Lawrence Watt-Evans, The Ninth Talisman

The Ninth Talisman

Lawrence Watt-Evans

Tor, May 2007, $25.95, 300 pp.

ISBN 0765310279

After the Swordsman killed the Dark Lord of the Galbook Hlls, a Wizard Lord gone rogue, he returned to his small community of Mad Oak and became part of the farming community. He is one of eight Chosen, men and women who are granted special magical powers so that a Wizard Lord can be taken down if he doesn't rule benevolently over all the people of Barokan. The new Wizard Lord is having roads built throughout the country connecting towns and cities and thus making it easier for trade goods to be transported all over the empire.

Swordsman travels to Winterhome to see the new Lord Wizard and is shocked to find a former Chosen, a traitor, is one of the chief advisors of the new Wizard Lord Artil. Artil tells him that the time for magic has passed and that people using non-magical skills will bring peace and prosperity to the land. While Swordsman thinks about this restructuring, Artil's soldiers find wizards and interrogate them about THE NINTH TALISMAN before killing them when he doesn't get the answers he wants. The eight champions meet to decide what to do about Artil and his plans and wonder if he may have gone to the dark side.

This is second book in the Annals of the Chosen and one doesn't have to read the prequel THE WIZARD LORD to understand THE NINTH TALISMAN. The Swordsman is patient and willing to observe what the Wizard Lord is all about and that makes this book more of a character study than an action-packed fantasy. The ending is very ambiguous so there is at least another book to the series. Readers will enjoy this novel so much they will recommend it to their friends who like sword and sorcery fantasy.

Harriet Klausner