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Fantasy. Fiction. HTML:From a New York Timesâ??bestselling author: A wizard must return from his Earthly exile when his lover, a computer programmer, is kidnapped by an otherworldly evil. Joanna Sheraton is in love with a wizard. Once an ordinary Californian computer programmer, her life was upended when she was first taken across the Void to a world of magic, where an evil mage threatened to destroy that world and ours. With the help of Antryg, a brilliant wizard who quickly stole her heart, she learned to navigate that strange other land and saved the universe from destruction. When the sinister king sentenced Joanna and her lover to death, they fled back to Earth, to live quietly under the California sun. But their troubles have followed them. A stranger dressed in wizard's garb kidnaps Joanna, and Antryg gives pursuit back across the Void. What he finds is a world once again in peril, and he must give aid to the Wizard's Council that condemned him if he is ever to see his love again. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Barbara Hambly, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author's personal collecti… (more)
User reviews
This book didn't seem as engaging as the other two, although it has been quite some time since I read the first two books of the series. I had to read this one because it was the last book of the series that I didn't know had been written.
In
Perhaps it wasn't quite enough wrap-up for me, I like where the second book left us, it felt like a better ending.
I was already thoroughly hooked on Joanna and Antryg. Joanna is, of course, a computer programmer from Los Angeles, and Antryg is a wizard from another world that is accessed from ours through “the void.” As an Angeleno, I enjoyed the early scenes of Antryg in L.A., but the new setting of the Citadel in Antryg’s world is also a treat. It’s the embattled wizards’ castle/community/training school, and it’s a splendid architectural hodge-podge with charming historical notes. The story is basically a mystery (though not of the murder variety). It suffers some from the frequent mystery genre flaw of having the mystery maintained right up to the final dramatic reveal by the expedient of simply not giving us nearly enough – or clear enough - clues to allow us to solve it. I was enjoying myself enough along the way, however, to be forgiving.
I do have to admit that I’m getting just a bit tired of the anti-magic police, who are so completely irrational and immovable in their irrationality. I’m also getting a little tired of the fact that Antryg is a very powerful wizard who the other wizards seem determined to think the worst of. No matter what horrors he rescues them from, they can always imagine that he was responsible for the horrors in the first place. It’s a catch 22 that’s wearing thin for me. That said, the punchline at the end of this book is absolutely priceless.
I was pleased to return to this universe and these characters. This isn't a perfect book: the plot gets a bit dogged down in magic/technobabble at times; nothing stalls my interest like a plot twist that centers around a paragraph of nonsense words. Antryg babbles ~amusingly~ pretty much constantly, which amused me at the start but now just reads like a patronizing affectation on his part. Calling guardswomen incomparable beauties and suchlike rubs me the wrong way. Just give someone a straight answer and stop trying to cozen everyone into liking you! ugh. Even Dumbledore could speak to the point when it mattered. But Hambly has rounded Antryg out enough that although I don't find his dotty patter charming the way she seems to expect I will, I do understand why he puts on the act. Joanna remains a solidly believable character, but she has very little to actually do.
Still, I'd love to read more of Antryg's world, where magic is known but constrained by an increasingly powerful Church, and wizards are sworn to remain neutral, even when it means that terror and tyranny stalk their lands. I enjoyed getting an eye into the mages' Citadel, with its odd placenames, leftover magics, and the hints of how the outside world works (like the way each wizard takes their tea suggests the class they were born into, and explains some of the tensions between them). Not the most satisfying book in the broad strokes, but the interesting bits are all in the details, from Joanna's ruminations about finally emotionally opening up (and thus becoming vulnerable) to the tension between mages and the townsfolk that supply their daily labor.
I'd be remiss if I didn't note that the cover art for this is awful and doesn't fit the characters or feel of the book in the least.