The new novel in the sweeping Mageworlds series. On the planet Entibor, Arekhon sus-Khalgath sus Peledaen has found shelter and domestic tranquility with his old love, Elaeli Inadi, at the price of what he had left behind: a dispersed and shattered Mage-Circle, an estranged brother who had tried to kill him, and a homeworld on the cusp of massive cultural upheaval. Arekhon finds himself impelled homeward by strange dreams and prophetic visions. The Great Working--the effort to do the unthinkable and reunite a galaxy long sundered by the Gap Between--remains incomplete, left unfinished in the aftermath of the dissolution of Arehkon's Mage-Circle. But too much energy and too many lives have been poured into the Working already; and it cannot end so long as any of the Circle members remain alive and bound into it. Home, unfortunately, isn't a safe place for Arehkon to be at the moment. For Eraasi has changed--and the great fleet families at the center of the Eraasian culture are girding for war.
Debra Doyle has a doctorate in English literature. Together, she and James Macdonald have written numerous sf/f books. They live in Colebrook, New Hampshire.
This was a strange story. It is sort of a magic/science fiction. There are ships to travel beteen the stars, but certain people can travel between stars by just going into this void and coming out somewhere else. Weird. There is a group of super rich merchants and a group of Mages (wizards), and both groups have competing interests among themselves and each other. At times the Mages need to fight to build up the power they need to do magic, emotional power, I guess. Sometimes they kill each other to get things done. Weird.
This is the seventh and final book in the Mageworlds series. This book continues from book six in that it goes back 500 years before the first 5 books and tells the tale of how the Mageworlds and the Adept worlds came into contact. It is told from the Mageworlds point of view. There is more action action than in the last book and as with all the books in this series a good variety of characters both good and evil. I recommend this book and this series to all fans of Space Opera.