Of all the classical pre-Tolkien fantasy this here, Worm Ouroboros, is the best. Really it is quite impossible to offer a succinct review in relation to any quarter of this "magnus opus". Beautiful and far reaching in its depth, it is a vast fantasy book - not vast particularly in pages, in fact its quite short beside our modern greats, such as the song of fire an ice, which I believe is about seven hundred pages? But the vastness lies within the pages, the words the weave the genetic structure of fantasy story telling - for that is what this story is, fantasy in purest, and also rawest form imaginable. With have wild names, and wilder places! The reader is made to move like a wild stag through the clotted glades of literature, breathing in the fresh air of every turned page as we see with our own awe-inspired eyes dreamlike vistas, wonderful and powerful characters, and just as incredible speeches, all woven together with poetical mastery that one cannot help but simply admire, and fall in love with.

On a side note, the story is very dreamlike, or that's how I found it, and perhaps a little too far-fetched. But in all fairness, the writer never intended the book to be straightforward and ordinary. This is fantasy at its most fantasy-like. For a true journey into another universe aI don't think you will find a parallel in this, Eddisons finest Worm Ouroboros.

An old classic - its style and a lot of its content are archaic and would probably not be published now. The writing style doesn't flow well at all to a modern reader, and the characters are not complex or well developed (as is also true of most of Tolkien's, but his world-building is much more deep and fascinating); it deals more with archetypes than with realistic personalities. Today the plot line would probably work better as a film than as a book, being equally simplistic.

I'd read this as a student of the history of fantasy writing, because Eddison exerted a powerful influence on the development of the field. It's not a light read, but it's interesting to go through it reflecting on how its elements have come down to the fantasy fiction of today.

Written long ago in the very early days of the history of epic fantasy this novel is completely unrecognizable in its mode of storytelling from the sheet staining strain of grimdark’s you see hovered before your face all the time nowadays. E.R. Eddison doesn’t really make that consistent use of view point characters nor does the narration get too intimate with any of them but instead he uses whatever methods he can to tell the story and once we know what happened he moves the story right along. We don’t get all the details (although this novel is very detailed). We don’t need all the details. Sometimes we merely just know that the major event happened and that’s good enough. For example at one point a soldier returning home from battle related to his family at their farm the battle that had occurred, and so we know of that battle only through his secondhand account, and what followed therein. Before I read this book for myself I had heard people say that this novel is “pure story telling simply for the sake of storytelling,” and after reading it I can emphatically say this is true.

The writer creates an extremely vivid picture with his wonderfully archaic style, and the sights and the characters really come to life in a world that is bigger than the bounds of the book it’s contained within. Although I can tell this book has meaning, most obviously the ouroboros which is a symbol of rebirth, this theme is never an overt part of the story but is simply so absorbed into the style as to be a completely natural byproduct of the novel in the end…. And you’ll see it once you get there. I should point out that although this is a challenging novel to read it’s not an overly complex one. The dialogue is all written entirely in old English so this can make it quite difficult for the unlearned to get at the substance of what the characters are saying as there you will see many, many words unrecognizable from commonly used English words nowadays. So it might take a few moments to get there but once you decipher the dialogue and sort out who the characters are exactly –some of them have very similar names which is kind of confusing – then the plot is not particularly hard to follow at all and besides some minor intrigues this is a very linear novel, mostly about a war between two lands and the fate they suffer. The war is a brutal one with lots of bloodshed, deaths of important characters, and betrayal but the fighting is never described in close detail, mostly passed over with a brush so we can see what happened, we know what happened, we know the military strategies but we don’t really experience it. The reader does not experience the battle first hand on the front lines like you might find in more modern fantasy epics but instead knows it only in passing. This style doesn’t bother me although I can see why some might find it unengaging, and in fact in some ways I prefer it because you can move through the story a lot quicker and not get dragged into having multiple volumes. The Worm of Ouroboros could have easily been a trilogy or even longer with the amount of plot stuffed in it but it’s not and I’m glad it’s not. Eddison would save that for a later project which I hear takes place in the same world. That is an adventure I’m looking forward to.

