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Erthring Cycle #3
The Master of Norriya
THE CIRCLE UNBROKEN...
Late in the Twentieth Century farsighted men had hidden the colony Yggdrasil far underground. From there it could guide: the survivors of the Final War toward a true civilization, one that would never settle its problems on the battlefield.
Yet after just two centuries, tribes were in revolt, high-tech supplies were running low, and the colony's leaders were planning to enslave aborigines so that Yggdrasil could continue to live in the luxurious fashion of the ancients.
But a ragtag band of mutants and outcasts had other ideas. And one man among them knew the secret of the ancients' power...
Late in the Twentieth Century farsighted men had hidden the colony Yggdrasil far underground. From there it could guide: the survivors of the Final War toward a true civilization, one that would never settle its problems on the battlefield.
Yet after just two centuries, tribes were in revolt, high-tech supplies were running low, and the colony's leaders were planning to enslave aborigines so that Yggdrasil could continue to live in the luxurious fashion of the ancients.
But a ragtag band of mutants and outcasts had other ideas. And one man among them knew the secret of the ancients' power...
243 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
1 person is currently reading
50 people want to read
About the author
Wayland Drew
23 books33 followersWayland Drew (1932-1998) was a writer born in Oshawa, Ontario. He attended Victoria College at the University of Toronto, where he earned a BA in English Language and Literature (1957). Shortly after graduation he married Gwendolyn Parrott and together they raised four children. From 1961-1994 he was a high school teacher in Port Perry, Bracebridge, and Muskoka Lakes. He also worked for the Ontario Ministry of Education.
Drew began to write seriously in high school and published a number of short stories (to magazines such as The Tamarack Review) and non-fiction pieces throughout his career, while also selling radio and film scripts. His first novel (and sometimes stated to be his best) was The Wabeno Feast (1973). While rooted in Northern Ontario, the story indicted modern industrial civilization as an extension of the European colonization of Canada by depicting an entire society's fall into ruin. In her essay on "Canadian Monsters: Some Aspects of the Supernatural in Canadian Fiction ", Margaret Atwood noted that Drew's use of the aboriginal wabeno revealed a concern "with man's relationship to his society and to himself, as opposed to his relationship with the natural environment" and she concluded that Drew's novel combined "both concerns in a rather allegorical and very contemporary fashion".
Many readers, though, surely know him better as the author of an ecological science fiction trilogy, the Erthring Cycle (1984-1986), and of several movie novelizations (Corvette Summer, Dragonslayer, Batteries Not Included, and Willow, the last three of which were translated into French and the second in German). His non-fiction also reflected his concern for the environment and interest for Canadian landscapes, as seen in books such as Superior: The Haunted Shore and A Sea Within: the Gulf of St. Lawrence. His final novel, Halfway Man (1989), echoed themes from his first, The Wabeno Feast.
Drew began to write seriously in high school and published a number of short stories (to magazines such as The Tamarack Review) and non-fiction pieces throughout his career, while also selling radio and film scripts. His first novel (and sometimes stated to be his best) was The Wabeno Feast (1973). While rooted in Northern Ontario, the story indicted modern industrial civilization as an extension of the European colonization of Canada by depicting an entire society's fall into ruin. In her essay on "Canadian Monsters: Some Aspects of the Supernatural in Canadian Fiction ", Margaret Atwood noted that Drew's use of the aboriginal wabeno revealed a concern "with man's relationship to his society and to himself, as opposed to his relationship with the natural environment" and she concluded that Drew's novel combined "both concerns in a rather allegorical and very contemporary fashion".
Many readers, though, surely know him better as the author of an ecological science fiction trilogy, the Erthring Cycle (1984-1986), and of several movie novelizations (Corvette Summer, Dragonslayer, Batteries Not Included, and Willow, the last three of which were translated into French and the second in German). His non-fiction also reflected his concern for the environment and interest for Canadian landscapes, as seen in books such as Superior: The Haunted Shore and A Sea Within: the Gulf of St. Lawrence. His final novel, Halfway Man (1989), echoed themes from his first, The Wabeno Feast.
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October 23, 2025The underground colony of Yggdrasil, the sole civilized survivors of the apocalyptic war that destroyed Earth, plans to enslave aborigines to maintain their luxury lifestyle, and only a ragtag band of mutants and outcasts opposes them.
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November 10, 2020This third and final volume in Drew's trilogy of The Erthring Cycle concludes the story of the encounter of the science and technology of Earth's future with the moral and more humanistic cultural forces of Earth's past. At stake is a fundamental question of equity and equal opportunity in the development of humanity: a timeless issue here examined with both insightful values and a true knack for dramatic story telling.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
January 1, 2008
read 08.03.86
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews