Goddess of the Ice Realm
As Garic and his retinue reach the Island city of Carcosa, his benign wizard Tenoctris perceives a powerful suprnatural threat directed against them. Ilna and her beloved Chalcus are sent to investigate a magical menace to shipping on the northern seas. Cashel is translated into another world by evil magic, and Sharina to yet another. All of them face deadly dangers and overcome them before they are again united during the terrifying and dramatic climax. An action-filled and complex plot, loaded with surprises and startling revelations, romance and socery, Goddess of the Ice Realm is first rate fantasy.
Cover Art by Donato |
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This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. First Edition: August 1998 Library of Congress Card Catalog Number 98-7132 Printed in the United States of America |
ISBN-13: 978-0-3128-7388-2
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DEDICATIONTo Andre Norton, whose books have been the first contact many readers have with real Science Fiction; and whose books have been a training manual, sometimes an unconscious one, in story values for would-be SF writers. I'm one of those readers and writers both. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSAs usual, my first reader Dan Breen has worked to make this a better book. Dan isn't always right, but he's always worth listening to. I didn't have an exceptional number of computer adventures with this one, but there were still occasions when the familiar conclave of Mark Van Name, Allyn Vogel, and my son Jonathan muttered things like, "I've never seen that happen before...." A number of people provided me with background material for Goddess. Two who were particularly helpful were Marcia Decker and my British editor, Simon Spanton. My webmaster, Karen Zimmerman, has been of inestimable value. And finally, a general thanks to the friends and family, in particular my wife Jo, who bore with me as I focused, getting increasingly weird—as usual—until I finished the job. Dave Drake AUTHOR'S NOTEAs is the case with most of my books, a good deal of the background to Goddess of the Ice Realm is real. The general religion of the Isles is Sumerian, though in some cases I've interpolated cult practice from the Late Roman Republic where we simply don't know the Sumerian details. The magic, which is separate from religion in virtually every culture and in at least my fiction, is that of the Mediterranean Basin during the Classical Period. The words of power, technically voces mysticae, are the language of demiurges who act as intercessors between humans and the Gods. I prefer not to voice the voces mysticae, but I have done so in conjuction with the audiobook versions of the Isles series. So far as I can tell, there was no ill result. On the other hand, I've also dropped loaded firearms without anything bad happening—that time. I don't recommend doing either thing. The works of literature imbedded in Goddess are Latin classics. Rigal equates with Vergil; Celondre with Horace; and Pendill is Ovid, whom I find to bountifully repay the close readings I've been giving him this past year. Dave Drake |
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Garic and Sharina, Cashel and Ilna, are young brother and sister pairswhose destiny is to reunite the kingdoms of the Islesinto one empire for the first time in millenium.