The Burning Realm

The Shattered World #2

by Michael Reaves

Pandrogas, a sorcerer, searches for a way to recharge the runestones that keep the floating continents of the shattered world in their proper orbits

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Magic

278 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 1, 1988

About the author

Michael Reaves is an Emmy Award-winning television writer and screenwriter whose many credits include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Twilight Zone, Batman: The Animated Series, and Gargoyles. His novels include the New York Times bestseller STAR WARS: Darth Maul- Shadowhunter and STAR WARS: Death Star. He and Neil Gaiman cowrote Interworld. Reaves has also written short fiction, comic books, and background dialogue for a Megadeth video. He lives in California.

Reviews

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

More adventures on the Shattered World. Again I'm captivated by the setting, and happy to spend more time with the characters, some old, some new.

One word of warning: This one ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, and given that it originally came out over 20 years ago, I'm not certain if we'll ever see how things turn out. I'd be happy to be mistaken, though, and certainly stranger things have happened -- Glen Cook is finally finishing his Dread Empire series, for example.

[Donnalee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was very uneven for me: I loved the concept of a planet that exploded but whose shards hung in orbit sort of together due to magic that gave each bit gravity, and each developed its own culture. It was the sort of educated space opera book that came from the 50-60s in influence--it cracked me up that in one page were three words I didn't know, whereas I did know many of the rather-pompous other words. That page escapes me now, but it cracked me up at the time.

The concept of 'the (sort of or presumed) dead who still walk' was a theme at the start and throughout, since this was a sequel to a big mess in the previous book which I have not read. One ninja-type guy escaped and pouted nobly since his mission had failed, and did all sorts of stuff to try to accomplish it, and there were other folks who were able to turn into animals, or who were assassins, or who were sorcerers of different types, walking-dead folks with mystical gothy illnesses, who all did their things and at times there was character development and pages dedicated to the inner world of a single character. Lots of that seemed to get wiped away though, so I found it ultimately disappoining, with a feels-like-a-cliffhanger ending, and am not tempted to keep the book. Early on I had thought it might be compelling enough to search out sequels, but I may have read it all in the single book, and that's enough for me. Some folks will love it, and some find it too pompously wordy or alien; it could even depend on the age of the reader and what that person grew up on.

[Mike S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imaginative, good read.

[Kapmando · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember this being brilliant in setting and average in writing. The shattered rotating fragments of the world create vastly different settings to travel between.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing like the first one. Based on my least favorite character from the first one.