I read this book on my Kindle, primarily on planes and in airports.

This was incorrect.

I should have been sitting in a high-backed leather chair, preferably in a tall-ceilinged octagonal library paneled in dark wood, lit by a gas lamp when the rays of the setting sun coming across the moorlands of my estate no longer provided sufficient light. Instead of a tiny plastic cup full of ice and Diet Coke I should've had, oh, let's say, a vintage port or cognac poured from a crystal decanter.

I would, of course, have been wearing a smoking jacket but the actual pipe & tobacco would've been entirely optional.

The Worm Ouroboros is a frankly magnificent, although not especially accessible fantasy novel from the 1920s. After a very brief framing story (as was the style at the time) it proceeds to tell the story of a great war on the planet Mercury (no, not that planet Mercury) between Our Heroes the Demons (no, not those kinds of Demons) and the villains of the piece, the Witches (no, not those kinds of Witches).

Other races inhabiting the planet include the Pixies, Imps and Goblins. Plus the Ghouls, although they were exterminated in a great war a few years prior to the events of the book. (And they totally had it coming; they were bad eggs.)

The Demons are represented by Lord Juss (the King), his brothers Goldry Bluszco and Spitfire, and their cousin Brandoch Daha. They're all impossibly handsome, brave, courteous and gallant and have little horns growing from their foreheads. (Some of them are also a bit rash and easily goaded into poorly-judged but impossibly heroic actions.)

On the distaff side we have the Witches, represented by King Gorice, wielder of Dark and Terrible Powers, plus the nobles Corund, Corinius and Corsus, and their sometimes-ally and advisor Lord Gro of Goblinland.

And there are ladies! Including, but not limited to, Lady Mevrian of Demonland and Lady Prezmyra, a Pixy but wife of Corund. And they actually do things! And some of those things (we are led most delicately to infer) are at times of an intimate nature ...

As to the meat of the story ... It's both too simple and too complicated to summarize easily -- at the beginning of the book, Gorice, who asserts himself rightful ruler of the world, including Demonland (a position with which the Demons have no truck) and Goldry Bluszco have a wrestling match to decide who has the right of the matter. Although the match is settled with one side most indisputably the victor, there then follows a great series of battles, betrayals, intrigues, dark gramaries and lengthy treks across inhospitable wastes.

Although the Demons, if you scratch too far beneath the surface, come out as essentially Edwardian landed gentry having Jolly Adventures, and the Witches, if so scratched, come out as essentially Edwardian landed gentry who fail to demonstrate proper nobless oblige and are otherwise bad sports, the whole thing is carried to dizzying heights by Eddison's sweeping and mighty language. To wit:

THAT night they spent safely, by favour of the Gods, under the highest crags of Koshtra Pivrarcha, in a sheltered hollow piled round with snow. Dawn came like a lily, saffron-hued, smirched with smoke-gray streaks that slanted from the north. The great peaks stood as islands above a main of level cloud, out of which the sun walked flaming, a ball of red-gold fire. An hour before his face appeared, the Demons and Mivarsh were roped and started on their eastward journey. Ill to do with as was the crest of the great north buttress by which they had climbed the mountain, seven times worse was this eastern ridge, leading to Koshtra Belorn. Leaner of back it was, flanked by more profound abysses, deeplier gashed, too treacherous and too sudden in its changes from sure rock to rotten and perilous: piled with tottering crags, hung about with cornices of uncertain snow, girt with cliffs smooth and holdless as a castle wall. Small marvel that it cost them thirteen hours to come down that ridge. The sun wheeled towards the west when they reached at length that frozen edge, sharp as a sickle, that was in the Gates of Zimiamvia. Weary they were, and ropeless; for by no means else might they come down from the last great tower save by the rope made fast from above. A fierce north-easter had swept the ridges all day, bringing snow-storms on its wings. Their fingers were numbed with cold, and the beards of Lord Brandoch Daha and Mivarsh Faz stiff with ice.

If you can countenance another 500 pages of such stuff, then I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Myself (to be clear), I enjoyed it mightily and look forward to following up with Eddison's Zimiamvia trilogy.

