WYVERN

by A.A. Attanasio ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 13, 1988

Pirates, sorcerers, traders, and avengers swashbuckle through the early years of the 17th century: an impressive but often overdense stab at a wide-screen historical extravaganza, from the author of the daring, flawed Radix and the much less appealing In Other Worlds. Jaki Gefjon, son of a Dutch trader and a Borneo woman, is raised in the East Indies jungle by the sorcerer Jabalwan to be a soul-catcher, wise in the ways of healing, sorcery, and divination. But the primitive jungle tribes soon learn from encroaching Europeans about metal and guns; slowly, the old ways are abandoned. So, at Jaki's final test for sorcerer-hood, Jabalwan warns Jaki that he will be the last of the tribal sorcerers. But Jaki, not yet ready for the mushroom-induced visions of the ""strong eye,"" flees after Jabalwan is killed by tribes now armed with matchlocks. He joins the privateer Silenos, whose captain is the English outcast Trevor Pym and whose banner is the dread Wyvern. Jaki cures Pym of his infected eye-socket, then proposes to lead the pirates to the diamonds guarded by the aging tribal sorcerers. This time Jaki submits to the strong eye, passes the test, and escapes with the diamonds. Many a piratical adventure intervenes--but then a vast man-o'-war arrives from England, captained by Pym's old enemy Samuel Quarles, with the express intent of destroying Pym and ridding the seas of pirates. Jaki falls in love with Quarles' beautiful daughter Lucinda, thus setting the stage for a love/ revenge/pursuit straggle that will span the next decade. Still to come: Quarles sends a plague ship against Pym's home base, and later captures and hangs Pym, who passes Wyvern to Jaki; Jaki destroys Quarles' ship and flees with Lucinda on a caravan across India; harried by the maddened Quarles, the lovers pirate another ship and sail across the Atlantic, only to be sunk in a storm after Lucinda gives birth to a daughter; and, of course, the inevitable confrontation between Jaki and Quarles. A big, bustling, salty, often admirable yarn--the jungle-sorcerer sections are the best--weighted down with oft-repeated philosophical musings, overblown descriptions, and weird neologisms. All in all, then: eye-filling and more than half satisfying, but hauling around a lot of baggage that should have been stamped Not Wanted on Voyage.

Pub Date: Sept. 13, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Ticknor & Fields/Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1988

Categories: FICTION