Wyrldmaker

by Terry Bisson

Kemen of pasTreyn is the ruler of one of the tiny kingdoms of Treyn that are strung like beads on the path of the bottom of the wyrldwall. He has no queen, but is haunted by the memory of Noese, a magnificent woman who rose from the sea, taught him to love and disappeared again.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Terry Ballantine Bisson was an American science fiction and fantasy author best known for his short stories, including "Bears Discover Fire" (1990), which which won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, as well as They're Made Out of Meat (1991), which has been adapted for video often.

Adapted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Jason Fischer · Rating 4 out of 5]

An old favourite. Not a perfect work, but it blew my mind at an early age. Has a great Gene Wolfe feel to it, and is a very quick read to. If you like your fantasy as weird as hell, give it a go.

[Nathan Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cover art tells us to expect a Sword-and-Sorcery adventure. So it's not surprise that the story opens with an apparently Stone-Age civilization mired in tribal warfare. Nor should we be surprised that magic is afoot in that world...er, wyrld...with strange effects I don't think I've seen before. From there, the worldbuilding...er, wyrldmaking...goes fascinatingly wild, with progressively stranger and more fantastic developments along Kemen's quest. At the end, we the reader discover that the whole thing is not at all what it has seemed to be all along, a climactic revelation that, at least for me, put so much else into perpsective. No, I'm not going to tell you, you'll have to read it yourself. (Is this how a curmudgeonly Levar Burton might put it?)

[Alonso Quixano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mad Max: Fury Road set in a Dalí world. Strange, but strangely appealing.

[Samuel Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a short but incredibly rich novel. As far as weird fantasy goes, it's like your first time you ever tasted espresso … you liked it but you weren't sure you liked it enough to return.

Bisson plays major games with your perception and your head here. Bash'em'up sword and sorcery, a quest across a landscape designed by a committee made of Bosch, Dali, and Magritte … dumb heroic Conanesque sword jock on a quest in which he is constantly out of his depth, a major female character who's his love interest, his destiny, and his enemy all rolled into one, all in a phantasmagorical world populated by the strangest biota you've seen outside of an acid trip, including carnivorous telepathic ponies on stilt-like legs and equally carnivorous living hills. And, he loses his son at the beginning of the tale only to meet him as an old man in the form of an ally later on.

My thumbnail does not do it justice. Try reading this book. Get through it just once, it _will_ stick with you, and you'll read it again later just to see what you missed the last time.

[Brown Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Everyone should seek something.

This is a poem, a narrative epic about an exotic world full of secrets and surprises, narrated in a playful tone, rich in imagery, figuration and wordplay. If you can appreciate the line "its one eye was dim, dreaming, deeper than the dreams dreams dream," then this story is worth tracking down and devouring.

Just don't expect the sort of rewards you usually receive from reading an epic science fantasy. This story is lean: allusive, illusive and elusive.

[Lonnie Veal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A weird one by any standard. You're in a world that isn't a planet, and it isn't a ship. And it's filled with a bizarre landscape thru which the hero follows a quest to kill an evil creature and bring a sword that's not quite a sword to a final resting place.

That's when things go sideways. . .

[Wyktor Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story, very descriptive writing. Loved it.

[Nick Galley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have no idea what this was about

[Ross Gillespie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly imaginative, although short, sword and sorcery. Reading this felt like a fever dream.

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got rid of my copy because it was so unsatisfying that I didn't think it worth the shelf space. A damned peculiar work, this one. Although in some respects it promises to be a sword-and-sorcery story (and in some respects, it is) the world is so odd and the writing so uneven, I couldn't tell if Bisson wanted to write a parody.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a complete mess. It jumped from one world to another right after you finally get a feel for the one you're in, with liberal doses of deus ex machina scattered throughout. And what the heck was with the jump to science fiction at the end?

[K. Axel · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is an odd book, the first I ever read of Terry Bisson. I've read a few other books of his since then, and yes, that is just the way that he writes. Not a favorite book of mine.

[Frank Taranto · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent book, different kind of fantasy but never totally grabbed my attention. Bisson's short stories are better

[Regine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cruelly vivid.