The Black Throne Author:Roger Zelazny and Fred Saberhagen The authors of the Amber and Berserker sagas now offer a fascinating alternate history of Edgar Allen Poe. — When Edgar Allen Poe and Edgar Allen Perry first stumble out of the mists and onto little Annie playing on the beach, all three children assume they are in the midst of a perfectly wonderful dream. Young as they are, they realize there is ... more »something magical about their encounters, which occur repeatedly over time. But the childhood dreams become an adulthood nightmare when Perry sees Annie hustled away in a coach. In his mind he hears her call: "Eddie, help me! I fear that I am drugged. I believe they mean me harm..."
Annie - whose exceptional psychic ability draws the two Edgar Allens to her - has been taken prisoner by the unholy triumvirate of Goodfellow, Templeton and Griswold, who plan to use her mesmeric ability to force open the mind of a famous scientist and steal the secret of alchemy.
As they find themselves mysteriously manipulated out of their own worlds and into one another's, Perry, Poe and Annie struggle to make sense of the unfamiliar.
Annie, although under the control of ruthless schemers, uses her talent to maintain the link between herself and the two Edgar Allens.
Poe, dangerously disoriented, runs the risk of drinking himself to death in a world where alcohol is consumed in prodigious quantities.
Only Perry remains free to act, sailing about the world in hopes of rescuing Annie - with the assistance of an orangutan named Emerson, the midget Dirk Peters, a psychic talking corpse, a mesmeric nurse...and the peculiar dreams of Poe. A combination of adventure and love story - with an ingenious psychic twist - in The Black Throne Roger Zelazny and Fred Saberhagen have created a fascinatingly original alternate history that is not to be missed.« less