens of the Dead, and Freer’s solo entry in the series, A Mankind Witch) as well as writing the Dragon’s Ring fantasy novels Dragon’s Ring and Dog and Dragon.

Reviews

Lusciously set in alternative-history 16th-century Venice, Corfu and sinister points northeast, this huge sequel to the authors' equally massive and magnetic Shadow of the Lion will appeal to adolescents of all ages. In this world, broken off from ours in A.D. 349 (when St. Hypatia saved the Alexandrian Library), Christian magic battles blackest sorcery, with a wild card-the old, old Mother Goddess still worshipped in Corfu's mountain caves-eventually entering the fray. On the human front, young Benito Valdosta, a roistering rascal and irresistible scamp, derring-dos into modern-man maturity, even snatching Maria, his early love, from the arms of Death himself. The convincing characters range from stalwart Vinland Vikings and conniving courtiers to sex-crazed jealous wives and a fatally shape-shifting shaman, not to mention sadistic King Emeric of Hungary and Emeric's lethal great-great-aunt Elizabeth, Countess Bartholdy, who's bathed into eternal youth by gallons of virgins' blood. All express themselves in stripped-down modern American idiom and whirl through breathless action, making for hours of old-fashioned reading fun. Who needs depth, when Lackey, Flint and Freer, as mixmasters of nearly every heard-of myth, hurtle through as compelling a romp as this?
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The continuation of the alternate-history fantasy begun in The Shadow of the Lion (2001) is just as vast and absorbing. The Valdosta brothers are now ensconced in the Venetian nobility, but young Benito is not adjusting well. He is exiled to the island of Corfu, where his beloved Maria has gone with her elderly husband and new baby. Meanwhile, the demon Chernobog, who is possessing the grand duke of Lithuania, has allied with the witch-king Emeric of Hungary and the Byzantine Empire to descend on Corfu, a notable site of ancient magic. The ensuing siege of Corfu takes up two-thirds of the book, and it is almost impossible to put it down while the tension remains high. Benito redeems himself, material and magical treachery nearly overthrows the islanders' resistance, characters who have become real to readers suffer and die (some of them richly deserving it), and Lackey and associates' areas of expertise, including naval history and classical mythology, are smoothly blended. Too long to be read in one sitting, but with few other "faults." Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Baen
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0743471490
• ISBN 13: 9780743471497
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 832
• Editor: Baen James