Emissary
Book Two of The Percheron Saga
by Fiona McIntosh
If you have read Odalisque (also reviewed
on this site) then you will know all about the land of Percheron, an Arabian Nights style place filled with harems,
eunuchs, cruel laws and plenty of torture. Ana is now an odalisque herself, and wishes that she were anywhere else.
Lazar is dead but he won’t lie down, he just lies low. Young Boaz is the all-powerful Zar, aided and abetted by his
villainous mother, the Grand Master Eunuch and a demon masquerading as the Grand Vizier. But Percheron has an
enemy, the land of Galinsea whose crown prince Lucien was killed by the Percherese. Somebody has to be the
eponymous emissary and go to Galinsea to negotiate peace, but the only person suitable has some rather pressing
reasons for not being able to go...
I’ve been a fan of this type of thing since early childhood, but I confess to finding this middle volume to
be... a typical middle volume. In short, we know about the Percherese already, and the characters are just doing
what they were doing in the first book. The Galinseans are a welcome change from the hothouse environment of the
harem, and there are a few heart-stopping moments and plenty of gore to keep the pages turning so maybe I am
being a little hard. I still wonder whether Boaz the new Zar could possibly have intervened more often when other
people were committing crimes against humanity in his name, and if the Percherese are so religious why don’t we
hear more about this? This is still entertaining, but there could be more that is new and surprising in here that
we didn’t already encounter in the first book. |
The Book |
Orbit (Little, Brown) |
January 2008 |
Paperback |
9781841494616 |
Fantasy / Fantastic Location |
More at Amazon.com
US ||
UK |
Excerpt |
NOTE: Torture and rape
US edition is different |
The Reviewer |
Rachel A Hyde |
Reviewed 2008 |
NOTE: |
|