Cahena: A Dream of the Past

Cahena is perhaps the last novel we shall see from this prolific writer, who died earlier this year at the age of 83 after a career lasting nearly six decades. This is a historical novel based on the life of the warrior queen known as the Cahena, who lived around the beginning of the eighth century in Northern Africa and the Near East and led her people, the Moors, against the Moslems. The novel is told from the point of view of the Saxon career soldier named Wulf who comes to be the Cahena's right-hand man and eventually her lover. The story moves smoothly through its numerous military campaigns and romantic complications. Wellman has written a superior historical adventure (with a bit of fantasyan encounter with a vampire) that, despite occasionally being too talky, always remains interesting. (December 12)