The Jackal of Nar - Softcover

Marco, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1857988698 ISBN 13: 9781857988697

Publisher: Bantam Books; Spectra, 2000

Synopsis

A fast-paced epic with enormous scope, believable and appealing characters and an impressively imagined world.

The Empire of Nar is being torn apart, the balance of power tipped by the sorcerer Tharn’s magic. The Emperor wants control of the magic, Tharn wants to rule the Empire and countless thousands of people are caught up in the struggle. And now the love of Prince Richius's life has been spirited away by Tharn. But all is not what it seems. Richius is a flawed hero pursuing a woman he has met just once. The Emperor is greedy and lazy, while Tharn is a dying man touched by the gods and struggling to use his power for good.

About this title

Review:

The first volume of a fantasy sequence collectively called Tyrants and Kings, The Jackal of Nar starts off with a grueling account of what is still trench warfare even if its weaponry is magic flame cannons and trained wolves. The hero Richius is fighting a war he does not believe in for an emperor he loathes. Quite minor incidents come back to haunt him--he prevents a rape and makes a mortal enemy of a rival commander, and the almost casual decision to remain in a tavern in the company of prostitutes produces an obsession that dominates his life.

Marco's frequent clumsiness of style and plotting are almost irrelevant; Richius is a flawed hero whose sense of his own righteousness costs those around him even more than it does him, and there is a real power to his story. This is a book with some splendidly corrupt villains--the Emperor Arkus, obsessed with the pursuit of longevity and the manipulation of everyone around him; Biaggio, his smoothly vicious chief of police--and with opponents of whom we learn more when Richius is forced to change sides; Tharn, the fundamentalist wizard and warlord; and his aging servant Voris. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk

From the Inside Flap:

call Prince Richius "the Jackal," yet he is only a reluctant warrior for the Emperor in the fight for the land of Lucel-Lor.  The empire's deadly war machines are no match for the potent magic of Tharn, leader of a fanatical sect.  Richius's forces are routed and he returns home in defeat--but the Emperor will not accept the loss.  Soon Richius is given one last chance to pit the empire's science against the enemy's devastating magic.  But he has fallen in love with a woman of Lucel-Lor, his sworn enemy.

Now Richius finds himself torn between his kingdom, his loyalty, and his heart.  No matter what he chooses, the result at best will be bloodshed and shame, at worst the deaths of everyone he holds dear.  Yet as the Emperor and Tharn are about to discover, there is nothing so dangerous as one desperate man....

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam Books; Spectra
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1857988698
• ISBN 13: 9781857988697
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 768
• Illustrator: Beekman Doug (Cover)