Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Chapter 3 opens inside Mahtra’s recurring nightmare, and it’s rough.
Book: Thieves’ World: Turning Points Editor: Lynn Abbey Story: “One to Go” by Raymond E. Feist
Raymond E. Feist was part of the original Thieves’ World lineup. He’s the guy who created Jimmy the Hand, one of the most beloved characters in the entire series. So having him write the final story in this revival anthology feels right. It’s like a veteran returning for the encore.
Chapter 12 opens with a sandal nudging Pavek in the ribs and a voice saying “It’s morning.” He groans. His head is full of bad memories from the night before. He argued with Akashia about zarneeka, then parked himself next to the Moonracer’s honey-ale barrel and drank too much.
Book: Thieves’ World: Turning Points Editor: Lynn Abbey Story: “Apocalypse Noun” by Jeff Grubb
“Apocalypse Noun.” Two words that shouldn’t go together but absolutely do. Jeff Grubb gives us one of the most purely entertaining stories in this entire anthology. It’s got humor, action, a chase scene through the streets of Sanctuary, and a very dangerous linguist who just wants to be left alone with his books.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Chapter 2 shifts us completely away from Kakzim and Codesh. We enter Urik itself, in the predawn hours, and meet one of the most unusual characters I’ve come across in fantasy fiction.
Chapter 11 is a quieter one. No poison. No midnight crises. Just Pavek grinding through druid lessons and slowly building a life at Quraite. But Abbey packs so much character detail into this chapter that it ends up doing more heavy lifting than the action scenes.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
The book opens with a bird’s-eye view. Literally. We see the city of Urik through the eyes of a soaring kes’trekel (a scaled bird native to Athas). The city looks like a giant sulfur growth rising from a green plain, its walls covered with murals of the same figure over and over: a powerful man with a lion’s head, bronze skin, black mane, and fierce yellow eyes that flash in the sunlight.
This chapter opens in the middle of the night with Akashia bolting out of her hut because Telhami summoned her in a dream. Not on purpose. Telhami was asleep and her subconscious worries reached out through the guardian’s magic and dragged Akashia out of bed. That’s how stressed the old woman is about Laq.
Book: Thieves’ World: Turning Points Editor: Lynn Abbey Series: Thieves’ World New Series, Book 1 Publisher: Tor Books, 2002
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
So I picked up Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey. It’s the fourth book in the Chronicles of Athas series, set in the Dark Sun world. If you’re not familiar with Dark Sun, you’re in for something different. This isn’t your typical swords-and-sorcery setting with lush forests and noble kings. No. This is a post-apocalyptic desert hellscape where magic has literally drained the life from the planet.