From Publishers Weekly
Best known for such time-travel novels as Sky Coyote, Baker now turns her hand to humorous fantasy in this picaresque tale of a retired assassin, Smith, who is just trying to stay on the right side of the law, but who continually finds himself knee-deep in mayhem. Smith takes a job as a caravan master, shepherding a cargo of one gross of glass butterflies and a variety of eccentric passengers on a dangerous journey from the city of Troon to Salesh-by-the-Sea. Most notable among his passengers are the decadent Lord Ermenwyr and his nurse Balnshik, neither of whom are entirely mortal. Surviving his stint on the road, Smith eventually buys a decrepit resort hotel in Salesh-by-the-Sea and, aided by his talented former caravan cook, also named Smith, turns it into a raging success. Unfortunately, on the eve of the Festival, the most profitable day of the year, things begin to get dicey. Lord Ermenwyr pops in incognito, on the run from a sorcerous rival, then the health inspector turns up, just as a yellow journalist well known for blackmailing his victims is found dead, perhaps by magic, in one of Smith's best rooms. As usual, Baker successfully combines witty dialogue, well-drawn characters and an eye for telling details. Particularly memorable are her wind-up caravan with its heavily muscled keymen and Mrs. Smith's deftly described culinary masterpieces. Although not as substantial as her time-travel novels, Baker's latest is good fun and should please fans of quality fantasy.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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From Booklist
The author of the rollicking yarns (
In the Land of Iden [1997] et seq.) about the Company, which controls time-travel, drops the sf veneer for a just-as-rollicking fantasy of three-dimensional travel. Smith agrees to lead a small caravan from desert-bound Troon to Salesh by the sea and, although inexperienced as well as incognito, gets most clients and cargo safely across the intervening, bandit-and-demon-infested wasteland, after enough action to buckle any swash. But only a third of this book's pages have been turned, which means that some characters from the caravan and a few picked up in Salesh eventually steamboat o'er sea and up river, including
up a waterfall (demonically embodied spirits do the lifting), to find the Key of Unmaking, the wielding of which will winnow the too-prolific race to which Smith belongs. Between the two trips is orgy season in Salesh. Whoopee! Imagine an Errol Flynn classic ebulliently re-imagined by Monty Python director Terry Gilliam: that's this wacky romp whose pace never flags and which launches a second series from Baker.
Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.