Reviews

A night of pleasure with a neighbor's daughter forces Kerin to embark on a hasty journey to save his family's honor and his own future. Encounters with pirates, a mad hermit, and a secret emissary to the Emperor of the Far East lead to further entanglements with evil priests and a damsel in distress in this picaresque comic-fantasy adventure by the author of The Unbeheaded King . For most fantasy collections.

When Kerin Evor's son sets off on a quest, his departure is prompted by the threat of a shotgun wedding and his goal is the somewhat unglamorous secret of a clock escapement. What's more, he prepares for his journey with brief courses in swordsmanship, lock-picking, lying and foreign languages. Such a humorously pragmatic approach to heroic fantasy is a hallmark of de Camp's classic work, including, besides the tales of Conan the Barbarian , the Novarian series to which this is a follow-up. Despite the advice of his elders and his own caution, Kerin finds adventure aplenty, including a spell on a desert island, capture by pirates and the rescue of a princess from human sacrifice. Though de Camp has written better books, this proves that he still has few peers in the wry vein of human comedy that his Marco Polo jaunts invariably reveal. (July)