Pages : 350
Overall Mark : 8/10
Dirk t’Larien has been summoned back to Worlorn, and a love he thinks he lost. But Worlorn is a dying world, and Gwen Delvano is no longer the woman he once knew. She is bound to another man, a barbarian, and needs Dirk’s protection. He will do anything to keep her safe, but an impenetrable veil of secrecy surrounds them all, making allies indistinguishable from enemies. In this dangerous triangle, one is hurtling toward escape, another toward revenge, and the last toward a brutal, untimely demise.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN (1948-)
George R. R. Martin published his first story in 1971 and won four Hugo and two Nebula Awards in quick succession before turning his attention to fantasy. He has won every major award in the field and his bestselling A Song of Ice and Fire series is redefining epic fantasy for a new generation, and is the basis for the hit HBO series Game of Thrones. He lives in New Mexico.
VERDICT
This was the first George R. R. Martin book I’d ever read, and also the first he wrote, and I was instantly drawn in by his characterisations. That being said, the plot of this story is almost non-existent, which shows what a fine writer he is to keep me engrossed in a story that amounts to nothing. He manages to create a world of characters who have their own cultures and diversity, and a story filled with love and hate on a world that is hurtling to its doom, yet it is the very idea that from the start we know the characters are dying that makes the tale as a whole so effective, and the events of the story so inconsequential.
