Dreams of the Compass Rose, by Vera Nazarian (Hardcover)
Brand : Wildside Press
- SKU:
- 1587155842
- UPC:
- 1587155842
-- Publishers Weekly
"Nazarian's story cycle treads the borderline between the episodic novel and the short-story collection, recalling the work of contemporary fantasist Charles de Lint, early-twentieth-century fantasist Lord Dunsany. . . . a singularly appealing book by a new voice in fantasy."
-- Roland Green, Booklist
The Compass Rose universe--an ancient milieu where places have no names, cities spring forth like bouquets in the desert, gods and dreams walk the scorching sands in the South, ice floats like mirror shards upon the Northern sea, islands that do not exist are found in the East, death chases a thief on the rooftops of a Western city, immortal love spans time, and directions are intertwined into one road we all travel....
You come to this place when you wonder, and sometimes, only when you dream
What is the nature of evil?
When a young warrior of a dark race finds himself bound inservitude to a beautiful cruel princess, his loyalty becomesentwined with something more horrifying and mysterious thanendless night falling over the ancient desert.
When a courageous young servant reveals her hidden wisdom tothe madman conqueror of the world, her fate is joined to anightmare suspended beyond death and outside the universe.
Two souls from different times -- their destinies connectedthrough hundreds of other lives and generations, through softwhispers of the wind, through ancient truths that lie buried inan island between worlds.
Both souls enslaved through dream and desire in an endlessconflict between truth and illusion.
They can only be set free by the wonder of the Compass Rose.
Praise for Vera Nazarian
"The colorful strong writing style that Vera has worked onfor years has come to full fruition."
-- Marion Zimmer Bradley
"Dreams of the Compass Rose is a rich, exotic blend ofhigh romance and high magic of a kind rarely seen since theclassic fantasies of Lord Dunsany, James Branch Cabell and ClarkAshton Smith. This is a work not to be gulped but savored, but ifyou do find yourself unable to stop, re-read it slowly enough totaste the truth within the poetry."
-- Diana L. Paxson, author of Hallowed Isle
"I love this book. Dreams of the Compass Rose is astory-cycle in which we keep coming back to the same characters,except from different viewpoints and different times in theirlives. It's set in a land of desert empires that never was,though it could easily be our world -- far in the future, or deepin the past. Some of the stories are brutal, some are likedreams. All of them are engaging and resonant, creating a newmythology that feels so right one might be forgiven for thinkingthat it's the cultural heritage of some forgotten country orpeople that have been lost to history. It reminded me of thosewonderful, dream-laden story-cycles that Clark Ashton Smith andLord Dunsany were writing around the turn of the last century.Dreams of the Compass Rose has a similar stately lyricism, acompelling and visionary voice that speaks to the heart of thereader."
-- Charles de Lint
"Vera Nazarian's Rose Compass leads the reader on a lyricaljourney through time and space, while her compelling andkaleidoscopic tale of multiple lives intersecting about a commonpoint explores some of human nature's most basic truths."
-- Jane S. Fancher, author of Dance of the Rings
"With a glorious richness of language and a use of visualimagery that makes each page like a fireworks display, Nazarianhas produced a novel that might seem at first glance to bestraightforward generic fantasy. But it's not. It's far, far morerewarding than that. What she does in Dreams of the Compass Roseis use both old threads and new to weave fresh myths -- andvigorous myths at that: there is something almost primal in theirpower. It is rare these days to find a high fantasy that is morethan a rehashing of tired themes. Dreams of the Compass Rose isone of those rarities -- and a rarity to be treasured. This bookbreathes the true stuff of fantasy."
-- John Grant, Co-Editor of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
"...a sweeping, lyrical style that nevertheless contains touches of earthiness.... It may well be that Vera Nazarian, like her trickster goddess, Ris, is one of the old masters of fantasy, returned to earth in a new guise. She bears watching."
-- A.L. Sirois in Deep Outside SFFH
About the Author:
Vera Nazarian left the former Soviet Union at the height ofthe Cold War as a refugee at the age of eight and arrived in theUnited States a month before her 10th birthday by way of Lebanon,Greece, and Italy. As soon as she figured out the Englishlanguage, she started to write in it and sold her first shortstory at the age of 17. Since then she has published numerousworks of short fiction in anthologies and magazines such as theSword and Sorceress and Darkover series edited by the late MarionZimmer Bradley, and has seen her work translated into French,German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and Czech. She is an activemember of Science Fiction And Fantasy Writers of America.
Ancient myth, moral fables, and her Armenian and Russianethnic heritage play a strong part in all her work, combining theessences of things and places long gone into a rich evocation ofwonder.