THE NAMELESS DAY: Book 1 (The Crucible Trilogy) - Softcover

Douglass

3.72

1,484 ratings by Goodreads

9780007348329: THE NAMELESS DAY: Book 1 (The Crucible Trilogy)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007348320 ISBN 13: 9780007348329

Publisher: HarperVoyager, 2009

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The first book of The Crucible, an exciting new historical fantasy from the author of the popular Axis triology.

The Nameless Day is, according to the ancient pagan calendar of Europe, the one day of the year when the world of mankind and the enigmatic world of the spirits touch. Mid-century the forces of evil slide across the divide and invade Europe.

The Church sends Thomas Neville, an English nobleman, on a secret mission through the shadowy forests and arcane religious orders of Europe to discover the extent of the danger. But not even Neville, a priest, is prepared when the horror of the Black Death sweeps across Europe.

The forces of the Church and God rally against the infiltration of the Devil’s minions. The battle has begun.

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Review:

The Nameless Day, the first volume of Sarah Douglass's new 'Crucible' sequence, is set not in some faraway fantasy realm but in what both is and is not the Middle Ages of the Hundred Years War and the Black Death, a Middle Ages strangely truncated so that the Black Prince's conquest of France and Joan of Arc's attempt to save it are going on at the same time. Something demonic is going on -- a mysterious faction within the Church has failed to take the precautions that need to be taken and something has been unleashed: it is precisely because no-one trusts the warrior turned priest, Thomas Neville, that he finds himself lumbered with investigating what went wrong with the last journey of Brother Wynkyn thirty years before. Thomas thought his life was over having made the wrong choices, and gave up his old life to repent perpetually. But finding himself considered expendable by almost everybody and everything starts to change his mind.

This is an ingenious, passionate and more than slightly loopy fantasy, with vividly evoked landscapes of dangerous deadly beauty and ultimate disgust; the flawed self-hating Neville is as intriguing a character as Douglass has given us. -- Roz Kaveney

Review:

Praise for previous books in The Axis Trilogy:

‘BattleAxe is the best Australian fantasy novel I’ve experienced to date.’
Martin Livings, Eidolon

‘Enchanter is utterly enthralling and unputdownable.’
Karen Brooks, OzLit

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