The Shadow of His Wings

Six Kingdoms #1

by Bruce Fergusson

The Shadow of His Wings is the story of Lukan Barra and his quest. Set near the end of the first millenium in the kingdom of Myrcia, in a world with the traditional medieval fantasy ambience. Bruce Fergusson has taken the materials of conventional heroic fantasy and renewed them, in an original novel of broad scope and meticulous detail.


The book opens with the estrangement of Lukan from his criminous brother, Vearus, who returns from exile with the secret of healing and transformation of the flesh that allows him to become Healer to the despotic ruler, the Sanctor Grouin. Myrcia in these days is being invaded by the savage armies of the skarrian leader, Gortahork, the dreaded Hook of the East. Lukan, fallen from his apprenticeship, is pressed into service, only barely surviving the first great battle.


Then Grouin declares the throne open to anyone who can secure the intervention of the fabled Erseiyr, the immortal winged creature worshipped and feared by the myrcians, that lives in a mountaintop cavern laden with the golden tribute of ages past. Lukan, thrown unjustly into prison after the battle and then mysteriously released, must leave the city of Castlecliff. So he resolves to join the questers who litter the landscape, harried by the bands of invaders in the mountainous land.


A late start, it develops, is an advantage to lukan, who avoids the invaders stripping the corpses of murdered questers and joins forces with the beautiful Rui Ravenstone, his brother's former lover, in an attempt to be the first to reach the lair of the Erseiyr, the god and monster whose great wings shadow the future of the land, whose fate becomes linked with Lukan's in a strange and wonderful bonding.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction

278 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1987

About the author

Bruce Chandler Fergusson (his full name) was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and raised in North Carolina and upstate New York. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University, and lives in Edmonds,Washington. Before embarking on his journey as an author, he was a journalist.

The books of the Six Kingdoms series (The Shadow of His Wings, The Mace of Souls and Pass on the Cup of Dreams) have been endorsed by such notable authors as Orson Scott Card, Charles De Lint, Christopher Stasheff and Megan Lindholm (also known as Robin Hobb, writer of the Farseer Trilogy). His first two fantasy novels were nominated for Nebulas, and The Shadow of His Wings was a finalist for the Crawford Award for best first fantasy novel.

He also has written suspense novels. The Piper's Sons was nominated for best novel by the Pacific Northwest Booksellers' Association.

Reviews

[L.K. Evans]

I LOVED IT

Holy crap, what a little gem of a find. I’m surprised this hasn’t had a bit more traffic on Goodreads and Amazon, especially when Robin Hobb has given it five stars on Goodreads! This was originally published alllll the way back in 1988 and has recently been republished by the author himself. I certainly hope he gets more readers to take notice because it was a very well written and entertaining book.

I’m not even sure where to begin. The book sure felt longer than 290 pages. I was given so much of the world without info dumping that it seems the book should’ve been way longer.

The bad? My biggest sadness? Lack of magic, but it’s offset with some nifty creatures and some good action scenes. Other than that, all I have for you is too much description. Keep in mind, I’m a bit of an anti-description reader so the paragraphs—especially towards the end when things were going crazy—got skimmed by me. I know from what I sifted through that it added quite a bit of imagery to the scenes, but I was too damn frantic to find out what was going on that I didn’t care much about anything else. The middle might have dragged just a hair for me, too. When Lukan was off on his own, it took me a tiny bit of determination to plunge onward. I was richly rewarded with an amazingly fast-paced ending.

There’s a beautiful part at the end of chapter one that had me ensnared pretty quickly:

“And I doubted myself as I never had before, questioning whether my offer of the royall was made with an innocence of spirit or whether the message to my brother was: see how selfless I am, how generous, as you are not.”

This is a first person narrative in Lukan’s PoV. He was an interesting character. I wasn’t obsessed by him, but I was certainly captivated by his story. It started out with such a lovely melancholy note that I had no problems immersing myself in the story. He hasn’t had what one would call the trope fantasy backstory (honestly, it was a rather mundane life he led), but a few events really impacted him and his relationship with his brother. It added great depth to his character which otherwise would have happily walked the path of a completely good guy. Though Lukan never loses himself or wavers in his honor, it’s kinda thrown in his face by others. It makes that good guy seem like a person and not some hero who never doubts himself or faces ridicule.

Lukan’s brother was equally interesting, though we didn’t spend a lot of time with him. Still, what we’re given of him paints a nice complex character. Rui was the main female in the book and I didn’t love or hate her. I felt she was a bit too wishy-washy for me towards the end. It would have been nice to play up on her evolving relationship with Lukan just a bit more towards the end, but it didn’t distract from my enjoyment in the least.

