Canol Madreth is a small, remote and mountainous country at the centre of Gyronlandt. It is governed directly by an elected parliament, the Heindral -- and indirectly by the stern and sombre tenets of the Church of Ishrythan.
Then, one fateful day, ominous clouds gather over Canol Madreth, and, mysteriously affected by whatever brought them, the impetuous Brother Cassraw is transformed into a fiery religious demagogue. The stability of the whole of Gyronlandt and beyond is threatened by his strange, compulsive power and by the dark, primitive religion he begins to preach.
Only Allyn Vredech, fellow priest and lifelong friend, senses the terrible truth. He then finds himself fighting not only for his own faith, as he struggles to accept the world-destroying nature of the force that has possessed Cassraw, but also for his very sanity as he is drawn into worlds far beyond Canol Madreth...
Worlds that cannot be... Worlds that exist only in the dream of the Whistler... Or do they?
Roger Taylor was born in Heywood, Lancashire, and now lives in the Wirral. He is a chartered civil and structural engineer, a pistol, rifle and shotgun shooter, instructor/student in aikido, and an enthusiastic and loud but bone-jarringly inaccurate piano player.
He wrote four books between 1983 and 1986 and built up a handsome rejection file before the third was accepted by Headline to become the first two books of the Chronicles of Hawklan.
With the religion and religious fanaticism, other dimensions, strange characters in maybe or maybe not dream worlds, an unscrupulus character who can communicate with his cat, political mayhem, characters posessed and a hero who thinks he's insane I would have thought this book was right up my alley but I found it wasn't gripping and none of the characters inspired the devotion that is required with a book of this size and scope. I managed to get half way through before finally giving up, the writing and style were great if a little too detailed for me (personal preference) but it was so slow and tedious I decided to put this one in the bag to take to the used book store.