Wizards, Mages, Sorcerers
From LoveToKnow Sci-Fi
Wizards, mages and sorcerers, oh my! What's a fantasy adventure without a resident wizard? A pale uninspiring thing, that's what.
Wonderful Wizards, Mages and Sorcerers
When most people think of wizards, they usually think of Lord of the Rings Gandalf, when they're not thinking of the jovial humbug of Oz, that is. And indeed, Gandalf is almost the quintessence of wizard-dom. Aged beyond knowing, powerful beyond reckoning, yet withal, human and approachable. A veritable mage's mage.
Yet not all sorcerers are elderly, all-knowing or even competent. Here's a handful of wizards worth a look.
Nevyn of Deverry
Katherine Kerr's Deverry series begins with her novel Daggerspell, a fascinating, if uneven, launch of a new world and series of time-warping adventures. We first meet Jill, the young daughter of a mercenary, who follows her father, a 'silver dagger', in his roving. And hovering over her is a mysterious presence...
Flash back to some lengthy period of time, to a young Prince who comes to be called Nevyn (No One). Not his father's first born, and thus no heir, he longs to study the craft of magic, called here the 'wyrd'. In setting his own agenda, he inadvertently interferes with the lives of two people, his intended bride and her brother, causing their deaths. He vows (an unfortunate thing to do, when the Gods are listening) to remedy the ill thing he feels responsible for, and spends the next four hundred years or so growing older yet never sickening and dying, as he tries repeatedly, through various incarnations, to bring the two he wronged to their appropriate fates.
In Daggerspell, Jill is the first one of the reincarnates that we meet, although the story swings back and forth through time introducing us to other versions of the same people. (A handy table in the back of each Deverry book reminds us who is reincarnated as whom.) The Deverry series goes through numerous volumes, eventually fixing the original problem and allowing the centuries-old Nevyn to finally 'join the Force', as it were. The story has enough momentum at this point to continue on without him.
The Dark Lord of Derkhome
Wizard Derk and his wife have seven children, two human and five griffins. The griffins, of course, were magically constructed. Derk is a 'simple man', as sorcerers go, who likes his house and his animals - he has also created flying pigs and talking horses. But this year Derk has a problem.
It's his turn to be the Dark Lord. You see, his world is infected with a plague. A plague of tourists, brought from our world by the sinister Mr. Chesney, on fantasy tours. They expect to see grim castles, evil magicians, simple peasants and noble heroes. Nobody wants to play the Dark Lord, because the tourists are so destructive and the battles ruin the year's crops. But someone's got to do it, because Mr. Chesney has a pet demon to enforce his will on the locals.
Derk isn't perhaps the best mage around. But his children and his wife will help him be the best Dark Lord ever.
This book is a cult classic; originally marketed as a 'young adult' novel, it both gently roasts the entire sword'n'sorcery genre and works as an excellent, exciting and humorous adventure in its own right.
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