The world was nicely done and I think strikes a good balance between world and characters. I was given a lot of names at first. I’m usually not one to get hung up on this stuff. A good writer will roll it out nicely and give you little reminders here and there to keep you on track. I felt comfortable with what Fergusson poured onto the page and I can remember maybe two or three times where I was lost for a tiny bit before he set me straight. There's a codex available on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Six-Kingdoms-Co...) and one available on his website (http://www.brucefergusson.com/books/t...).

The writing itself was smooth and I easily entered my reading trance. I never got hung up and Fergusson impressed me enough that I’ll definitely be continuing on with the series. For those of you who hate cliff hangers or series in general, feel free to pick this up. Though it is a part of a series, it ended with satisfactory closure; you wouldn’t know there’s a second book unless someone told you. There would be no need to continue unless you loved Fergusson’s writing and the world he created.

So overall, a great read and I just found myself a new author to follow. I definitely recommend this book!

You can see this and other reviews on my website: http://booksbylkevans.com

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this one at a local bookstore and the title and cover art won me. The paperback I own has a beautiful cover by Darrell K Sweet and is a depiction of the Erseiyr in flight presumably with the main character Lukan on his back. The Erseiyr are a dying race of creatures that are similar to dragons. The story is great, it hooked me from the beginning especially with the first person monologue. The part of the book pertaining to Lukan's time in prison was pretty graphic so be warned, but you expect that sort of thing to make it real. The story has lots of things going for it including betrayal, suffering, love, redemption, and simply the will to overcome any adversity. I cannot think of a single thing that I didn't like about this book. Besides, I only know of one other book by this author and that saddens me because I would have liked to see more.

[Eloi Puig · Rating 4 out of 5]

REssenya en català:

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Reseña en catellano:

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[Shaitarn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 and a bit stars. that's probably underselling it as I thought it was a good read, but it didn't seem quite worth a 4.

So here's the plot of this old (and apparently unknown) fantasy novel from 1987:

The story starts with Lukan Barra going to visit his brother Vearus, who's about to be exiled from the city of Myrcia due to some (unspecified, I think) crime. From the start it's clear that Vearus is a nasty piece of work and Lukan is the 'good' brother. Four years pass in the space between chapters and Vearus returns with some mysterious new magical power of healing, which he occasionally uses to transform people to monsters. He soon uses this power to worm his way into power with the ruler of the city.

Myrcia has been invaded by the Skarrians from the east and in desperation the despotic leader offers the throne to anyone who can secure the aid of the Erseiyr, the immortal creature that the city worships and pays tribute to (it's description makes it sound like a giant bird, but looking at the cover, I thought of it as a dragon throughout the story). Accompanied by Rui Ravenstone, Lukan sets out to find the Erseiyr himself.

I remember first reading this book years ago, way back in my pre-GR days, probably when I was in my late teens; it made such an impression on me that scenes remained in my mind for years. Whether it'd make such an impression on me if I read it fresh now is debatable. I hope so. One thing that struck me was the 'streamlining' of the plot - there was nothing that didn't advance the story. That doesn't mean the story was lacking in character or depth, but it did have a feeling of being dropped in without much explanation of the world which reminded me of the Vlad Taltos novels. I can imagine that if it was written nowadays it would be twice as long with lots of (unnecessary) detail and a lot of 'filler' background.

Bottom line, do I recommend it? Cautiously, yes. I can imagine quite a few readers who aren't too familiar with older fantasy really disliking it, but if you see a copy in a second hand bookshop (I don't imagine it's still in print) it might be worth a small punt.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really great story. I classified it as both sci-fi and fantasy, because although it has a fantasy setting, aspects of it seemed sci-fi-ish to me, along the lines of the Pern books. It's a pity that this author hasn't been more prolific, because this was just a wonderful world, I would love to read more stories from this place.

This has one of the better climactic moments that I've read in a while -- if you can find this book to read, definitely give it a try.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may have turned out to be closer to a 3, but I enjoyed the first half so much and think the book should have more reads that I'm slapping on that 4.

I thought the first section of the book was excellent. I imagined a new top-of-the-list series and was likening Fergusson's story to other great series in my head. The characters seemed so down to earth. There was no superhuman hero and no one had a mind that saw all things. Everyone was just kind of normal. And the scenes flowed well and were exciting, the world had a lot of created pieces, even the street accent was kind of fun to read, though it slowed my reading down.

