THE WARRIOR KING
by Chris Bunch
Final installment of Bunch’s military sword and sorcery trilogy (The Seer King, 1997; The Demon King, not seen), again with regulation plotting and magics, graphic sex, and lots of well-handled, gory action. This one describes the final showdown between the good-guy narrator, General Damastes, recalled from imprisonment and exile, and his former friend, the evil wizard Tenedos. At stake is the soul of Numantia, a kingdom that has been occupied by a foreign power, Maisir, following Tenedos’s disastrous invasion attempt. Here, Tenedos wants it all: he’s lean, mean, back from the dead, and demon-powered; and only Damastes, who knows Tenedos so well, might stop him. A pale, barely differentiated shadow of what started out as a limited but reasonably satisfying yarn; still, fans of the previous will want to give it the once-over.