Other reviewers have observed that the language makes it difficult to get through this book, or that the book will only appeal to linguists due to its archaically stilted language. As it happens, I *am* a linguist with an extensive background in ancient languages, and I devoured it with tears of joy. I don't know who in the world I would recommend it to, but it's as if it was written for me.

The whole book felt to me like a series of "of course" moments, both in terms of plot and language. Of course a wizened old man brings dire portents on the night before a great battle, and of course our brash young hero ignores his warnings to his peril. Of course we switch to Chaucerian Middle English prose when in epistolary mode, and of course the names are spelt differently within the selfsame paragraph (just as Middle English scribes did). I found the ending unsettling, but the fact that it brought everything full-circle and thus became the biggest "of course" moment of all made it uniquely satisfying. And I do mean uniquely. The triumph of this book lies in its ability to be both utterly familiar and yet utterly fresh at the same time. It's archetypal rather than stereotypical, and Eddison pulls it off to masterly perfection. If you like that sort of thing.

I won't comment overmuch on its themes or construction, but because I can't help myself I'm including a few cursory observations on the language for those who might be confused and/or curious. In no particular order:

-- In an older period of the English language, "worm" (also spelled "wyrm") was a rather generic term for a serpent or dragon. A number of common(ish) words are used in this book with their archaic meanings, for instance leech=doctor, loom=tool, weird=spell. You may want to have a dictionary handy for the downright uncommon words like garth, benison, mickle, rede, snell & frore, and so on. Many of these derive from Anglo-Saxon terms that are no longer in use.

-- The conjunction "and" is frequently used with the sense of "if." Shakespeare does this, but he usually shortens it to "an" instead of "and."

-- If you're confused by a stray "a," it's probably standing in for "he."

-- Thou/thee/thy is the old 2nd person singular form of "you." In Shakespeare's time, it was in the process of being replaced by "you," which was originally a plural form for when you're addressing more than one person. It was also the way you'd address someone formally, when you need to show extra respect. If you pay close attention you'll notice that King Gorice is addressed as "you," while all others are addressed as "thou." There is one exception to this late in the book; Gorice becomes angry when he is improperly addressed as "thou," as it doesn't show him adequate respect.

-- Eddison frequently uses archaic past tense forms of verbs, such as "holpen" instead of "helped," "gat" for "got," "brake" for "broke," and so on. In other cases, he uses old verbs that aren't used any more in modern English, notably "wist" instead of know/knew.

-- Eddison makes wonderful use of the subjunctive mood. The practical takeaway from this is that he uses "were" in situations where we speakers of Modern English would say "would be."

-- In my experience, the poetic interludes can be skipped without missing anything. The Middle English letters are more important to the plot, but most of their contents can be surmised from the surrounding narrative if you can't make heads or tails of them. It's largely the spelling that makes them difficult, rather than vocabulary or syntax.

170914: like nothing you have ever read. nowhere betrays it was written in the modern era, in elaborate language, in diction, in creating archetypal characters who are not remotely mundane. an acquired taste, perhaps you can only read him again and again. i may not like the names of the races he designs- too simple, too twee, but the action is superbly fantastic...

The Worm Ouroboros! It goes around and around and around... and back around again!

This is the story of the Lords of Demonland, their arch-foes the Lords of Witchland, various others (Lords of Goblinland and Impland and Pixyland et al), and their endless conflicts and political maneuverings and deeds of derring-do and black-hearted villainy and mystical quests into the heights of dark mountains and women so awesomely beautiful that it means instant infatuation and fearsome magic that swoops down on both victim & conjurer alike and battles at castle gates and battles at sea and battles, battles, battles. Don't think of "Demons" and "Witches" as, well, demons and witches... those are just words used to describe the superhuman residents of the planet Mercury. The entire book is over the top, larger than life: delirious fantasy pitched to operatic heights, filled with ornate description, stylized dialogue, far-flung dream journeys and dreams of ever more glory. The Worm Ouroboros is an intricately designed relic and a work of strange, byzantine splendor.... This Mortal Coil as a grand and never-ending odyssey of Constant Adventure. I have read nothing like it.

