Perilous Seas (Paperback)

Rap is anything but dead. After escaping the land of Faerie in a Jotunn boat, captained by Gathmore, Rap is all but imprisoned on the island of Durthing. He was bought as a slave to work on the boat, but earned his freedom, however, his gift of farsight makes him far too valuable to risk losing. When the vicious Jotunn raider, Kalkor, arrives on Durthing, he slaughters every man, woman and child he finds - but he takes Rap and Gathmore on board his ship. For the first time Rap gets to see what the power of multiple words turns a person into. Kalkor no longer has a heart and Rap wonders if he even has a soul left. Desperate to get to Inos and restore her to her throne, Rap finds himself playing a cat and mouse game with Kalkor, playing his magical powers off of Kalkor's. But even if Rap finds an opportunity to escape, how can he find Inos in time to stop her from making a terrible mistake?

Perilous Seas is the third book in A Man of His Word series by David Duncan and it is the weakest of the quartet, but it is still superbly written and I still loved most of the characters. It is true that Inos is kind of grating in this book and that I found myself rushing through her misadventures to get to the better story with Rap, but I like to think that Inos is growing as a character and getting to be more likeable. Still, it would be great if she dropped that whole I-am-a-princess-and-can't-believe-this-is-happening-to-me attitude. On the other hand, Rap is a great character who is still humble and completely oblivious to the fact that he doesn't live anything approaching a normal life anymore. Again, the host of secondary characters are superb and give additional life and sparkle to the third book of the series. I can't wait to see how it ends! If you like fantasy books that are just a bit different with clearly defined magical rules and different races set in an intriguing world, don't miss this set of 4 books!

Gathmore and Rap are captured by the mad Jotunn raider, Kalkor, and meet up on his ship with old "friend" Darad.

In a sequence that is equally sad and lovely and horrifying, we see just what kind of power sorcerors weild -- and how after a while they become rather casual and capricious about how they treat mere mundanes, even mundanes close to them.

Duncan's version of dragons is neat, i must say, and the gnome sorceror who is Warden of the Dragon Reaches is one of the most interesting and sympathetic characters in the series -- gnomes are considered disgusting and sub-human by the other races, but they have feelings -- they can hurt and love and hate, too.

Captured by one of the Four -- the four witches and warlocks who regulate the use of magic under the Compact, who have been using Rap and Inos as gaming pieces in their own internal and global intrigues -- Rap and Gathmore and Jalon are given one possible chance to rescue Inos from marriage to Azak.

It's a race against time...

And Time almost always wins in the end.

Will Rap and Gathmore arrive in time to Stop The Wedding?

(Three stars this time because this one is primarily a bridge, though it contains important elements of the story as a whole; also, we get to see something about the Elves, this time.)