Synopsis
Chronicles the life of Silverhand, a man who has been destined to save a stricken world from the evil forces of Chaos and rebuild his people's home to the level of glory that survives only in their hearts and memories.
Llywelyn (The Last Prince of Ireland) and Scott (Tales of the Bard) have set this entrancing novel, their first collaboration, in a semimedieval, far-future fantasy world.
This concocted realm serves them exceptionally well as they layer shades of gray into the politics of their heroes while doing devilishly evil things with their amoral villains. Some of the most compelling evil magicians to appear in current fantasy are the Duet, a brother-and-sister team who use their incestuous relationship to raise tantric magic and control the powerful Voids. Youthful hero Caeled loses his mother in the wake of one such display.
As the stunned boy wanders away from his devastated village, he is rescued by a monk who believes he may be the Spoken One, a prophesied hero who will be able to wield the magical implements of the Arcana. But before the monk can safely deliver Caeled to his superiors, the pair are attacked by a weredog and the boy loses an arm. The monks use long-dormant technologies to construct a prosthetic silver hand for the youth?a symbol that holds great mystical power. Caeled then sets out to seek the Arcana.
This rich tale shows how good fantasy can be when its authors neither denigrate their audience's intelligence nor obscure their ideas with overwrought language and overblown symbolism.
Authors
Morgan Llywelyn
New York-born author Morgan Llywelyn is one of the world's leading popular chroniclers of Celtic culture and history. A prolific storyteller, she has written more than twenty books over the past two decades. Her fiction has received several awards and has sold more than 40 million copies, and she herself is recipient of the 1999 Exceptional Celtic Woman of the Year Award from Celtic Women International.
In the words of Judith A. Gifford of the reference publication Twentieth-Century Romance and Historical Writers, "Drawing on the history and lore that are part of her own heritage, the works of Morgan Llywelyn concern themselves with Celtic heroes and heroines, both real and mythical, bringing them and the times they inhabited to life with stunning clarity." Pauline Morgan, writing in the St. James Guide to Fantasy Writers, has explained, "[t]he majority of Morgan Llywelyn's books may be regarded as fictional biographies. Each book takes a person, often historical or legendary, and relates the story of their life. Most of the novels with a fantasy connection rely heavily on Celtic mythology, particularly that of the Irish.
Morgan Llywelyn now lives outside of Dublin, Ireland, and has become an Irish citizen.
Michael Scott
Irish-born Michael Scott began writing over twenty-five years ago, and is one of Ireland 's most successful and prolific authors, with one hundred titles to his credit, spanning a variety of genres, including Fantasy, Science Fiction and Folklore. He writes for both adults and young adults and is published in thirty-seven countries, in twenty languages.
He is considered one of the authorities on the folklore of the Celtic lands and is credited with the resurgence of interest in the subject in the mid-1980's. His collections, Irish Folk & Fairy Tales, Irish Myths & Legends and Irish Ghosts & Hauntings have remained continuously in print for the past twenty years and are now included amongst the definitive and most-quoted works on the subject. He is also known for his numerous fantasy, historical fiction and children novels
Scott is an accomplished scriptwriter and headed up the drama department in Tyrone Productions, the creators of Riverdance. He has written for the stage and screen and also created and scripted documentaries and drama for television. He has also scripted high profile events such as the Special Olympics which were held in Ireland in 2002 and the Irish Film and Television Awards.
Scott was the Writer in Residence during Dublin's tenure as European City of Culture in 1991, and has featured in the 2006 edition of Who's Who in Ireland as one of the 1000 "most significant Irish."
