Reap the Whirlwind

The Sword of Knowledge #3

by C.J. Cherryh, Mercedes Lackey, Larry Elmore (Illustrator)

THE FALL ACCORDING TO C.J. CHERRYH

The Roman Empire. Imagine its fall. Now imagine that warring time with cannon—and a working system of magic. C.J. Cherryh did. In The Sword of Knowledge, Cherryh has explored the fall of empires and the impact of technological knowledge while replacing the repressed religion of the Christians with a Church of Knowledge.

In A Dirge for Sabis we saw the Sabirn Empire fall to barbarians because the rulers were too inflexible to make use of the technology available to them.

Wizard Spawn opens centuries later, with the Sabirn empire a blighted memory and the barbarians established as the new and oppressive rulers.

Now another half millennium has passed, and new barbarians are on the rise. It will be a battle of barbarian vigor vs. The Sword of Knowledge in Reap the Whirlwind!

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Alternate History

273 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 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

[Meredith Skye · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did enjoy this novel. Interesting world and culture. What upsets me is that I bought two books in the series, one market Sword of Knowledge book #2), but this was was just marked: A book in the Sword of Knowledge series, so I assumed it was book one and read it first. By itself, it made sense (though there was a *lot* of backstory). Now I feel confused and irritated because that was the final book. I will try to get the first two and read them.

[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.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but I think I need to read the other books in the series!

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping story. Profound insights. Tears. Immensely satisfying.