Dreams of the Compass Rose
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- 4,99 $
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- 4,99 $
От издателя
The Compass Rose universe -- an ancient milieu where places have no names, cities spring forth like bouquets in the desert, gods and dreams walk the scorching sands in the South, ice floats like mirror shards upon the Northern sea, islands that do not exist are found in the East, death chases a thief on the rooftops of a Western city, immortal love spans time, and directions are intertwined into one road we all travel....
You come to this place when you wonder, and sometimes, only when you dream.
What is the nature of evil?
When a young warrior of a dark race finds himself bound in servitude to a beautiful cruel princess, his loyalty becomes entwined with something more horrifying and mysterious than endless night falling over the ancient desert.
When a courageous young servant reveals her hidden wisdom to the madman conqueror of the world, her fate is joined to a nightmare suspended beyond death and outside the universe.
Two souls from different times -- their destinies connected through hundreds of other lives and generations, through soft whispers of the wind, through ancient truths that lie buried in an island between worlds.
Both souls enslaved through dream and desire in an endless conflict between truth and illusion.
They can only be set free by the wonder of the Compass Rose.
FROM THE AUTHOR
It is singularly appropriate that the word "Amarantea" and the image of a heart-wrenching island between worlds first came to me at the edge of dream. It haunted me immediately, and initiated a chemical reaction from the elements of my being. Fragments of intensity filled me--bits and pieces of unresolved curiosity, wonder, nostalgia for all things of the past, a garish swirl of mythos combining those parts of me that were steeped in ancient history of my native Armenia, Russia, and beloved Greece, the Far East. So many people, so many fates. Indeed, history spun in all directions--past, present, and future, and that uncharted realm of alternate possibilities, the fourth dimension, if you will--and I had no single term to sum it all up, no symbol that would convey everything except that of the old nautical wind rose, also known as the compass rose.
I began to write feverishly the very next day, still unsure of the directions. I was flailing with the need to convey what it was that I had seen in that one dream image. The result, so much later, fell together into a peculiar "collage" of fables that all work in tandem to illustrate the world as I see it, despite the trappings of myth. And now, I give you this story of interconnected lives, of many flavors of passion and illusion, and present it not so much as a novel as a philosophical puzzle. Find in it, if you can, a piece of yourself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Readers who don't balk at the hefty price will find this first fantasy novel a clever concoction of vignettes and short stories knitted into a morality tale about the temptation of illusion and the price of truth. In an exotic setting reminiscent of Tanith Lee's Flat Earth series, Nazarian introduces a cast of characters all in search of something. Learra quests for the legendary island of Amarantea, "where the soul flies in search of wonder, when sleep takes you by the eyelashes," only to turn her back on it in the end. Cruel Lord Cireive executes Ailsan, Queen of Risei, the last of her people, only to find that her death gives her the power to defeat him. A king determined to find the "true End of the World" sends off teams of explorers, only to reject their discovery and suffer the consequences. Storyteller Annaelit insults the god of Things Left Over and finds herself at odds with her own counsel: "the world is shaped by two things stories told and the memories they leave behind." At the core of this sprawling saga is Nadir, "lowest of the low," whose only chance at redemption lies in saving the soul of a heartless wizard's daughter from the Lord of Illusion. The author's sumptuous language will resonate with Lord Dunsany and Clark Ashton Smith fans, even if it's not to most modern tastes. Despite a tendency to belabor the obvious, as when a wise servant tells her foolish master, "in the end only the truth will save us," Nazarian's vital themes and engaging characters are sure to entertain.