Something happened in the middle somewhere though. I don't know if I had to leave the book for a couple days because of work and when I got back my excitement had waned, or if the story really did lose a little luster. I thought at one point that it seemed like the author was hurrying the story along, like a deadline needed to be met. But I'm not sure. It seemed to have started just before the main character met Rizzix, but then the beginning of that conversation I thought was great. Afterward, though, things seemed to unravel and there wasn't as much consistency and cohesiveness to the whole plot and actions of the character. Now I think about it, I'd say it was almost as though the second half of the book should've taken either a couple hundred more pages or just another book entirely. Not the usual stance toward fantasy stories, I guess, but there it is.

Regardless, I enjoyed the book and am glad I ran into its sequel weeks ago in the little post office book exchange shelf up in Forest Falls, prompting me to order this first book. Thank you, anonymous reader/donor and unknown-to-me cover illustrator. I will be reading the second book soon.

[Ian Banks · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s so nice to come back to a novel that you haven’t read since last century and discover that it is even better than you remember. Mr Ferguson’s novel about a man who would be almost too good to be true if he wasn’t so stubborn and tenacious is a marvel. Luken Barra goes through hardship and worse in this novel of self-discovery, learning that integrity is better than honour in a world that mixes Michael Shea’s fantastical horror with Guy Gabriel Kay’s quarter-turn historical fantasy and leavens it with Anne McCaffrey’s sense of wonder at the majesty of giant beasts. The best part? - getting on to Goodreads and discovering that there is more to this world than I previously knew.

[Alex Popkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Shadow of his Wings” is a unique little book, not the best thing ever written but well worth reading. In some respects it follows in the footsteps of Tolkien: there's a horde of giant spiders, a trek through the mountains, a dragon (officially labeled an “Erseiyr”) with a treasure cave, and a massive army of bad guys marching on the fair city. In other ways, however, this book is very much its own thing.

Most notably, the first third of the book is spent on developing the main character Lukan before the quest begins and the plot goes into full swing. Normally I would expect this to be a bit of a slog, but Fergusson's strong writing skills won out and kept me moving through the pages at a good clip. We begin with some background about Lukan's life with his father and brother, followed by an apprenticeship as a cabinet-maker, then he's impressed as a solider and sent to fight the invaders, then he ends up in prison. Many fantasy novels have prison scenes but the one in this novel stands out for it harshness, tension, and brutally realistic portrait of both the hopelessness and boredom of prison life.

Of course we know going in that Lukan will be released from prison and sent on a quest, though there's a twist. While we usually expect the hero to fight and slay the dragon, in this book he's instead trying to talk the Erseiyr into coming to save his city. When he does make it to the Erseiyr's cave, further twists and surprises await. I wouldn't say that Fergusson has brilliant literary talent and the exchange between Lukan and the Erseiyr is not a match for the similar scene between Bilbo and Smaug, but what Fergusson does there is a unique and courageous literary choice.

[Nichelle Seely · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an older one, published back in the '80's. It was one of a box of books I got from my neighbor when she cleaned out her bookcases. I had never heard of Fergusson, and judging by the cover, was prepared for a typical dragon / slaying / riding story.

To my surprise, the prose quality was far above many fantasy novels, especially considering when it was published. The story premise was original. On the down side, the pacing was awkward at times, the villain was a little two-dimensional, and the story sometimes skipped over blocks of times without transition, but overall I was surprised at how much I liked it. I will keep my eye out for other books by this author.

[Raul Santiago Almunia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mi me gustó mucho, pero es una saga que en España no vio la luz, sólo se publicó este primer libro....

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pleasantly surprised by this books. Characters are good, storytelling good.

[K. Axel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is the first of two set in Bruce Fergusson's setting - The Six Kingdoms. While this is the first book, I actually read The Mace of Souls (Book Two) first, but in truth, this doesn't really matter, since they are only connected through the setting, not through characters or story.

The Shadow of His Wings has a first person narrative, as we hear the story from the lips of Lukan Barra, a simple man fom a small mountain village called Deepwell. His parents died a long time ago, but his brother is still very much alive. The brother is called Vearus, and this tale is dedicated to those two and their love and hate relationship.

Lukan has always felt inferior, and his parents, especially his father, never hid the fact that Vearus was considered their favorite. Vearus worked in the mines, like their father, and Lukan studied at home, doing menial work. When their mother died, Vearus sought to get revenge, but this also made him into a creature of hate and evil. He left for the grand city of Myrcia - Castlecliff. Lukan followed, in fact, throughout the story, Lukan follows in his older brothers footsteps, learning from his mistakes. He finds himself in the Rat House of Browall Keep and an exile of the realm, much like his brother, and even when following the Long Road, Lukan finds himself set on the same path as Vearus, on the road towards Shadow Mountain, the Eyrie and the mystical creature known only as the Eiseiyr.