If I were to look at the plot alone, this would be a 3-star book. The narrative is an enjoyably breathless series of scenes full of cliffhangers and courtly intrigue. Fun. But also deeply problematic in a couple ways. The first problem: this book appears to glorify war in the most naive way imaginable: an endless boys' adventure where fighting is always the goal and peace is never the solution. The title and the "ending" in some ways subvert this analysis. I don't know how ironic or critical Eddison intended to be, but the basic idea of endless adventure being an self-perpetuating cycle... that does provide a certain depth as well as an ambiguous response to all of the naivete on display. More problematic is the near complete focus on the aristocrats of the world, enacting their grand battles using thousands upon thousands of common folk as their disposable chess pieces. One aristocrat dies - oh the tragedy! A thousand soldiers die in one minor sally - eh, that was a bad loss but whatever, the game must go on. There is something obviously very wrong about that kind of glorification of battle for battle's sake, no matter the cost. So for an action-packed narrative that is also naively offensive: 3 stars for the fun and 3 stars for the lack of humanity.

But what makes this novel uniquely enjoyable is the language. It truly lifts The Worm Ouroboros to a higher place. It was both a constant delight and a constant challenge. The language itself is highly artificial - archaic even; the descriptive passages are dense, complex, luscious; the heroes and the villains are characterized in the most Olympian terms possible; the Nietzschean morality on display is illustrated with an almost feverish passion; there is a swooningly homoerotic vibe in how the men are depicted; the arch displays of humor and mockery are both sneakily subtle and quaintly broad; a quest by one brother searching for another becomes dreamily transcendent through the author's use of hallucinogenic prose. It is all so intense that it becomes hypnotic. Fully engorged testosterone carefully wrapped up in layer upon layer of dainty filigree and velvety shadow. High Fantasy that is as high as a kite. I smoked it all up; the language often put me to sleep but, just as often, it kept me wide awake with a kind of heady glee. It stimulated parts of my brain that hadn't been stimulated before.

Here is a typically odd, amusing, and rather beautiful passage:

' So speaking, the King was come with Gro into his great bath chamber, walled and floored with green serpentine, with dolphins carved in the same stone to belch water into the baths that were lined with white marble and sunken in the floor, both wide and deep, the hot bath on the left and cold bath, many times greater, on the right as they entered the chamber. The King dismissed his attendants, and made Gro sit on a bench piled with cushions above the hot bath, and drink more wine. And the King stripped off his jerkin of black cowhide and his hose and his shirt of white Beshtrian wool and went down into the steaming bath. Gro looked with wonder on the mighty limbs of Gorice the King, so lean and yet so strong to behold, as if he were built all of iron; and a great marvel it was how the King, when he had put off his raiment and royal apparel and went down stark naked into the bath, yet seemed to have put off not one whit of his kingliness and the majesty and dread which belonged to him.

So when he had plunged awhile in the swirling waters of the bath, and soaped himself from head to foot and plunged again, the King lay back luxuriously in the water and said to Gro, "Tell me of Corsus and his sons, and of Laxus and Gallandus, and of all my men west over seas, as thou shouldest tell of those whose life or death in our conceit importeth as much as that of a scarab fly. Speak and fear not, keeping nothing back nor glozing over nothing. Only that should make me dreadful to thee if thou shouldn't practise to deceive me." '

A shout-out for Lord Gro: a sinister and devious Goblin Judas, a dainty dandy and a star-struck dreamer as prone to flights of romantic fancy as he is to fits of melancholy and despair, inconstant as Hamlet, destined to forever betray his masters, villain and hero, a gloriously unique creation. Go, Gro, Go!

And So: If thou shalt drink deep of the pleasures of language, if thou dost seek fearsome challenge brimming o'er with fantastickal wonder, dread enchantements and treacherous peril... then thou must hasten to consume this rare delight! A lovely treasure, burning boldly, ever-bright!

This is one of the books that inspired both The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, so I figured it would be a must-read to understand the fantasy genre.

