Seventh Decimate
The Great God's War Book One
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3.6 • 9 Ratings
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
The war between Amika and Belleger has raged for generations. Its roots lie in the distant past, beyond memory. Sorcerers from both sides rain destruction down on the battlefield, wielding the six deadly Decimates of fire, earth, wind, water, lightning, and pestilence.
Prince Bifalt hopes that Belleger's new weapons technology, the rifle, will provide a decisive advantage. But when Belleger's sorcerers are mysteriously deprived of their magical abilities, leaving them unable to defend against Amika, he must set aside his own deep hatred of sorcery and work to solve this new enigma.
Grasping at any chance to save his beloved homeland, Prince Bifalt of Belleger sets out on a hazardous journey across the unmapped wastelands to the east. With Elgart, his last comrade, Bifalt pursues the long-hidden trail of the one object that might be able to turn the tide of the endless war - a book entitled The Seventh Decimate.
The events that unfold force Prince Bifalt to weigh his stubbornness, his patriotism, and his hatred for sorcerers against his sense of loyalty and of what he knows to be right. And as he learns, Amika and Belleger may simply be pawns within an even larger struggle...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Donaldson (the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant series) opens his unremarkable epic fantasy novel, first of a trilogy, with a never-ending war. The countries of Belleger and Amika have fought so long that everyone has forgotten the cause of their enmity. Both sides have sorcerers who cause massive carnage on the battlefield with one of the six rather clich d powers called Decimates, but Belleger may have eked out an advantage with the advent of the also-rather-clich d new technology of rifles until suddenly, sorcery no longer works in Belleger. Certain that Amika is responsible, Prince Bifalt of Belleger goes on a quest to find the rumored seventh Decimate in order to destroy Amika entirely, but the world he ventures into is, of course, larger than he knows or can understand. Donaldson's plot elements and characters are familiar, but his handling of them is stark, stripped almost down to allegory, which brings a little novelty into the otherwise overused scenes but also leads to flat characters and repetitive moments of moral reflection.
