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It all began when the half-able wizard Questor Thews announced that finally he could restore the Court Scribe Abernathy to human form. It was his spell that had turned Abernathy into a Wheaten Terrier - though still able to talk. All went well - until the wizard breathed the magic dust of his spell and suddenly sneezed. Then, where Abernathy had stood, there was only a bottle containing a particularly evil imp. It had been in the collection of Michel Ard Rhi, former King of Landover, now exiled to Earth. Abernathy must now be a part of that collection! High Lord Ben Holiday set forth for Earth, taking his green but beautiful love, Willow, with him. Unfortunately, they were long in returning. And without the soil of Landover in which to root as a tree at times, Willow could not long survive. That left it up to Questor Thews to save them. Grimly he set out to seek help, knowing himself to be incompetent. And to make things worse, the imp had escaped and sought the help of the evil witch Nightshade, now back from exile in Faerie. Questor's only idea seemed impossible, but . . .… (more)
User reviews
The Take-Away: For the first time, magic is thoroughly explored in the Landover
In addition the the court wizard, which really is a staple of fantasy, the bottle that Abernathy is exchanged for contains a Darkling, a creature who uses the magic from the holder of the bottle to work mischief. The nature of the mischief depends on the strength of the magic and the intent of the owner of the bottle. If the holder is quite strong, the Darkling will tempt him to fulfill darker desires.
The medallion plays a pivotal role again. Ben Holiday, king of Landover, loaned it to Abernathy and Questor to assist in the transformation. It ends up in Ben's (and our) world when the spell transports instead of transforms. Magic would be easier if it didn't require another language, but that's the point. If it was spoken in the local language -- English or otherwise -- people anywhere would perform magic accidentally. It's a nice convention for magic to work only under a different language. As for any convention, however, there are rule-breaking authors.
Rule breakers are critical in any genre, not just fantasy. Since this title was published in the 1980s, how many rules existed for Brooks to break? Was he ground-breaking or establishing the precedent? If high schools and colleges taught literature from this angle, it would have been more interesting than analyzing the social impact of novels that had no social impact (cough, cough, Pamela).
Recommendation: Better than the second book, The Black Unicorn. I'll probably grab the fourth one too, but I'm not in any hurry for it.