The prose is deliberately archaic, written in Elizabethan English. It's a tough read. This is never more true than when the novel includes a letter written by one of the characters, as happens several times — in these cases, Eddison actually writes using not only 16th century grammar and vocabulary, but 16th century spelling, too (Fun fact: 16th century English did not yet have established spelling rules.).

The perspective of the novel is much more distant than would be seen in a contemporary novel, and really resembles more the Norse sagas. This can make the book difficult to get into for a modern reader. For example, there are a lot of exciting battles, but the reader is never actually treated to an "in-the-moment" account of one; they are all related secondhand.

Some of the characters, though not the heroes, are wonderfully detailed and complex. Eddison has successfully accomplished the difficult task of rendering villains that are fully human, interesting, and both sympathetic and villainous. Quite frankly, I wish the whole book had been about the conflicted and complicated Lord Gro. But this is an ensemble piece, with a huge cast of characters, and a point of view that rotates among them. This includes large sections of the book told from the point of view of the villain, which is refreshing in a fantasy novel.

The plot is action-packed high fantasy, with a lot of Shakespearean intrigue thrown in. Nothing to complain about there.

My biggest two problems with the book are things that Tolkien himself apparently also disliked. First, the names of people and places are just silly. Eddison started this book when he was 10, and finished it when he was 40. Most of it was heavily rewritten over that time as he matured, of course. But the characters names were never changed; they're the sort of silly things you'd expect a 10 year old to make up, like "Fax Fay Faz," and "Lord Spitfire."

Second, the heroes are really uninteresting and unsympathetic characters. They have a John Carter of Mars-like superiority to all everyone else, so they rarely show any of the limitations that make heroes interesting. Plus, they're entitled aristocracy, and are really kind of jerks. The only thing that makes them the heroes is the fact that most (but not all) of the villains are decidedly evil, whereas the heroes are just spoiled and arrogant.

Overall, if you aren't afraid of archaic and poetic English, I'd recommend reading this book for the high-fantasy action and for the interesting supporting characters, as well as to understand where modern fantasy came from.

I swam in the prose style. I think Tolkien might have killed to write this prose. Eddison has a facility with the antiquarian and an ear for music of an order I can only wish were there to enjoy in Lord of the Rings. However, eventually I tired of the crude characterization and plot that can no more achieve high seriousness than Tolkien can work these sentences.

Points for having Dunbar's 'Lament for the Makers' sung in full in some goblin hall.

New Game+ Unlocked

Wonderfully and deliberately archaic to the core, in its near-Elizabethan language, its resemblance to old epics and romances, and its unapologetic love of aristocracy. The Worm Ouroboros also has its share of surprises in store, particularly the ending, which is guaranteed to catch you off guard.

First is the frame story, once a staple of novels, now almost unknown. Ouroboros' tells of a man, Lessingham, who goes to sleep in the enchanted "lotus room" of his English estate, only to be transported to Mercury, the setting of the novel's action. Others remark on how after the opening chapters, Lessingham is never mentioned again (not quite true, he receives one mention roughly a quarter through). The reason for this seems obvious to me. As the martlet tells Lessingham, he cannot be seen or heard, nor physically effect any object. He is in effect, YOU, the reader. Whatever he sees is what he/you are seeing, and whatever you feel is what you/he is feeling. Noting his presence throughout the novel would be pointless.

Another is the mundanity of the initial setting. Reading the blurb about a war between Demonland and Witchland, you'd expect some dark and crazy setting, but in fact, the Witches and Demons of the story are near as can be completely human. The opening chapters describe the demons as horned, and Lord Spitfire breathing small flames from his nostrils, but nothing ever comes of this. They are about as demonic as your average Star Trek alien is alien. The Witches have a particularly bad misnomer, as only their king, Gorice XII, has any interest or skill in magic. The people of Goblinland, Pixyland, and Impland prove equally human, though the Red Foliot is actually red, and so presumably the others. Demonland and Witchland are closer to England and France than any denizens of Hell.

