Peregrine: Secundus

by Avram Davidson

Peregrine, bastard son of King Paladrine, thought he had trouble when he was transformed by a sorcerer into a falcon. In fact, his real troubles began when the prepubescent Princess Ruby accidentally changed him back into...well, almost a prince: A bastard.

Whereupon he was dragged off by a dyspeptic dragon, smooched by a sphinx, wooed by the weefolk, and finally appointed Sub-Imperial-sub-Legate, which is still not quite a prince, but somewhat more elegant than a bastard....

Rich in an exotic sense of place and love of strange incident, this second book in the Peregrine series is a dryly and exuberantly funny peregrination through the lighter side of the dark ages.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

168 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 1981

About the author

Avram Davidson was an American Jewish writer of fantasy fiction, science fiction, and crime fiction, as well as the author of many stories that do not fit into a genre niche. He won a Hugo Award and three World Fantasy Awards in the science fiction and fantasy genre, a World Fantasy Life Achievement award, and a Queen's Award and an Edgar Award in the mystery genre. Davidson edited The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1962 to 1964. His last novel The Boss in the Wall: A Treatise on the House Devil was completed by Grania Davis and was a Nebula Award finalist in 1998. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says "he is perhaps sf's most explicitly literary author".

Reviews

[Nigel]

One has to imagine a Myles Na Gopeleen column, already prone to shaggy dogginess, grew doggier and shaggier and dressed in the splendid robes of Rome after the Fall, and Europe awash with a million Christian sects and flavours of Pagansim, but also dragons, sphinxes, Little People, petty kingdoms, small barbarian hordes and those leftover rags of the splendours of Rome vaguely trying to hold it all together. Into this wanders Peregrine, cast-out bastard son of a king, transfromed of late into his namesake, the bird, that is, and just as suddenly and unexpectedly re-transformed and tagging along in a search for some dragon-stolen treasure. The whole thing meanders near and far and wide until it finally meanders to a conclusion, leaving everyone involved even more perplexed than when it all began. Magnificent.

[Steven Muhlberger]

A delightful trip through a fantasy version of Late Antiquity.