Scan barcode
A review by tracey_stewart
The Wizard's Shadow by Susan Dexter
4.0
This was the first Susan Dexter I read in my reread, and it was my first clue that it had been longer than I thought since I read these books - too long. I might have reread them, but it would have to have been at least ten years, I think, for all of them. Ten years and hundreds of books later, I've had plenty of time to forget almost everything: perfect.
I've started with The Wizard's Shadow, which starts with a murder, or an execution. The impression is of something dark, something hunted, being pinned down and put, terribly, to death - very effective writing. It doesn't entirely die, though - a shadow takes shelter unter a rock, and settles to wait.
It has a long wait on the seldom-traveled path, until Crocken the peddlar comes along. The poor bugger has had a terrible time of it, with a string of bad luck, insult to injury, that has sent him off on a trading journey farther than he's ever gone before to recoup losses he's suffered. The ill luck hits him again, in the form of his bad-tempered mule and a fall ... which along with knocking him out dislodges a certain rock along the trail ... And when Crocken comes around he is no longer alone. His shadow is gone and has been replaced with a new one, one which, hard as it is to accept even in a world in which magic is common, can speak to him. It makes him a classic offer which cannot be refused: divert his path to the kingdom of Armyn, with the shadow trailing along behind, and he will be paid handsomely. If not ...
Crocken knows it to be a bad bargain - the way is difficult, and long, and very much not where he was headed - but there isn't much else he can do. He obeys, and the arduous journey is only the beginning of a complicated situation he feels completely unequipped for: a morass of motive and suspicion and very dark magic in the castle, a foreign bride for the young to-be-crowned king, and the mystery of what - who - the shadow is, or was, and what exactly it wants.
I loved it. Wizard's Shadow, and every other book I have by Susan Dexter, is exactly what I love best in a book: intelligent, funny, wonderful characters in a beautifully created setting involved in fascinating situations. I made guesses about what was going on - guessed wrong - didn't care, because I was enjoying the book too much. The story did not end up as I'd feared, with the typical everyone-neatly-paired-off trope, and I was glad. I hadn't planned to move on to the Tristan books, but after Shadow I didn't have any more of a choice than poor old Crocken: I had to keep going with Susan Dexter's work. I only wish there was more. ~Stewartry
I've started with The Wizard's Shadow, which starts with a murder, or an execution. The impression is of something dark, something hunted, being pinned down and put, terribly, to death - very effective writing. It doesn't entirely die, though - a shadow takes shelter unter a rock, and settles to wait.
It has a long wait on the seldom-traveled path, until Crocken the peddlar comes along. The poor bugger has had a terrible time of it, with a string of bad luck, insult to injury, that has sent him off on a trading journey farther than he's ever gone before to recoup losses he's suffered. The ill luck hits him again, in the form of his bad-tempered mule and a fall ... which along with knocking him out dislodges a certain rock along the trail ... And when Crocken comes around he is no longer alone. His shadow is gone and has been replaced with a new one, one which, hard as it is to accept even in a world in which magic is common, can speak to him. It makes him a classic offer which cannot be refused: divert his path to the kingdom of Armyn, with the shadow trailing along behind, and he will be paid handsomely. If not ...
Crocken knows it to be a bad bargain - the way is difficult, and long, and very much not where he was headed - but there isn't much else he can do. He obeys, and the arduous journey is only the beginning of a complicated situation he feels completely unequipped for: a morass of motive and suspicion and very dark magic in the castle, a foreign bride for the young to-be-crowned king, and the mystery of what - who - the shadow is, or was, and what exactly it wants.
I loved it. Wizard's Shadow, and every other book I have by Susan Dexter, is exactly what I love best in a book: intelligent, funny, wonderful characters in a beautifully created setting involved in fascinating situations. I made guesses about what was going on - guessed wrong - didn't care, because I was enjoying the book too much. The story did not end up as I'd feared, with the typical everyone-neatly-paired-off trope, and I was glad. I hadn't planned to move on to the Tristan books, but after Shadow I didn't have any more of a choice than poor old Crocken: I had to keep going with Susan Dexter's work. I only wish there was more. ~Stewartry