The Forging of Shadows 3 (Lightbringer) - Softcover

Johnson, Oliver

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451455673 ISBN 13: 9780451455673

Publisher: Penguin, 1999

Synopsis

With the sun's light waning, humankind has divided itself into the worshippers of the God of Light and the servants of Eternal Night, with both factions preparing to do battle to the death. Original.

About this title

Review

Following The Forging of the Shadows and The Nations of the Night, The Last Star at Dawn concludes Oliver Johnson's The Lightbringer Trilogy. Thalassa, the Lightbringer, and the priest Urthred return in a final quest before prophecy can be fulfilled. Unfortunately, between the heroes and their goal stand the legions of the undead, the armies of eternal darkness that seek to plunge the world into eternal night so that vampires can rule the world without sight of sun. Breathless adventure and supernatural conflict await, for if Thalassa and the worshippers of the God of Light are ever to defeat Lord Faran Gaton, High Priest of the God of Darkness, she must first journey to the fortified town of Iskiard to retrieve the Rod of Shadows. And that seems like an impossible task.

Again Oliver Johnson has taken the familiar ingredients of High Fantasy and made them his own. He tells his tale with direct, crisp prose and makes vampires, dragons, magic and the traditional Dark Lord fresh and exciting. There is no doubt that he can write a compelling adventure, yet his characters have sufficient depth to bring them alive and keep the interest to the end. There is a streak of melancholy and darkness running through this trilogy which may appeal to fans of David Gemmell's Midnight Falcon, while for page-turning action and suspense, Oliver Johnson's epic has many of the qualities which make David Eddings' Belgariad series so popular. --Gary S Dalkin

From the Author

A publisher writes on the experience of being published.
This is the concluding part of my Lightbringer Trilogy (The Forging of the Shadows and The Nations of the Night are the early volumes).The trilogy was completed over a ten year period while I was working as an editor in publishing. Though publishing has been my career, I always had ambitions to write, and after university wrote several fantasy role playing series (The Golden Dragon Gamebooks, Dragon Warriors and Bloodsword) with my friend Dave Morris and also contributed several pieces and scenarios to Britain's leading role playing magazine, White Dwarf.The Lightbringer series was originally inspired by a role playing campaign, but I swiftly discovered that apart from in terms of world-building, there is a huge gulf between writing and umpiring scenarios for a game and creating narrative fiction. Instead of the open RPG format in which characters have a certain freedom of choice, the author dictates what his characters will do, and where the plot will go. I chose as my setting a dying earth, with a dying sun familiar to fans of Jack Vance. This immediately gave me the warring dynamic between light and dark that runs through my books: those wishing for the rebirth of the sun (the Ligthbringer's faction) and those who wish for ever-lasting night (the vampire hordes of Lord Iss). It also created the opportunity for large set piece battles and confrontations of which there are many in the trilogy. I think the American trade magazine Publisher's Weekly summarised what I strived for in in its recent review: 'The concluding volume of the Lightbringer Trilogy transports the venerable theme of an Olympian War into a fantasy medieval-setting. Johnson's description of the dark, dying world and his above-average battle scenes make the novel memorable and occasionally lend it an almost Wagnerian grandeur.' Many people have asked me whether my career in publishing has helped me in my writing career. I haven't been involved in science fiction and fantasy editing for several years, when I was briefly involved with the Legend list. Sure, I met several authors who were inspirational, but that was probably the extent of the influence. My publishing career did help me in the sense that I knew these other authors, |(Dave Gemmell for one has given me invaluable and generous advice),and also the right literary agents and publishers working in the field. But when contract negotiations began here and in the US, I don't think there were any favours granted: publishing is a business after all, a fact I'm made aware of day after day at my office desk! Sometimes it's been positively strange seeing the perspective of author and publisher at practically the same time. Over the years I've just tried to compartmentalize the two activities: writing is something I do as an enjoyable past-time and hope to continue to do for some time yet!

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0451455673
• ISBN 13: 9780451455673
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 358