From Publishers Weekly
Popular fantasy author Kerr (the Deverry series) once again crosses genres to deliver a large-scale SF adventure, with crowd-pleasing results. Three very different groups of human settlers go, not all willingly, to the planet Snare: a band of Islamic fundamentalists, a group of horse tribes and the pragmatic Cantons people. All descend on Snare's indigenous reptilian species the ChaMeech, and eight centuries of territorial and social turmoil follow. In Kazrajistan, the despotic Gemet Great Kahn rules the followers of the Third Prophet, but a secret rebel organization led by Captain Idres Warkannan seeks to restore the rightful heir, Jezro Kahn, long assumed murdered by Gemet. Warkannan sets out to find Jezro with his nephew Arkazo and Yarl Soutan, a renegade Cantons sorcerer, who claims to be searching for the lost Ark of the Covenant, the settlers' original ship. Meanwhile, suspicious of Soutan and Warkannan, Gemet sends Zahir Benumar, one of his elite warriors, to discover their plans. In the guise of a disgraced soldier, Zahir joins a horse tribe led by the inquisitive Spirit Rider Ammadin, hoping to use the tribe as cover while he follows Soutan's trail. Matters grow more complicated when a ChaMeech named Water Woman asks Ammadin's help and tells her of a powerful sorceress named Sibyl, who may be the last link between Snare's inhabitants and their distant past. Though the ending falls a little flat, Kerr masterfully manipulates the converging plot lines.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Booklist
Kerr turns from Celtic fantasy to a capable variation on a venerable sf theme: the human settlement on a distant planet that loses space-faring technology. On Snare, areas habitable by humans are limited, but human perversity and rivalry are not. The urban Kazraks follow a variant of Islam; the nomadic Comnee keep their wealth in horse herds. Meanwhile, the planet's aboriginal inhabitants, the Cha'Meech, are suffering from human incursions into what is left of their territory. In due course, the Kazraks start trying to overthrow their despot, but their resistance leader is hiding among the Comnee. For their part, the Cha'Meech have an innovative leader, who may remind historically informed readers of nineteenth-century Shawnee chief Tecumseh. Also on hand is a "sorcerer" who is obsessed with reinventing space flight, knowledge of which is more legendary than historical on Snare. The characterizations aren't up to the level of those in Kerr's Deverry saga, yet this competent performance is likely to please Kerr's fans and win her new ones. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
