"Tremendous epic fantasy"
A hedonist of the worst order, Indaros Karelios seeks a
good time whether he is wenching of drinking. Nothing else
really matters to the member of the aristocratic house of
Han-Gilen. Daros actually has talent, but chooses to hide
his abilities so he could avoid having to attend Mage
School. He fears that would cramp his style. When Daros gets in deep trouble and has to appear before
the current Lady of the Gates, the Golden Emperor Merian
sees inside to the very soul of Daros. She concludes that
the wastrel is a strong but untrained mage. She decides he
will be allowed to live but he must be punished. Lady
Merian exiles Daros by sending him to her grandfather to
receive the training he needs to control his power. Now a
student disciple of the mighty Emperor Estarion, Daros soon
is alone battling against the growing darkness of demons
destroying his world one land at a time. His mentor has
been dispatched by the evil one to a more mundane orb
called earth. TIDES OF DARKNESS, the latest Avaryan Chronicles, is a
tremendous epic fantasy that will send genre readers in
search of the previous novels, all wonderful entries. The
story line makes the fantastic seem authentic as if Judith
Tarr has visited this magical plane in her real life. The
growing terror adds to the belief that this realm exists
outside of the fertile imagination of the author. Daros,
Merian, and Estarion are strong characters inside a
powerful plot and that leads to another terrific Tarr tale. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted October 13, 2002
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TIDES OF DARKNESS A wild, spoiled princeling of the house of Han-Gilen,
Indaros Karelios is handsome, arrogant, a seducer and
tavern-crawler with little regard for the noble line that
spawned him. But Daros is also a mage, unruly, untrained,
and unbound by the constraints that block other workers of
magic. Caught violating the mages' gravest prohibition, crossing
through the forbidden gates between the worlds, Daros is
brought to judgment before the Lady Merian, ruler of the
Golden Empire, Mistress of the Gates, and heir of Avaryan.
But in Daros' eyes, Merian sees something no one else has
seen-a power that far exceeds any she has ever known, and a
burning passion that kindles her own restive desires. Unable to take his life, Merian exiles Daros to serve the
one person who might tame him, the Emperor Estarion, the
near-immortal who relinquished his rule to live a simpler
life in the lands to the north. As Daros learns to control
his dawning powers under Estarion's discipline, he
discovers a hideous truth: a vast, inexorable wave of
darkness is approaching, devouring world after world.
Recklessly seeking its limits, Daros vanishes into the
chill night, and Estarion, too, is swept up by the shadow,
landing on the shores of darkness, where he begins a new
life in an ancient land plagued by demons of the night. Embattled and alone, Lady Merian calls upon her circle of
mages to summon the power that will turn back the darkness,
as Daros descends to the deepest heart of the darkness,
risking his own life and soul to turn back the endless
night.
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