Spells of Binding

Liavek #4

by Will Shetterly, Emma Bull

vg++ to fine 1st Ace 1988 edition paperback book In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

Genres: Fantasy, Anthologies, Speculative Fiction, Short Stories

246 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 1, 1988

Reviews

[Don Head · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember reading the first book in the Liavek series back in the 80s, and enjoying it, although I don’t remember any of the stories. I do remember that I thought it was a well-fleshed out world, Liavek. So when I stumbled across this at Powell’s, I had to read it. Some of it is slow, but the interconnected stories were, in the end, compelling. I decided to look up the other Liavek books, and I have two coming next week. I wholeheartedly recommend this business to fans of fantasy.

[Beth Friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread after many years. Still enjoyable, but this one is more like 3.5 stars because I find the entire "railroad comes to Liavek" unbelievable. My favorite stories are the connected ones by Pamela Dean and Patricia Wrede. In future, I might just reread Points of Departure, where those are collected.

[Brian Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

when I started this I was thinking that the series never cohered in the way that a shared world should because I didn't recognize a lot of the early story characters. Then I realized I had missed a book in the series (and perhaps had read them out of order in any event) as I got further and further into the book and saw how everything overlapped. I really need to reread the whole sequence to see everything in order.

2020 Addition
Having reread the rest of the series I was much mre favorably impressed by the book, seeing how everything in it not only ties together in the book but also across all the prior ones. Very impressivly done.

[Terence · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can read about my impressions of the series as a whole here. The best stories in this volume are:

"An Act of Love," Steven Brust et al., which closes the story arc of Count Dashif and his daughter Kaloo in very satisfying way.

"The Last Part of the Tragical History of Acrilat," Pamela Dean + "Mad God," Patricia Wrede. Two stories that neatly wrap up the "tragical" history of the Benedicti clan.

[Pamela Lloyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, which has stories by a number of my favorite authors. Unlike most anthologies, even shared-world anthologies, some of the stories were intricately linked. Two stories, in particular, revolved around the same set of events, but from the perspectives of different characters.