Beyond World's End
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
THIS IS YOUR SOUL
ON DRUGS
After the events chronicled in Bedlam's Bard, world-saving bard and magician Eric Banyon moves into his new New York apartment hoping to settle down to the quiet life. No such luck: his building is a safe-house for a group of occultist Guardians protecting the city from supernatural evil. And there's a new evil for them to guard against....
When unethical drug researchers discover that they can induce amazing mental powers using psychotropic drugs, they begin planning to raise a drug-enslaved army of mercenaries and grow very, very rich. But this gets the attention of Aerune mac Audelaine, lord of the dark Unseleighe Sidney, who hopes to use the drugs to break through to the human world and feed on the suffering there. Both plans will bring terror to the world-and both are threatened by the very existence of Eric Banyan.
With his possibly loyal companions-a beautiful elven half-breed and a gargoyleEric heads for a three-way battle of wizardry that will determine Gotham's fate-and his own.
At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A human bard returns to the mortal world to find himself battling both elven and human demons in this entertaining entry in Lackey's Urban Faerie series. In this sequel to Bedlam's Bard, Eric Banyon moves to New York to finish his Julliard studies as a flautist, only to find that his apartment building is a safe house for the city's magical Guardians. Together with his Guardian neighbors, his friends Beth and Kory from the previous book, and his erstwhile flame, Ria Llewellyn, Banyon uncovers both a plot to open a nexus to the elven world, Underhill, in the middle of Manhattan and a group of scientists' scheme to use psychotropic drugs to uncover magical powers in normal people. Both the scientists and Aerune, the dark prince, hope to harness the drug-induced abilities of New York's street people to build their own power--until Banyon and his friends intervene. Continual references to contemporary New York life help contextualize and anchor a story that might otherwise wobble on its fantastical underpinnings. While the main characters verge on predictability, quick, vivid portraits of side characters are much more interesting. Readers will want to have read Bedlam's Bard for the back story of Lackey and Edghill's faerie world's complex geography and social structure. Even on its own merits, however, this novel's accessible blend of the urban and the whimsical will appeal to those who wonder whether the phantasmagoric walk city streets.
