The Kedrigern Chronicles, Volume 1: The Domesticated Wizard

Kedrigern #1-2

by John Morressy

A wizard's life is not an easy life. One never knows who, or what, one's next client will be, or what kind of unpleasantness he, or she, or it, is bringing. And there's always the certainty of travel to far places over bad roads in nasty weather. It's no wonder wizards prefer to live solitary lives in isolated towers or ruins or caves. They're looking for some peace and quiet. But it makes for a lonely life. So when a young man of 160 or so-no age at all for a wizard-meets a beautiful enchanted princess and releases her from a cruel spell, it seems the perfect chance to settle down to a life of cozy domesticity. With a bit of magic here and there to take care of the housework and a loyal house-troll to do the heavy lifting, things ought to be idyllic. And they would be, if it weren't for the unreasonable clients, the barbarian swordsmen, the home furnishings with minds of their own, the otherworldly intruders, and the rest of those annoying day-to-day problems of the profession. This is the first of four omnibus reprints of the novels and short stories of Kedrigern the Wizard. Kedrigern Chronicles #1 contains the two novels A Voice for Princess and The Questing of Kedrigern along with the following six short 'Spirits From the Vasty Deep', 'Hey, Ho, The Wind and the Rain', 'The Quality of Murphy', 'Mirror, Mirror, Off the Wall', 'Nest Egg', and 'Floored'. Along with new introductions to the novels and short stories by John Morressy

Genres: Fantasy

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Nighteye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good, a change of pace with slower things to happen with a main mainly wanting to stay away from people and be content being at home. These books and short stories inside have a focus of magical issues and despellings mainly making it interesting.

[Squeaky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoy these stories. This is the third time I have read this book. I am starting to re-read volume II now. I am SO disappointed that volume three was never published. I am thinking of collecting all the stories that WOULD have been in it.

Update 2021: I read this yet again, it is SO depressing to see volume 3 listed in the back of the book and know that it was never published.

[Bradley Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a light, amusing collection of humorous fantasy tales that were originally published separately as short stories in magazines. The first two Kedrigern novels, included in this volume, were fixups of linked short stories. A second collection, Dudgeon & Dragons, was also published by Meisha Merlin the following year, but sadly it seems that a planned third collection was never published. (A bibliography of Morressy's Kedrigern stories, with original publication information, is included as an appendix here.)

Not too surprisingly, the storytelling is episodic and information from previous stories is frequently repeated. This can be a minor annoyance if you sit down and read the whole volume at once, but it effectively vanishes if you read the stories as they were written and meant to be read, one at a time, with something else in between to serve as a palate-cleanser.

I enjoyed the quirky characters and the stories, which range from slightly tongue-in-cheek fantasy to nearly absurd adventures through time and space. Kedrigern is a wizard after my own heart, an asocial type who'd just as soon hole up in his comfortable cottage and spend the next hundred years or so reading, relaxing and developing his own particular magical expertise. Especially now that he's married to a lovely and intriguing princess. (She was a toad when he first met her, courtesy of a wicked fairy's spell, but with some wizardly help, She Got Better.)

Sadly for Kedrigern's homebody tendencies, he has to deal with the outside world from time to time. Other wizards and various petty kings and barons keep pestering him for help with this, that, or the other thing. Plagues of rats infesting castles, hulking barbarians brandishing magical artifacts of suspect provenance, adventurous nincompoops with foolheaded quests and other personality disorders. But is it useful, after all, to collect the occasional cash fee, and as Princess reminds him from time to time, she really does need a more active social life than just sitting around his cottage on Silent Thunder Mountain.

Don't expect to be immersed in an epic legendarium like Middle-Earth or Westeros. There's little attempt at world-building or consistency in anything but the most basic character traits. But it's pleasant, light, diverting fun.

[Kat Hooper · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've reviewed the first book in this volume at FanLit:

A Voice for Princess is the first volume of John Morressy’s KEDRIGERN CHRONICLES, a series of novels and short stories about the reclusive wizard Kedrigern. In this first novel, Kedrigern retires from the wizard guild because he’s mad at his colleagues for schmoozing with alchemists (whom Kedrigern considers beneath barbarians on the human worth scale). Accompanied by his ugly but loyal house troll, Spot (whose vocabulary consists entirely of the word “Yah!”), off Kedrigern goes to build himself a solitary home on Silent Thunder Mountain.

Eventually Kedrigern becomes lonely and decides he’d like a wife. After a couple of unsuccessful courting efforts, he stumbles upon a beautiful and intelligent princess who has been turned into a frog. What luck! Kedrigern’s area of expertise is counterspells, but ... Read More:
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/fant...