- Mass Market Paperback: 436 pages
- Publisher: Berkley Pub Group (Mm) (March 1983)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0425058735
- ISBN-13: 978-0425058732
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 14.5 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 544 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,794,373 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Brilliant Weave of Epic Fantasy and Fairy Tale,
This review is from: Lyonesse: Suldrun's Garden (Hardcover)
If Lord Dunsany had written "Game of Thrones", the result might have been something like this often overlooked fantasy gem by F&SF legend Jack Vance. The setting is the Elder Isles, a magical realm that occupies the seas south of Dark-Ages Britain and Ireland. The story is built on a wonderfully fractious narrative that spins out between a half-dozen characters caught up in the political turmoil roiling the isles' kingdoms. In Lyonesse, the princess Suldrun rejects her father's plans to marry her off for political gain, finding peace and solace in a lost garden. In Troicinet, the young prince Allais is comfortably out of the line of succession until his uncle dies, whereupon a jealous cousin tries to murder him and sets in motion a bittersweet tale of revenge and redemption. The people and the culture of the Elder Isles are beautifully brought to life by Vance's almost-poetic prose, which moves seamlessly between the hard edges of epic fantasy and the winsome quality of the Elder Isles' dark fairy-tale world. Mischievous fey, witches, trolls, and powerful sorcerers define the web of magic that weaves through the high-fantasy politics of Vance's realm, creating a fascinating hybrid that should appeal to readers across the fantasy spectrum.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Real Fantasy,
By Stevewizard (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Lyonesse: Book One Suldrun's Garden (Mass Market Paperback)
Lyonesse is one of 2 series that I have kept around and read more than once; this says a lot, the Amber Series by Zelazny being the other. Vance has written a quintessential fantasy harkening to the styles of the original legends from which he draws. The main characters deepen and grow with the telling of the tale while secondary characters remain somewhat two dimensional but representative of the forces of fate, life, man's inner nature and such. For those who thought the story cliché, it is, on the surface, but the underlying tale speaks to something deeper, man's quest to find himself. All in all it is fantasy literature at its best.
5.0 out of 5 stars
go do as I tell you and get this book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Lyonesse: Book One Suldrun's Garden (Mass Market Paperback)
The fact that this book is not constantly in print and available everywhere is, in a world where Dungeons and Dragons style series fantasies and deriviative, pseudo-literary fantasy garbage, like the works of Neil Gaiman and Gene Wolfe, are all over the bestseller lists, is an unutterable obscenity that defies human comprehension. Vance is the greatest prose stylist in the history of genre fiction, heck, maybe in the history of fiction. Lyonesse is funny, sad, arch, inventive, adventurous, philosophical, page-turning, perfect. The characters are more real than any of the people you know, and you will love and hate them more than your own friends and enemies. The Elder Isles are more real than New York or London and much more interesting. You should get every book in this series (there are three) immediately, no matter what the financial or personal costs, and immediately make them the centerpiece of your life until you have read them all. Then, you should read Vance's Tales of The Dying Earth, which is just as good. Then, you should re-read the Lyonesse books. There, that's it. Now, go do as I tell you and thank me later.
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