Synopses & Reviews
"The Wizard Hunters is something of a departure for me, even though it revisits my favorite setting of Ile-Rien, which was introduced in my first novel "The Element of Fire and appeared again in "The Death of the Necromancer. The Ile-Rien of "The Element of Fire is based on a seventeenth century time period where magic exists and the world of Fairy is a very real threat to the human inhabitants. "The Death of the Necromancer took place a couple of centuries later in Ile-Rien's history and showed it in a more nineteenth century period, complete with gas light and trains. "The Wizard Hunters is set about thirty years after the end of "The Death of the Necromancer and involves travel to another world/dimension completely unlike Ile-Rien, the home of the main characters. So I had to update Ile-Rien to the early twentieth century, show the effects of three years of violent war and the looming threat of invasion, and create a different setting for the other world. "The Wizard Hunters is also the first book in a trilogy, which is very different for me since I've never done a direct sequel to any of my books before.
One of the elements I've enjoyed including in the trilogy is the Queen Ravenna, a ship based on the Queen Mary, a Cunard ocean liner which has a fascinating history and can be toured now where she is permanently docked in Long Beach, California. The Queen Ravenna is named after one of the characters in "The Element of Fire, who is now a historical figure in the present day Ile-Rien of "The Wizard Hunters.
The trilogy also explores the story of two radically different cultures having to not only interact but learn to trust one another. The characters from Ile-Rien, some ofwhom are mages, all of whom are accustomed to magic, travel to a world where magic is considered a curse and all wizards are homicidally insane.
So instead of one setting, one book, I've got two settings in three books. The sequel to "The Wizard Hunters also involves the characters traveling halfway across both worlds, and further in incursions into other worlds, so the complications continue.
Synopsis
Reviewers nationwide, as well as fellow artists in the fantasy arena, have already marveled at the astonishing voice and vision of Martha Wells. With this, the first book in an extraordinary new epic trilogy, the Nebula Award-nominated author of The Death of the Necromancer and Wheel of the Infinite dazzles as never before -- bringing a stark and breathtaking reality to an imperiled world of magic. . . .
Ile-Rien faces the grim specter of its own imminent demise. Once a fertile and prosperous land, it is now under attack by the Gardier, a mysterious army whose storm-black airships appear from nowhere to strike without warning. Every weapon in the arsenal of Ile-Rien's revered wizards has proven useless -- their magic quickly identified by the enemy and rendered instantly impotent, their conventional arms spontaneously and inexplicably exploded. And the last hope of a magical realm under siege rests within a child's plaything.
The tiny sphere was created for Tremaine Valiarde's amusement when she was a child of twelve, presented to her by her uncle Arisilde, the greatest of all sorcerers. But the mage -- among the first to identify the impending Gardier threat, along with Tremaine's notorious father, Nicholas, and one of the first to die because of it -- secreted a power within the orb capable of defeating the invaders. And now, years later, it falls to a young woman lacking any magical knowledge and abil-ity to release it.
Tremaine's initial attempts have disastrous consequences, transporting her to a strange world far removed from anything she has ever experienced or imagined. In this terrible and wondrous place -- where primitive magic cultures lag far behind Ile-Rien's sophisticated sorcery, where noble warriors clash with dark wizards, where starving demons prowl for prey and the Gardier prepare their assaults -- Tremaine must somehow unlock the sphere's powerful secrets . . . before the slow and monstrous awakening of a hideous evil is complete.
About the Author
Martha Wells was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and received her B.A. in anthropology from Texas A&M University. She is the author of four previous novels:
The Element of Fire, City of Bones, The Death of the Necromancer, which was nominated for a Nebula award, and
Wheel of the Infinite. She lives with her husband in College Station, Texas.