Wizard Spawn

The Sword of Knowledge #2

by C.J. Cherryh, Nancy Asire

THE BRUTAL FORCE OF OPPRESSION VERSUS THE SWORD OF KNOWLEDGE

It is 500 years since the fall of the Sabirn Empire, an empire whose rulers sealed their fate by refusing to countenance the development of weapons that could have saved them from the barbarians. Now the Sabirn have fallen on hard times indeed, and lie supine beneath the boot of the Ancar, laboring in mines and fields and streets at work no member of a ”higher” race would touch.

But rumors abound that among the Sabirn are some who retain occult knowledge and use it in secret rites aimed at the overthrow of the new master race. The Ancar say this is justification for genocide. The Sabirn say genocide is justification for anything; The Sword of Knowledge cuts both ways.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Science Fiction

275 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 1989

About the author

Currently resident in Spokane, Washington, C.J. Cherryh has won four Hugos and is one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed authors in the science fiction and fantasy field. She is the author of more than forty novels. Her hobbies include travel, photography, reef culture, Mariners baseball, and, a late passion, figure skating: she intends to compete in the adult USFSA track. She began with the modest ambition to learn to skate backwards and now is working on jumps. She sketches, occasionally, cooks fairly well, and hates house work; she loves the outdoors, animals wild and tame, is a hobbyist geologist, adores dinosaurs, and has academic specialties in Roman constitutional law and bronze age Greek ethnography. She has written science fiction since she was ten, spent ten years of her life teaching Latin and Ancient History on the high school level, before retiring to full time writing, and now does not have enough hours in the day to pursue all her interests. Her studies include planetary geology, weather systems, and natural and man-made catastrophes, civilizations, and cosmology…in fact, there's very little that doesn't interest her. A loom is gathering dust and needs rethreading, a wooden ship model awaits construction, and the cats demand their own time much more urgently. She works constantly, researches mostly on the internet, and has books stacked up and waiting to be written.

Reviews

[Rain · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another light but entertaining read. Not as good as the first book, and characters not as sympathetic, overworked in the writing (eg Duran was a *nice guy*, but did we have to be told 200 times?), and no women characters.

[Lynda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hundreds of years after the previous story we meet a man trying to live a simple life in a culture rife with racism.

[Shae Erisson · Rating 4 out of 5]

good sequel, worth reading if you enjoyed the first

[Meredith Skye · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a pretty quick read, shorter than book one. There was a bit of intrigue or at least mystery but not as dire a plot as some of the other books. Read like a novella.

[AM · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is fine. Not as much fun as the first book, and containing far, far too many m-dashes, but I did like Duran and want him to come out okay.

[Karen Ireland-Phillips · Rating 3 out of 5]

**SPOILER ALERT** for these books, published in 1989.[return][return]In this shared world trilogy C.J. Cherryh fully exercises her history fetish by exploring the what-if inherent in the rise, fall and adaptation of cultures. [return]The main characters, over a timeline of nearly a thousand years, are the descendents original citizens of the Sabirn Empire, and the cultures and empires which conquer and oppose them. [return]In Book 1, A Dirge for Sabis, Ancaran hordes from the north (pushed by barbarians from even further north, of course – this is Cherryh) conquer the Sabirn Empire and overrun the capital, Sabis. This despite the efforts of a group of patriots including a “natural philosopher”, a smith, an army officer, and a resourceful magician to construct a weapon that could hold them off. The group of patriots are forced to flee, finding a new patron behind the Ancar lines and using their knowledge to scare off a cult fleecing the locals. [return]“If at first you don’t succeed, get the hell out of the way.”[return] Followed by Wizard Spawn[return]Book II of the Sword of Knowledge series[return]C.J. Cherryh and Nancy Asire[return][return]500 years later, (See A Dirge for Sabis) Book II concentrates on the remnants of the Sabirn people, and the scorn and persecution they suffer under the rule of the descendants of the Ancar in Sabis. This is our “one person makes a difference book”. Chemist (and alchemist) Duran rescues a Sabirn boy injured in an attack behind his shop, and is stunned to discover that his neighbors disapprove – strongly. Worse, the presence of the boy in Duran’s home leads to rumors of witchcraft and alchemical deeds that reach the ears of the court. Eventually, he flees with the boy, the boy’s grandfather, and other Sabirn who know secrets of which he could only have dreamed. [return][return][return]Reap the Whirlwind[return]Book III of the Sword of Knowledge series[return]C.J. Cherryh and Mercedes Lackey[return](See Also, A Dirge for Sabis and Wizard Spawn) Book III brings the descendents of the protagonists of Book I and II together to resist the depredations of the Wind Clan (fleeing, in a nice bit of symmetry, the pursuit of another clan and *their* overlords). Having joined forces as a scholarly quasi-magical organization, they’re able to use the secret magics of the Sabirn, the strengths of the Ancar, the tenets of Duran, and the tenacity of the scholar’s leader to bring the Clan into alliance. [return][return]Book one shows the Cherryh touch the most clearly – the multi-layered plotting, characters who turn out to be much different than first perceived. The early chapters were clearly her work, and Leslie Fish does a great job keeping up and fleshing out the characters and story.[return]The next two volumes are much simpler in plot and characterization, though not without the occasional surprise. If not up to Cherryh’s, Asire’s and Lackey’s best work, still worth a read.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished re-reading this old favorite. I like the character development through all 3 books in the series. In this tale, a good man struggles to survive on the edge, keeping to his own moral standards, giving of his knowledge and skills to help heal. Yet always curious to expand on his knowledge and learn tales of the ancient Sabairn civilization. His spontaneous act of saving a boy from a beating in the alley by his shop sets his life on a different path.