The Curse of Chalion
Hugo and World Fantasy finalist (its sequel Paladin of Souls swept Hugo and Nebula); the modern benchmark for theological fantasy and the favourite Bujold of a sizeable faction.
Book Entry · Fantasy
Lyonesse: Suldrun's Garden
by Jack Vance · 1983 · Lyonesse, book 1
What is Lyonesse: Suldrun's Garden about?
On the Elder Isles, a generation before Arthur, King Casmir's dynastic ambitions begin with imprisoning his unbiddable daughter Suldrun in a derelict garden — a cruelty that seeds his own ruin when she shelters the shipwrecked Prince Aillas. Vance ranges across changeling children raised by fairies, the magicians Shimrod and Murgen, ogres dispatched with tradesmanlike efficiency, and politics conducted with his signature courteous menace. Fairy-tale logic, epic architecture and that inimitable dry style: many Vance readers rate the Lyonesse books his supreme achievement.
Why it matters
The trilogy's later volumes took the World Fantasy Award (Madouc, 1990); its blend of folklore and statecraft visibly influenced Gaiman's Stardust and modern fairy-tale epic alike.
Where does it sit in the series?
Vance's fairy-tale epic of the Elder Isles before Arthur: dynastic war, changelings, ogres and the drowned land that legend says lies between Britain and Brittany.
In the Guide from Lyonesse:
- Lyonesse: Suldrun's Garden (1983)
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