Hold on to your phasers and space helmets, Trekkies and Star Wars
fans all: here comes the latest Mageworld installment from Doyle and Macdonald about a rousing attempt to reunite an entire galaxy that's been magically sundered by the Gap Between. For the uninitiated, though, arriving in the middle of this complicated series can be daunting. Scattered across planetary systems 100 light years apart, remnants of great Magelord Garrod syn-Aigal sus-Demaizen's wizardly Mage-Circle, shattered by the treachery of Kief Diasul, are beginning to stir. Their leader, Arekhon sus-Khalgath sus-Peledaen, beset by prophetic dreams of reactivating the Great Working, is now on the planet Entibor, serving his lover, Elaeli, as her security chief. He traces the exiled members of Garrod's Mage-Circle and, abetted by a mysterious woman Void-Walker, they launch a dizzying expedition bent on returning to his home world, Eraasi, to defeat the vast power of Arekhon's estranged brother, Natelth, and his conniving scientist sister, Isayana. Besides the jaw-breaking character names and the violent bloodletting of the "workings" needed to move a chase-oriented plot along, keeping the planetary locales straight can be as taxing as untangling the various shifting relationships among the star-lord, agricultural and merchant families. Nonetheless, the authors occasionally manage a bright note of genuine human warmth in the chilly reaches of outer space, as well as offering plenty of action in this rapid-fire blend of sorcery and SF. (Apr. 23)
