A hero’s quest begins in this first book of “perhaps [the] most highly regarded fantasy trilogy” from the New York Times–bestselling author (Black Gate).
They washed up on the beach, dead men clad in strange, intricate garments. The Naumkib tribe will eat well tonight. Simple herdsman Etjole Ehomba is wandering among the corpses, when he hears a faint cry . . .
One of the men is still alive—and he implores Etjole for help. His countess-to-be, the Visioness Themaryl of Laconda, has been abducted, carried off by Hymneth the Possessed. The dying man charges Etjole with the duty to find her and restore her to the people of Laconda.
Etjole—herder, fisherman, father, warrior, tracker—is a man of conviction. He cannot ignore a brave and noble man’s plea. So he sets off on a journey to find a woman many men were willing to die for and to face his destiny in the Unstable Lands, where people are swallowed up by unreality—by things that should not even exist . . .
“Odd and engaging . . . A wondrous journey.” —Locus
“Inventive and filled with flavorsome incident.” —Kirkus Reviews
“An epic series which is sure to please many readers.” —SF Site
The New York Times–bestselling author of more than one hundred ten books, Alan Dean Foster is one of the most prominent writers of modern science fiction. Born in New York City in 1946, he studied filmmaking at UCLA, but first found success in 1968 when a horror magazine published one of his short stories. In 1972 he wrote his first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, the first in his Pip and Flinx series featuring the Humanx Commonwealth, a universe he has explored in more than twenty-five books. He also created the Spellsinger series, numerous film novelizations, and the story for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. An avid world traveler, he lives with his family in Prescott, Arizona.