Icefalcon's Quest

By Barbara Hambly

While chaos reigned in the Eastern Lands, the Keep of Dare stood as a bastion against war and bandits and the spawn of unnatural sorceries. Then twin blows rocked the citadel: the fearsome Alketch army mounted siege, even as young Prince Tir was snatched from the heart of the Keep. Behind the terror was the depraved, hook-handed general Vair na-Chandros. He had learned that the royal child possessed forbidden wisdom: a secret with which the bloodthirsty Vair intended to conquer the world.

One single man posed a threat to Vair's vaunting ambition: the legendary warrior known as the Icefalcon. Banished by his own people and scorned as a barbarian by others, only he could hope to free the boy from Vair's clutches. With his sister Cold Death--a sorcerer whose magic was as sharp as her tongue--the Icefalcon embarked on a dangerous mission of rescue and redemption.

Braving nightmare demons and the endless hordes of Vair's inhuman soldiers, he shadowed Vair and his small captive beyond the reaches of the known world. And when the boy led Vair to the forgotten Keep of the Shadow at the End of Time, the Icefalcon would face his greatest battle . . . for his prince, for his honor, and for all eternity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9780307801456

Barbara Hambly

Barbara Hambly was born in San Diego. Her interest in fantasy began with reading The Wizard of Oz at an early age and has continued ever since. She attended the University of California, Riverside, specialising in medieval history and then spent a year at the University at Bordeaux in Southern France as a teaching and research assistant. She now lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews for Icefalcon's Quest

[librisissimo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Substance: Hardships of the heroic quest to save a king, who is still just a little boy. Interwoven with the more traditional quest of finding one's true self.Style: Omniscient narrator, but localized often to the POV of the Icefalcon, in order to explicate his personal quest.Goes as a pair with "Mother of Winter", which are a follow-on to the Darwath Trilogy.Not a bad read, but I have to start letting some books go.

[karlstar_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While this wasn't a bad book, it just felt unnecessary. After the Darwath series concluded, Hambly must have felt a need to return to a favorite character. This book is set in the same world, with the same situation and characters, but the focus shifts to the Icefalcon. Previously he was a dangerous and somewhat mysterious member of the Guards, a former White Raider barbarian. A return to Darwath is always welcome, but this book just seemed a little out of place compared to the others. Hambly is an excellent fantasy writer, and for that alone this is worth reading, though this is good, but not exceptional. There's certainly much worse out there.