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"Fine work of speculative fiction"

Every two decades, the Guidestar performed a Routine Bioform Clearance sending out massive heat rays in lands past the outskirts that would destroy dangerous creatures and poisonous flora. This can no longer happen because the Guidestar fell out of the sky which means the outsider tribes couldn't move east and would have to travel to the Inner lands to survive. Rowan the steerswoman discovers that the Guidestar was deliberately knocked out of the sky by the use of magic.

The wizard who did this is Slado; Rowan and her friend the Outskirter Bel desperately needs to find him and make things right or war will break out between the two groups. In the port city of Donner, Rowan and Bel are looking through the steerswoman archives and talking to people trying to find Slado, who apprenticed to a wizard who died under strange circumstances. Slado disappeared and the new wizard prevents the dragons from overrunning the town. They meet Will, the wizard Corvus' apprentice and together they devise a plan to enter the wirzard Jannik's house and use his belongings to find out why Slado is moving the world towards war.

This installment of the Steerswoman Saga moves the reader one step closer to finding out what the unseen antagonist is doing and why he is doing it. The protagonist shows the townsfolk that wizards are not invulnerable and they can work in secret groups to throw off the repressive yoke of the wizards. Rosemary Kirsten is a powerful storyteller who has created a series in which each book can stand alone although it is part of a larger saga. THE LANGUAGE OF POWER is a fine work of speculative fiction where the lines between science and magic constantly blur.

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted August 15, 2004

Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted January 25, 2007

Rosemary Kirstein’s acclaimed epic continues, as a servant of truth journeys through a world where the powerful rule by lies.

The steerswomen were seekers, collectors of knowledge, and whatever they learned was free for the asking. The wizards also had knowledge– the knowledge to command nature itself–but they jealously guarded their dark wisdom. The two groups have been at odds for centuries: They do not agree, they do not converse, they do not associate.

Now the steerswoman Rowan has uncovered evidence that the master wizard, Slado, is conjuring dangerous spells in shadow, devastating the distant lands called the Outskirts and changing the course of the world. Rowan has no choice: Slado must be stopped . . . if he can even be found.

Following a dubious clue, Rowan and her friend Bel, an Outskirter, have come to the city of Donner, seeking answers from the past for a danger in the present. But the secrets go deeper than Rowan had ever imagined, compelling her to wonder: What if all this time she has been asking the wrong questions?

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