Synopses & Reviews
From a strong new voice in epic fantasy comes the tale of Durand, a good squire trying to become a good knight in a harsh and unforgiving world.
Set to inherit the lordship of a small village in his father's duchy because the knight of that village has been bereaved of his own son, Durand must leave when the son unexpectedly turns up alive.
First he falls in with a band of knights working for a vicious son of a duke and ends up participating in the murder of the duke's adulterous wife. Fleeing, he comes into the service of a disgraced second son of a duke, Lamoric, who is executing a long subterfuge to try to restore his honor in the eyes of his father, family, and king. By entering tournaments anonymously as "The Red Knight," Durand will demonstrate his heroism and prowess and be drafted into the honors of the king.
But conspiracies are afoot--dark plots that could break the oaths which bind the kingdom and the duchies together and keep the banished monsters at bay. It may fall to Durand to save the world of Man...
Authentic and spellbinding, In the Eye of Heaven weaves together the gritty authenticity of a Glen Cook with the high-medieval flair epitomized by Gene Wolfe's The Knight, to begin an epic multi-volume tale that will take the fantasy world by storm.
Review
"A powerful and assured debut novel, featuring gritty realism, skilled characterization, and compelling storytelling, set against the backdrop of a mythos that has the ring of primordial truth."
--Jacqueline Carey on In the Eye of Heaven
"A very intelligent book, with a hero who starts out as raw and physical as the world in which he finds himself but who proves able to use his mind to get out of the situations his body's gotten him into."
--David Drake on In the Eye of Heaven
"In David Keck's new fantasy , the gritty reality of medieval warfare is all the more believable against the backdrop of an Otherworld whose magic is rooted in folklore."
--Diana L. Paxson on In the Eye of Heaven
"The world and its cultures that Keck unveils in In the Eye of Heaven are brutal and raw, and through it all the reader senses a fierce authenticity, a depth of knowledge in the author assuring that every detail every nuance, is precisely as it should be. This novel marks the debut of an exceptional series, revealing the mythical depth and resonance possible with in the genre of fantasy--a rare feat these days."
--Steven Erikson, author of Gardens of the Moon
Synopsis
Losing his inheritance when a knight's believed-dead son turns up alive, Durand inadvertently participates in a murder and finds himself in the service of a duke's disgraced son, a situation that eventually causes him to participate anonymously in a series of tournaments. A first novel. Reprint.
Synopsis
A fiercely original epic fantasy debut
About the Author
A native of Canada, David Keck lives in New York city with his wife, the editor and novelist Ann Groell.