The Storm Lord

Tanith Lee

Book 1 of Novels of Vis

Language: English

Publisher: DAW

Published: May 1, 1976

Description:

A recognized master fantasist, Tanith Lee has won multiple awards for her craft, including the British Fantasy Award, the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, and the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Horror.

In the land of Dorthar, the Storm Lord reigns as king.

According to law, the Storm Lord’s youngest son will be the rightful heir. His queen, the cunning and ambitious Val Mara, intends her young son, Amrek, to be that heir.

But fate has other ideas. When the Storm Lord abducts a Lowlander priestess, conceives a child with her, and then dies in mysterious circumstances, the unborn baby of that union suddenly becomes the heir to a vast kingdom—a situation that Val Mara is eager to rectify.

When his mother also dies, the infant, Raldnor, must be taken far from the Storm Lord’s stronghold to escape the queen’s murderous wrath, forsaking all knowledge of his royal heritage.

Raldnor grows up among the people of the Plains, but he is set apart from his friends and neighbors by the mystery of his past. Meanwhile, Amrek has taken the throne as his mother intended. If Raldnor is to reclaim his destiny and defeat the usurper who has taken his place, he will have to survive trials of strength, political sabotage, and threats against his life, regaining his birthright as the true Storm Lord of Dorthar.

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Review

Praise for the Wars of Vis series:

"The drive and inventiveness which made Lee's Birthgrave remarkable are in evidence in [The Storm Lord].... The unnamed world in which the story is set is as richly varied as Middle Earth." —Publishers Weekly

"The language is very rich, evoking a world of almost Byzantine splendor and complications.... Lee is always a persuasive writer, and her imagination is compelling. Anackire is a cut above her usual high standard." —*Locus

"Fans will savor her original, and sometimes frightening, characterizations and careful world building." —Booklist*

"[The White Serpent] vividly displays Lee's gift for exotic, sensual fantasy." —Library Journal

"Truly a feast for the senses. The lush sensuality of her prose envelops the reader in a magical ambience." —Rave Reviews  

"First-rate fantasy adventure.... A complex plot...peopled with Lee's unique creations and superior storytelling ability. One of the best novels of the year." —S.F. Chronicle

"The Storm Lord [is] by far the best book she has written." —Science Fiction Review Monthly

"An epic fantasy of immense proportions.... Suffice it to say that The Storm Lord is a book I would recommend most highly, and Tanith Lee is definitely a writer who knows her craft." —Tangent Magazine

"Lee is a conscious artist, and combines her knowledge of past civilizations and literary with her interest in psychic power to produce an artistic panorama of another world not too different from ours." —Delap's F&SF Review

"Both the characterizations and the action of this novel are superb." —Drexel Triangle

"In terms of what it takes to make a great fantasy novel, The Storm Lord has it all. I recommend it highly." —The Diversifier

"Lee has some real gifts as a writer, not least a fertile imagination for other worlds and landscapes, interesting characters and a flair for dramatic invention." —SF & Fantasy Review

About the Author

Tanith Lee is one of the leading fantasy authors working today. She has written over 50 novels and short story collections, among them the bestselling Flat Earth Series. She has won the World Fantasy Award numerous times as well as the August Derleth Award. 

    A towering epic of heroic fantasy…
    A novel of an unknown planet and of the conflict of empires and peoples of that world…
    It is the story of a priestess raped and slain, of a baby born of a king and hidden among strangers, and of how that child, grown to manhood, sought his true heritage - through a world of warring empires, of treachery and sensuality, of tyranny and decadence, he fought to claim his birthright and his vengeance…
    It is a novel of alien gods and lost goddesses, of warriors and wanderers, and of vengeance long delayed. It is an epic in every sense of the word.
    THE STORM LORD - fantasy on the grand, classic scale to rank with DUNE and THE LORDS OF THE RINGS.