Another Book Recommendation

For those of you who enjoy reading fantasy, such as I do, here is a nice book I have enjoyed reading several times. It is called The Well-Favaored Man, by Elizabeth Willey. It was published by TOR in 1993 under the title The Well-Favored Man: The Tale of the Sorcerer's Nephew. The jacket art was by Wayne Barlowe, and the jacket design was by Carol Russo.

Here is the jacket blurb:

Welcome to Argylle, where the ruling family - a brilliant, flighty, civilized, and occasionally dangerous clan of nearly-immortal warriors and magicians - are hoping for a few years of relative peace.

True, their father Gaston has vanished, leaving both throne and family while he pursues some unexplained errand. His absence has stretched into years. True as well that their powerful Uncle Dewar has also wandered off without leaving a forwarding address, and hasn't been heard from for a worrisome length of time. It's a bad habit of running off that this family's elders have.

But now young Prince Gwydion's been stuck with ruling the Dominion of Argylle, and with any luck, life can go back to being a satisfactory mixture of intrigue, gossip, and viniculter, periodically enlived by amateur theatricals and the odd quest or two.

Yet Gwydion is finding this arrangement uncomfortable. Strange things keep turning up. A plague of monsters appears out of nowhere, attempting to take up residence in the local barns and forests. These are trumped by the arrival of a ravenous Great Dragon - ancient, sorcerous, profoundly cunning - so big you can see it thirty miles away. Meanwhile, a mysterious youn woman has shown up, claiming to be Gwydion's long-lost - indeed, quite unsuspected - sister. And then there are the high-tech aliens, who say they just want to conduct a legal investigation.

It's enough, Gwydion thinks, to make a ruler want to find some nice long errand that'll take him away from his homeland for a spell....

The Well-Favored Man is courtly, complex, bloody-minded fantasy for those who love Roger Zelazny's Amber, Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint, and the fantasy adventure of Steven Brust.

Elizabeth Willey divides her time between Boston, Massachusetts, and San Francisco, California. The Well-Favored Man is her first novel.

The jacket's back cover lists three (3) reviews.

"Elizabeth Willy's first novel is that rare bird, an urbane fantasy. Her sorcerers choose their wines, lovers, and and words as carefully as they choose their spells, and her warriors speak as well as they fight. She adds to this an exciting and complex plot, an engrossing world, and some of the cleverest dragons in fantasy." - Delia Sherman, author of The Porcelain Dove

"Fast, literate, and wittily plotted, The Well-Favored Man is a feast of dragons, manticores, and elegant prose. Elizabeth Willey is a writer to watch for, to take seriously and to enjoy." - Michael Swanwick, Nebula-winning author of Stations of the Tide

"A splendid cast, well-considered magicking...Assured, different, superior." - Kirkus Reviews

I like it. Enough to read it more than once. It has several sub-plots (which I just love) and moves from one to another without significant transition. Each plot is part of a whole. I will confess to having trouble determining the books main plot during my first read. That is because the main plot is only hinted at early. I found nearly everything intriguing (except the younger sister, who was simply annoying). Like all good books, Well-Favored Man left me wanting more. Willey did write a sequel, but I have not been able to get a copy. It's titled, A Sorcerer and a Gentleman. I think it may actually be a prequel.

The resemblance to Roger Zelazny's, Chronicles of Amber, is there. I have not read Ellen Kushner or Steven Brust. And, like Amber, I personally had trouble visualizing the transition between realities. Not that I didn't like them. I just had trouble creating a picture in my mind.

But the book is good. If you can, you should get a copy. It is real in the sense that things did not all turn out as I wanted. But the plot endings all tied together and they all fit and made sense as regards character.