Midkemia once again lies under the terrible shadow of the Emerald Queen. Her dark forces are ready to launch a devastating invasion against the Kingdom of the Isles. Come the battle's dawn the magician Pug, along with his life-long warrior friend Tomas, discover that something far worse than the Queen's mere sorcery is afoot. For elemental, malevolent forces are being unleashed...forces that threaten to tear Midkemia apart unless Pug and his band of supporters can track down the long-...

This is the strange, compelling story of Roger Bacon. Ambitious, impatient, mutinous, Bacon was a man of his times with a vision reaching far beyond even our own day. Subject to the harsh, narrow confines of Church-dominated "science", Bacon dared to venture into the deep waters of theory, risking deadly accusations of heresy and black magic. Against a vividly realised backdrop of thirteenth-century England, Paris and Rome, James Blish wrote an engrossing account of this lonely...

The pace, as always, is white hot – as are the special effects. As readers will know from Book Two, the Shining One Xanetia can melt her enemies with a touch. Fortunately, she is on the side of our hero, and so is the god Edaemus, whose (literally) volcanic rage will be useful in the continuing fight to save the Tamul Empire from the ravages of sinister King Cyrgon of the Cyrgai. Cyrgon has called forth Bhelliom’s equal in supernatural power, Klael, the very essence of evil. And while Sparhawk...