Customer Reviews

Daughter of Regals and Other Tales

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"Daughter of Regals" - Magic, in this land, is the art of manipulating images of the Real: the Wood of the Ash tree, Wind, the Fire deep in the earth, or images of Real creatures: the Basilisk, the Wyvern, the Phoenix. Such magic is inherited by those who descend from some Real man or woman: someone who can shapechange into a Real creature. The Regals who unified the 3 kingdoms of Canna, Nabal, and Loden into an uneasy realm are such people. Now Chrysalis, on this night of her 21st birthday, must ascend to the Seat in full view of the realm's nobles and take her Real shape and her place as Regal, or watch the Realm shatter. And she alone knows that she's already failed once. (Excellent story, taking place in the single night that will mark Chrysalis' ascension, death, or flight, told by her.)

"Gilden-Fire" - This tale of Korik of the Bloodguard and the mission to the Giants of Seareach was cut from _The Illearth War_, not because the sequence isn't good, but because 1) Donaldson needed to cut about 150 pages, and 2) using Korik as the viewpoint character caused problems when set beside Covenant's Unbelief. Enjoy; Korik fills in some of the background of the Bloodguard as lagniappe.

"Mythological Beast" - Norman lives a perfectly sane, perfectly safe life as a librarian, in an age when violence has been eliminated by eliminating the causes of fear. Not that many people can read, or that anyone uses the library. He can't understand why the new nub of horn on his forehead doesn't register as anything odd on his biomitter, or why nobody seems surprised by his other gradual changes.

"The Lady in White" - The narrator, Mardik the blacksmith, tells the tale of how his 'mad' dreamer of a younger brother came to be blinded, in rescuing him from the mysterious Lady in White, who had lured many men to their deaths in the Deep Forest.

"Animal Lover" - The narrator is a cyborg government agent, for whom serious injury just means a few more experiments with new equipment. In this age of overpopulation, genetic engineering is outlawed, and the government subsidizes anything that'll act as a pressure valve: slamming cars around a racetrack, game preserves. But the exclusive game preserve the agent's asked to investigate has a *far* higher death rate than normal, and seems to advertise only by word of mouth. The narrator's the best pick, since he'll be inclined to root for the animals rather than slant his report the other way, if no criminal activity is going on.

"Unworthy of the Angel" - The title comes from the saying, Let no man be unworthy of the Angel who stands over him. The narrator, a guardian angel (literally) whose memory of each assignment is wiped away by the next, has the unsavory task of coping with a charge who's selling his soul to become a better sculptor. This isn't a blatant diabolical contract in brimstone, nothing so crude; the sculptor just has to be willfully blind to the consequences of his actions. But an angel can't help you unless you give him permission...

"The Conqueror Worm" - Welcome to the not-quite-right home of Creel and Vi Sump. He's got a good job, but maybe a dead end; the place has some expensive electronics, but a water-damaged ceiling; and so on. Tonight, a centipede is loose in the apartment after they've both been drinking at a party, and they're trying to kill it. (More of a character study than anything; the only story in the collection that's not to my taste.)

"Ser Visal's Tale" - Some of the wild young men of the town regularly buy Ser Visal's drinks at the tavern with the deaf bartender, to hear tales that, while not quite openly heretical or seditious, wouldn't help him any with the Judica or the King. Now they want to know the *real* story of Dom Perralt's excommunication, in this land that's become a theocracy in 1 generation.

I got this book as soon as saw it because having read and loved t'The chronicles of Thomas Covenant', I wanted to see what this was about. I found that the story'Daughter of regals' dragged on a bit but made it up at the end. In fact, all these stories are unique in their own way and all have slight twists. I loved 'Animal lover' and 'Mythalogical beast'- this was prehaps the shortest of all the stories. However, I wasn't that impressed with 'gilden fire'-it does help to have read the Thomas Covenant series before you read this.

But all in all, I would recomend this to anyone who enjoys all Stephen Donaldson's books. He is a marvel.

This is possibly the most complete set of short stories from one author I have ever seen. Each one of the stories carries something special. I concede that there were stories that were slow starting, (namely Daughter of Regals and Ser Visals Tale) but these were inevitably saved by their conclusions. Two stories will stay with me for ever. The Conqueror Worm and Unworthy of the Angel are sheer magic.

Daughter of Regals is a wonderful collection. Each story has some different way of offering a thrilling glimpse into the stuff from which the human soul is made. The title story is an intriguing journey into self-actualization, and I rarely find this kind of depth and quality in fantasy. Most of the other stories are equally inventive, and similarly revealing, but "Daughter of Regals" is my favorite of the bunch.

A collection of short stories, Daughter or Regals suffers most from its title story, which takes its own sweet time getting to a point. Taken as a sketch of his work to come however, particularly Mirror of Her Dreams, it gives you a look at one of Mr. Donaldson's rough drafts.

The rest of the stories included are better, a wide mix of urban fantasy and cyberpunk. Of greatest interest to the fan of the Thomas Covenant Chronicles is a deleted Book of The Illearth War, written entirely from the perspective of the haruchai. The author explains why it was deleted, which make sense, but I found myself coming away with a greater understanding of the Chronicles after reading it, and I wish that it had not been removed.

I havn't read this book but it looks great.