THE STARS ASUNDER

First hardcover entry for an established paperback science fiction/fantasy hybrid series, the Mageworlds (The Long Hunt, etc.). On the Mageworlds, mages form Circles to combine their powers to manipulate eiran, intangible cords of life-force and luck. Iconoclastic mage Garrod of Eraasi hopes to Voidwalk’send himself across space-time—to discover new worlds beyond the Sundering, a galactic gulf. His powerful Circle includes Arekhon, brother of mighty star-lord Natelth, and Vai, a spy for a rival star-lord. The star-lords compete in trade and industry, and indulge in gentlemanly piracy of each other’s ships. To generate the tremendous energies necessary to send Garrod across the Sundering, the Circle mages have to fight, kendo-style, with wooden staffs, if necessary to the death. Garrod locates Entibor, a technologically advanced planet riven by petty warfare, where the eiran is wild and tangled and where Adepts are solitary. Unfortunately, when Garrod returns he’s aged and mad. Still, Natelth sends a ship, with Arekhon and Vai aboard, to Entibor. Meanwhile, a conspiracy forms to destroy the star-lords by fomenting civil war. On the voyage, Arekhon picks up an unexpected guest—Garrod! (the original version). Arriving near Entibor desperately short of fuel, Arekhon’s ship attempts a little gentle piracy and gets blasted for its pains. The survivors board their victim and proceed to war-torn Entibor, where yet another Garrod has made arrangements to help them. Finally, Arekhon returns to Eraasi with neither Garrod, only to find that old, mad Garrod’s been killed in the civil war now engulfing the Mageworlds. A curious, disturbing notion, that violence, pain and death produces life-force and luck. That aside, the story’s not too bad, with reasonable complications and a snappy pace.