The Red Wyvern

Set in Kerr's fantasy land of Deverry (Daggerspell, etc.), this launch of the Dragon Mage series imagines an archetypal clash between Good and Evil, unleashed in the forms of the astral Lords of Harmony and Havoc. The plot is woven from three chronologically distinct story lines. The atmospheric outer line, set beside Loch Ness in an unspecified medieval winter, shows the Lord of Harmony sheltering a lost hunter on a magical island. In the second story, a poor but Sighted girl of Deverry's year 1116 is caught up in the wicked Raven Woman's occult dealings with the Lord of Havoc. The wordy bulk of the novel finds its adolescent heroine, Lillobrigga, in the Deverran year 849, when the forces of Deverry's pathetic boy-king, led by Lili's parents--earlier versions of the Raven Woman and her brother-lover--are threatened by the rebel armies of Prince Maryn. Suffering when loyalty to her clan collides with duty to the truth, Lilli masters her burgeoning supernatural powers under the tutelage of Maryn's master magician to bring peace out of chaos. Sketchily linking the three narratives is Evandar, Lord of Harmony, who seeks to thwart the disruptive aims of his brother Havoc. This coming-of-age tale, which is strongly dependent both on previous series installments and on Kerr's amorphous theory of ""thought forms,"" dangles so many loose threads that the entire fabric threatens to unravel time and again. Sadly, the storytelling magic promised by Kerr's Celtic trappings never comes to fruition. (Nov.)