Because of that, the diction is the main avenue for keeping up the fantastical atmosphere early on. Eddison pulls out not only the thees and thous, but the anons, withals, wherefores, redes, "or ever"s, and many other words and constructions now gone from English. Most of the time this presented little difficulty in decoding, until I hit something particularly bizarre or archaic, or where context was unhelpful. As an example, "You are pleased to jest, O King. For my part, I had as lief have this musk-million on my shoulders as a head so blockish as to want ambition." I still don't know what a "musk-million" is. I think it's a type of food. Characters write phonetically, and I can only thank Eddison that he had the kindness to have a character read out "shuldestow" as "shouldst thou".

The other avenue is the descriptions, which are as lavish and detailed as his aristocratic subjects would demand. The description of Brandoch Daha caught my eye especially.

His gait was delicate, as of some lithe beast of prey newly wakened out of slumber, and he greeted with lazy grace the many friends who hailed his entrance. Very tall was that lord, and slender of build, like a girl. His tunic was of silk coloured like the wild rose, and embroidered in gold with representations of flowers and thunderbolts. Jewels glittered on his left hand and on the golden bracelets on his arms, and on the fillet twined among the golden curls of his hair, set with plumes of the king-bird of Paradise. His horns were dyed with saffron, and inlaid with filigree work of gold. His buskins were laced with gold, and from his belt hung a sword, narrow of blade and keen, the hilt rough with beryls and black diamonds. Strangely light and delicate was his frame and seeming, yet with a sense of slumbering power beneath, as the delicate peak of a snow mountain seen afar in the low red rays of morning. His face was beautiful to look upon, and softly coloured like a girl's face, and his expression one of gentle melancholy, mixed with some disdain; but fiery glints awoke at intervals in his eyes, and the lines of swift determination hovered round the mouth below his curled moustachios.

Maybe I'm alone here, but aside from the moustache, isn't this almost exactly what your sword wielding bishie is meant to look like? This and other descriptions kept me imagining a riotously coloured and flowing Amano-esque world.


Final Fantasy II concept art by Yoshitaka Amano

The first third of the story is more of a prologue, establishing the reasons for and setting of the epic quest of the lords of Demonland, and it truly is epic. Mystical enchantments, encounters with strange beings and curses, and feats of arms and courage worthy of any Greek hero. After the quest is nearly complete, however, we return to the mundane world to see the war between the Demons and Witches. The story becomes personal and political. This final segment is much more grounded than the preceding quest, and plays out like a drama between the Witches and Demons.

The heroes and villains probably aren't what you've been conditioned to expect from later fantasy fiction. The heroes are first and foremost kings and nobles, as all Arthurian and Greek heroes were. Sure, Frodo was technically a landed gentleman, and Aragorn was technically a king in exile, but that's not really their lasting image in cultural memory. We remember Frodo as the underdog and Aragorn as the ranger "Strider". The Demons, on the other hand, are better than everyone else, and they know it. They live almost exclusively for glory in accomplishment, and honour in combat. There is no trace of Christian humility in them, and indeed their religion seems to be Olympian. Juss is somewhat bland, not being allowed any flaws as the main character. Spitfire and Goldry Bluszco receive bafflingly little focus throughout the story, leaving Brandoch Daha as the standout character, but damn is he good. A complete daredevil, without Juss's cooler head he'd probably ruin the quest several times over. On one occasion, he manages to curse himself out of a showdown with his nemesis by spurning a spectral woman he seduced. Luckily he's such a skilled swordsman and supremely loyal friend that he can't be done without. I'd read a book entirely about him.

