The Lightstone: Book 1 (The Ea Cycle) - Hardcover

Zindell, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002247569 ISBN 13: 9780002247566

Publisher: Voyager, 2001

Synopsis

From the author of Neverness comes a powerful new epic fantasy series. The Lord of the Rings meets Le Morte D’Arthur in the Ea Cycle. The Lightstone is as rich and as magical as both.

The world of Ea is an ancient world settled in eons past by the Star People. However, their ancestors floundered in their purpose to create a great stellar civilisation on the new planet: they fell into moral decay.
Now a champion has been born who will lead them back to greatness by means of a spiritual – and adventurous – quest for Ea’s Grail: the Lightstone.
His name is Valashu Elahad, and he is destined to become King. Blessed (or cursed?) with an empathy for all living things, he will lead his people into the lands of Morjin, into the heart of darkness, wielding a magical sword called Alkadadur, there to recover the mythical Lightstone and return in triumph with his prize.

But Morjin is not to be vanquished so easily...

About this title

Review:

David Zindell's massive epic fantasy The Lightstone is only the first volume of The Ea Cycle and is characterised by the same grandeur and vividly imagined scenes of glory and dismay as his space operas--the sequence which starts with Neverness. Like them, it is remarkable for scale, ambition and a capacity to evoke sinister beauty; in their case a thousand exploding suns; here a desperate battle in the underground throne room of a Dark Lord and the burning of a great library. There is a sense in which this is fantasy-by-numbers--young prince Val is sent on a quest for the long-lost Lightstone--the cure for the world's pain. He is harassed in his dreams by a demon who was once a bright being and is joined by companions who collect magical bric-a-brac as they go. Zindell though, is trying to work with the inherent strengths of mythic structure, bringing to the tale a sense of urgency and spiritual depth, rather than cynically exploiting the clichés. Val is a man who lives consciously with the myths he is re-enacting--heroism is not just heroic acts but an emotional space that goes with the acquisition of doomed love and mortal enemies. This is an impressive start to an interesting cycle. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

Praise for Neverness:

‘Zindell makes you think’
New Scientist

‘Philip K. Dick would have been proud to conjure up such philiosophies’
Manchester Evening News

‘A thick, lush, vivid, panoramic view of evolved humans in an evolving universe far in the future’
Twilight Zone

‘Excellent hard science fiction... a brilliant novel’
Orson Scott Card, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

About this edition

• Publisher: Voyager
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0002247569
• ISBN 13: 9780002247566
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 848