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Book Review of Lythande

Lythande
reviewed on + 1217 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5


A Pilgrim Adept of the Blue Star, Lythande is pledged to use her powers as a sorceress, musician, and warrior to battle the forces of Chaos.

Lythande is a series of stories written by Bradley both for and under the inspiration of the Thieves World series. The mysterious magician Lythande was created as one of the sorcerers in the original Thieves World cast of characters. She is a mysterious entity, committed to the cause of order and doomed to never reveal her identity as a woman.

Essentially, Bradley only contributed to the first volume of Thieves World, but the Lythande character lived on after that introduction. This volume contains not only the story from Volume 1 but also contains stories pubished elsewhere as stand alone fantasy stories. The last short story in the collection, "Satan", is actually written by Vonda N. Mcintyre for Thieves World and uses the Lythande character.

For established MZB fans, the forewords she wrote for each story are almost as good to read as the stories themselves. These are almost little essays that explain the evolution of Lythande and summarize Bradley's thinking on issues as diverse as feminism, mediocrity and humor.

If you are a fan of Thieves World, but are not familiar with Bradley, these stories should serve as a good introduction to her work.