The villains of Witchland are only slightly different, being just a bit less honourable and scrupulous, but they are first and foremost worthy foes of the Demon lords. In fact, there are about as many scenes from the perspective of the Witches as the Demons. Corund may even be their equal, and in the final chapters Juss honours his enemy by remarking that "none greater hath lived on earth than King Gorice XII." Gorice is the arrogant sorcerer-king par excellence, feared even more by his own subjects than his enemies. Barlowe captured his image near perfectly in his Guide to Fantasy, including his absurd jewelled crab crown. Eventually, the immortal Queen Sophonisba tells the heroes that Gorice is also immortal, but in a different manner: whenever he is killed, he is reborn in another body, explaining how Gorice XII was ready to rule the kingdom as soon as Gorice XI died, despite no mention of XI having a son. Curiously, Gorice is not the same each time he reincarnates - Gorice X is a brave warrior, XI a sadistic Herculean wrestler, and XII a sorcerer. However, Gorice relates how Gorice VII was also a sorcerer, so Gorice is living his own cycle of the Ouroboros. How exactly he acquired this power is never brought up. There are also some odd implications for his character. When Gro warns Gorice XI of the bad omens for his wrestling match, Gorice rebukes him in a rage and threatens to kill him after the match. Gro's warning comes to pass, however, and Gorice XII immediately takes Gro into his confidence and congratulates him on his good counsel to his predecessor. He also claims in chapter seventeen that if he had been king, he wouldn't have agreed to the invasion of Goblinland. Of course, he was wasn't he? The fact that XII knew of Gro's private council to XI proves that he has the memories of his predecessors, but his personality seems different in his incarnations. In what sense then, is he really the same person? All the Gorices share the same rapacious greed to rule the world, so maybe that is the only real essence to his being across many lives.



The only exceptions to this shared ethos are the women and Gro. The women are supports for the men and stewards when they're absent. Eddison does differentiate them, Mevrian being iron-willed and icy, Prezmyra increasingly bitter and despairing as the story goes on, and Sophonisba perfect and wise, but they're pretty minor elements. Gro, on the other hand, is an enigma outside the mutual understanding of the Demons and Witches. Introduced as a Goblin turncoat working for Gorice XI, he proves instrumental in Gorice XII's success, but later switches to the Demons. He is the only male character not motivated by the struggle for power. He presents himself as a philosopher and explorer, and his knowledge of Impland enables Juss to succeed in his quest. When he sees the Demons coming close to defeat, he switches sides. When the Demons have nearly defeated Witchland, he betrays them in the heat of battle and meets his end. The closest Gro comes to justifying his ways is this:

"But because day at her dawning hours hath so bewitched me, must I yet love her when glutted with triumph she settles to garish noon? Rather turn as now I turn to Demonland, in the sad sunset of her pride. And who dares call me turncoat, who do but follow now as I have followed this rare wisdom all my days: to love the sunrise and the sundown and the morning and the evening star? Since there only abideth the soul of nobility, true love, and wonder, and the glory of hope and fear."

In that light, then, he sees the struggle for power differently from the others. It is not an end, but a journey. Whenever power is too close in reach, he must abandon it to begin the struggle again.

All that ties into one of the strangest endings I've read. Plunged into despair at peaking so early, the Demon lords pray to the gods to return their enemies to life so they can struggle against them again, and their prayers are answered. The story "ends" with the same inciting event as the beginning. It is no ending at all, which explains why Lessingham doesn't appear to close out the story - it isn't done.

Stray thought: A soldier at one point relates a drowning/choking game he took part in as a child. I've never thought much of it, but I suppose such things must've happened in the past. It's just not one of those things people choose to write about, like playing doctor.

Eddison is a master of invention, and does a very good job of creating a secondary world that is believable and consistent. A masterful manichean fairy tale. The book falls short of being an actual faerian story because of its total lack of wonder; it opts to go the Norse warrior route instead, and turns into a kind of Iliad with Broadswords. It suffers for this on two counts: first, it tends to rush very quickly through a lot of story; and second, it dumps detail in favor of plot. I spent most of the book imaging Demonland as a kind of rolling brown wasteland with the occasional flourishing elm stuck on as an afterthought. Overall, excellent.

DNF

I picked this up more out of curiosity than anything else and I strongly suspected that I would not finish it. This is the book that inspired Tolkien. It is a mishmash of mythologies and oral traditions from western cannon all crammed together into the worlds first fantasy story. It takes a minute to get used to the language used.

If you have read Tolkien or are familiar with any kind of epic poetry you know what is going to happen in this story. You know the characters.

There is nothing particularly wrong with this story. At the same time there is nothing that particularly stands out about it. There is a reason Tolkien remains in our cultural memory whereas Eddison has faded away. I may have even enjoyed it if I wasn't already thoroughly bored with European inspired fantasy stories.