Following two well-received werewolf novels (The Passion
and The Promise), Boyd scores again with this engrossing tale of magic and immortality that calls to mind Anne Rice in her prime. Into the New York office of Dr. Anne Kramer, therapist, walks the charismatic Randolph Sontime, who's just committed a gruesome murder that's led to headlines full of outrage. Not easily rattled, Dr. Kramer finds herself losing her professional cool as the stranger tries to explain his crime. "Imagine if you will the days spinning backward: a millennium ends here, a century turns there, a year ends now, and another, and a thousand others," he says at the start of his hypnotizing story of "Egypt before time." Han, as Sontime was then called, tells in beautiful, luxurious detail of his youth spent in the House of Ra, a mystical temple where Practitioners learned alchemy, magic and ways to shape reality. When Han and two other students at the top of the class, the boy Akan and the girl Nefar, combined their magics one fateful day, the trio unleashed a power that they could neither understand nor control. Thereafter a passion for creating a perfect world ruled their lives, but since their magic was imperfect, their lofty schemes invariably came to ruin. Love, jealousy, insanity and murder all figure in this pitch-perfect narrative, while the House of Ra ranks high on the list of fantasy's most intriguing magic schools. Though some readers may feel the book is too short, the incendiary twist ending holds out the promise of more to come. (Jan. 2)
Forecast:Romance readers as well as SF fans should go for this atypical fantasy in which ancient magic is in effect the same as today's technology.
