Drum Into Silence

Drums of Chaos #3

by Jo Clayton, Kevin Andrew Murphy

Three sorcerers plot separately to reach the Empty Place and defeat the Hero–and each other. Other great magicians do what they can to protect the Hero, and the whole world with him.

Breith follows the white bird, knowing that she is really his transformed love, Cymel. The beautiful sorceress Hudoleth steals youth and beauty from the young women around her to keep the Emperor's attention. The Shaman lies hidden in the Earth near the Empty Place. Tensions of love, of war, of power and of magic all mount with the beating of the drums.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy

399 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 2002

About the author

Jo Clayton, whose parents named her after Jo in Little Women, was born and raised in Modesto, California. She and her three sisters shared a room and took turns telling each other bedtime stories. One of her sisters noted that Jo's stories were the best, and often contained science fiction and fantasy elements.

Clayton graduated from the University of California in 1963, Summa Cum Laude, and started teaching near Los Angeles.

In 1969, after a religious experience, she moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, joining the teaching order Sisters of Mount Carmel as a novice. She left three years later, before taking final orders.

During her time in New Orleans, Clayton sold sketches and paintings in Pioneer Square to supplement her income.

After being robbed several times, Clayton moved to Portland, Oregon in 1983. She remained there for the rest of her life.

Clayton was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1996. Jo continued to write during her year and a half in the hospital. She finished Drum Calls, the second book of the Drums of Chaos series, and was halfway through the third and final book when she lost her struggle with multiple myeloma in February, 1998.

Literary executor Katherine Kerr made arrangements with established author Kevin Andrew Murphy to finish the third book of the Drums of Chaos series. It is now completed.

Reviews

[Althea Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

After Jo Clayton died in 1998, she left the unfinished manuscript and her notes for the final volume in this trilogy for Kevin Murphy to finish. I had a pretty good opinion of the first two books in the trilogy, but unfortunately, as I mentioned, this was a very ambitious work. I can't say for sure that Clayton herself would have done a much better job of realizing the potential of this story – it would have been difficult, I think. But as it stands, it just sort of wound up bogged down in too many characters and too many complicated political schemes shoved into too few pages. Since none of the characters really got (I felt) enough "page-time," they didn't really come alive for me, for much of the book. Which is really too bad, because the characters are really colorful and interesting, and I love complex political plots. But here, more than once, I found myself going, "Hang on... who just killed who? Why?" (or something similar.) It did pick up toward the end, where all the players begin to converge on the one physical spot that will be the point of the great showdown between all the mages, sorceresses, etc, and the Hero whose existence may serve to save the worlds of Iomard and Glandair.
Not bad, overall – but I can't help wishing it had been even better.

[Viridian5 · Rating 1 out of 5]

In the 80’s Jo Clayton was a favorite author of mine, particularly for her A Bait of Dreams. But her style shifted toward too many characters and the gratuitous use of a lot of dialect and became more difficult for me to enjoy. I slogged through the Drums of Chaos series but kept on for the flashes of things I enjoyed. Then she died, and I mourned. I also figured that the Drums of Chaos series would never be completed.

I was wrong, because out came Drum Into Silence by Jo Clayton and Kevin Andrew Murphy, although it might be more properly attributed to Kevin Andrew Murphy and the Estate of Jo Clayton. I didn’t have high expectations going in. I suppose that’s a good thing, because I found this book so difficult to warm to that I gave up on it around page 127 of the paperback edition. I tired of the mass of characters, none of whom I liked, and cringed through all the dialect. Worse, it was all so dull.

I’m going to pretend this book didn’t happen.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Kevin Murphy’s posthumous conclusion to Jo Clayton’s final trilogy, Cymel, trapped in the body of a white bird after her father’s murder, must be restored to save the energy balance of both worlds.

[Janet]

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