The Sugar Festival Author:Paul Park Two novels in one volume: Soldiers of Paradise and Sugar Rain. — No matter what the priests said, Winter seemed the longest time, the time of rebellions, of famine and disease. In the city of Charn--with its sprawling slums and its castle-covered mountain--it was the time when the Bishop's priests ruled. The priests and the powerful, decadent S... more »tarbridge family.
But now Winter was nearing its end, and the drunken Prince Abu Starbridge and his cousin, Thanaker the Doctor, forsook the castle citadel for the slums below, mingling with thieves, heretics and the Antinomials--nonbelievers without language, responsibility or desire, meat eaters in a world where meat was taboo, dangerous beings who lived free from thoughts, caught up in the spell of their own unique music.
In this world on the verge of Spring and its life- and death-giving Sugar Rains, Abu, Thanaker, and Abu's sister, Charity, were about to be caught up in a revolution not of their making. And before it was over, one of them would become a legendary martyr, while the others would become outcasts, fleeing their burning city for the dubious sanctuary of an enemy land. Along the way, they would discover a truth far older than religion and witness the events which would permanently transform their world.« less