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dsrtao_The Long Look_, Richard Parks
There's this magician, Tymon the Black. Magicians are rare, require some natural (or supernatural) talent, and lots of esoteric knowledge which they seem to learn mostly from books. This magician is cursed with The Long Look. Every so often he is hit with a trance, in which he sees something that could happen -- will happen, unless he decides to stop it. He doesn't get any clues about whether or how he should stop it or encourage it. This is very frustrating to Tymon.
He has a loyal sidekick who is a dwarf -- well, a small human. Adult, male, 4 feet tall, named Seb. Seb isn't a magician, but he's very handy with a knife or a rock or his fists, and he's a good cook.
Then there are all the royalty. We deal with four or five countries, all of whom are no more than a week's walk apart across mountainous territory. One of them has ocean access. One of them is a productive valley in the middle of the mountains. All of them have been relatively peaceful for a decade or two... and that might change.
The tone is difficult to describe; Tymon takes blatant advantage of knowing how everybody thinks magicians are supposed to act. It's slightly reminiscent of Brunner's Traveller in Black stories. It's not snarky, and it's not exactly a puzzle-story. It's as though Parks carefully set up all the pieces on a game board, handed them their character backgrounds and motivations and initial plots, and then wrote the ending. Later he comes back and figures out how they get from A to Z... which they do. Yet it's a fairly short book.
Pretty good.
There's this magician, Tymon the Black. Magicians are rare, require some natural (or supernatural) talent, and lots of esoteric knowledge which they seem to learn mostly from books. This magician is cursed with The Long Look. Every so often he is hit with a trance, in which he sees something that could happen -- will happen, unless he decides to stop it. He doesn't get any clues about whether or how he should stop it or encourage it. This is very frustrating to Tymon.
He has a loyal sidekick who is a dwarf -- well, a small human. Adult, male, 4 feet tall, named Seb. Seb isn't a magician, but he's very handy with a knife or a rock or his fists, and he's a good cook.
Then there are all the royalty. We deal with four or five countries, all of whom are no more than a week's walk apart across mountainous territory. One of them has ocean access. One of them is a productive valley in the middle of the mountains. All of them have been relatively peaceful for a decade or two... and that might change.
The tone is difficult to describe; Tymon takes blatant advantage of knowing how everybody thinks magicians are supposed to act. It's slightly reminiscent of Brunner's Traveller in Black stories. It's not snarky, and it's not exactly a puzzle-story. It's as though Parks carefully set up all the pieces on a game board, handed them their character backgrounds and motivations and initial plots, and then wrote the ending. Later he comes back and figures out how they get from A to Z... which they do. Yet it's a fairly short book.
Pretty good.