I will not tell you anything about the ending, except to say that when War threatens Myrcia and Castlecliff, Lukan finds himself searching for answers on Shadow Mountain, where he also teams up wih his brother's old love, the skarrian Featherman, Rui Ravenstone.

This is a great tale that spans over several years. We follow Lukan Barra through an apprenticeship to Gormley the Carpenter, through the battle on Dawn Hill. Its written in the first person, which always add a special feeling to a tale. Lukan develops through the story, as he grows into a man, a man that will not stand... in his brother's Shadow.

Bruce Fergusson is a wonderful worldbuilder, who has created a world that feels real, with plenty of details that adds mood and flavor. If you like this ind of worldbuilding, a tradition that has since been carried on by such masters as Robin Hobb and George R R Marin, you'll love this book and will surely want to pick up the next in the series - the Mace of Souls.

A great read and worthy of a great master!

[Antonio López Sousa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A ver, este no es uno de esos libros de fantasía que hasta el tato conoce. No es de esos cuya fama les precede y cuyos admiradores son legión. Ni ha sido llevado al cine ni su autor levanta aclamaciones (¿Sabes acaso quién es Bruce Fergusson? Pues eso). Pero una cosa está clara: es un buen libro de fantasía.

Puede que al comenzar su lectura te notes un poco perdid@ con tantos nombres raros de animales y bestias, de lugares, de barrios, de ciudades, de cargos políticos y militares, y de otras muchas cosas (no hay mapa, y eso lo complica algo, pero también estimula la imaginación). Pero no desfallezcas, sigue adelante, porque pronto te acostumbrás y empezarás a disfrutar.

𝗟𝗮 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗮 𝗱𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗮𝘀 parte de un principio utilizado hasta el martirio: ese del don nadie que se convierte en héroe. Pero no esperemos una historia luminosa, sino todo lo contrario, pues poco a poco irá tomando un cariz muy diferente al épico gracias a su tono oscuro, violento y descarnado, y a su lenguaje crudo, directo y sin remilgos. De hecho, si hoy lo tuviésemos que encasillar dentro de un subgenero de la fantasía, sin duda caería del lado oscuro... bastante oscuro. Aquí hay sangre para aburrir, batallas, guerra, violaciones en grupo, asesinatos, ejecuciones, traiciones, odio, venganzas... Y sí, vale, también hay espacio para la aventura, el amor (a mí me sobraba) y para un par de personajes de esos que calificaríamos de buenos.

Y un dragón, ¿no? El que sale en la portada.

Pues no. Porque Rizzix, El Erseiyr, alrededor de quien gira toda la historia protagonizada por Lukan Barra, no es un dragón estrictamente hablando (aunque se le parezca bastante), sino uno de los múltiples monstruos imaginados por Fergusson y plasmados en esta obra. Una de las cosas más confusas y a la par más interesantes que desfilan por sus páginas. Y es que no estamos ante una fantasía al uso, sino ante un mundo muy complejo que rezuma gran originalidad y que como amante de la fantasía que eres —¡tú, sí, tú!— no te deberías perder.

Para más reseñas de libros visita mi Instagram @los_libros_del_sr_lector

[Kasey Cocoa · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off let me warn you, there are a few scenes that are very descriptive and may be too much for more sensitive readers. Aside from that this is a very well written book. I can't believe I never read it before. The story is engaging with well handled flow and well kept threads of plot. The characters are well fleshed out with great flaws and depth. With a nicely drawn map and a key for some of the words this would earn a 5th star easily. I especially enjoy the level of detail in scenes such as battles. I received a copy from the author in exchange for an honest review. This in no way influenced my opinion.

[Kathleen Sheldon · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A great introduction to the World if the Six Kingdoms.

An imaginative world filled with bloodspore-consorts,the dragon-like erseiyrs, and the gross spider-like stalkers. A glossary at the beginning might have been nice. It was fun figuring out what the neck kind of being.he was talking about. A very good writer. I look forward to more of his work.

[Margareth8537 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very dark world in which to live, with some similarities, but also grim races battling one another, misshapen creatures crawling and flying and the rivalry of two brothers

[Marko]

I have the german edition: Der Schatten seiner Fluegel