The Virgin and the Volcano (Lythande)

Series: Lythande

It's quite difficult in the confines of a short story to develop character. Short stories tend to focus on plot.

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The conflict and any character development happens solely in support of that focus - a character must make a moral decision, an immaturity is exposed, an eccentricity acts as a turning point. However, for a series of stories about one particular character, the reader hopes to see something different about the character as the stories progress - some growth, some further definition over what motivates the person, what past difficulties may influence present circumstances, how the character feels!

This doesn't happen with Lythande, who is quite one-dimensional. The stories are, of necessity by their publishing history, episodic and tend to follow a fairly standard pattern - Lythande is wandering along a road near some woods and the weather is miserable, so finding an inn is paramount. In the inn the inhabitants are either experiencing a recent or current magical occurrence. Lythande, in exchange for a night's lodging and a meal, agrees to address the problem, maybe charging an additional fee if the problem seems large or dangerous.

Lythande eats alone, plays the lute or a harp for an audience, maybe rests, then goes out to deal with the issue. All of the interest in the story falls on how the issue is resolved. We learn very little about Lythande besides the rather thin thread of the secret on which many of the stories hang. The situations, themselves, are interesting and appropriate for the worlds of Lythande, but since the reader lacks identification with Lythande, knowing very little about the character, there is no real feeling of suspense or drama developed.

Some of Lythande's solutions are clever, but more frequently the problem is just resolved by the use of magic and the story ends. Any short story collection can be uneven.

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They make the book worth reading. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. DId you like it as a collection or not? I found it fairly average.

Each individual tale was ok, but it didn't work as a book for me. A collection of fairly and very short stories written over a number of years featuring Lythande the magician. What is most annoying about them is a lack of internal consistency. Sometimes she plays the lute, sometimes she has a harp, sometimes swords, sometimes daggers. Sometimes only she is forbidden to eat int he sight of men, sometimes it's all Adepts. And all the women who can immediately spot that she's a woman, while none of the men can Many of the stories are very short indeed, and so lack any kind of point at all.

Lythande also tends to leave the moment she's completed her assigned task, leaving the consequences of any such intervention unknown. The only variation is the move of a small section of text to the beginning of the later version, so that anyone downloading it as a sample will not recognize it. Is violating that trust worth it, Amazon? There's a problem loading this menu right now. Learn more about Amazon Prime. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime.

Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping. Not Enabled Word Wise: Not Enabled Screen Reader: Enabled Amazon Best Sellers Rank: Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers. Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon. Alexa Actionable Analytics for the Web. Take a Third Option: Given the choice "be sacrificed to the volcano or be killed when the volcano erupts and kills everyone", Lythande figures out a way to feed the volcano a different "virgin" - a magic candle shaped like a woman. The Gratitude of Kings. The most commonly-mentioned restriction on Lythande, that she may never eat or drink in sight of a man, is apparently completely forgotten for this story, and she eats and drinks at the feast.

The Children of Cats. When being stalked by a supernatural entity, Lythande takes shelter in a wayside inn, and seems to have gone from the frying pan into the fire. The innkeeper transforms travelers into pigs, and then slaughters those pigs for food. The proprietess serves humans turned into pigs to the inn's visitors. Inn of No Return: The proprietor of the inn is a witch who drugs, transforms, and slaughters the customers. The "pork" returns to visibly human meat as soon as the witch who turned the visitors into pigs is dead.

Lythande comes into a village and is tasked with getting rid of "wuzzles". Magic in this story is described as being rather Literal-Minded. She sneezes while saying "May it be so", and thus curses someone with sneezes. The banishing spell relies on a pentagram drawn on the floor. The wuzzles are banished through certain candles, on certain places, with a certain spell. Lythande even teaches the farmer the spell; he grumbles and says he could have done that. Put on a Bus: Frennet, the girl Lythande picked up in "The Walker Behind", who knows Lythande's secret and is not really smart enough or sophisticated enough to keep it successfully, and who could be a large enough problem that Lythande considers killing her to keep the secret, ends the story conveniently and happily married off to a guy in town while Lythande wanders off again.

Lythande has never heard of "wuzzles" before being called on to get rid of them; every time she thinks of them it's in the form of "— what was it, wuzzles —" or similar in the middle of the sentence. The Footsteps of Retribution. To Kill The Undead. Lythande must find a way to rid a town of a vampire, but since vampires are already dead, it seems impossible. After the reveal of the vampire's identity and circumstances, Lythande counsels the town to be less petty and give the dead their due in the future so that such things don't happen.

Due to the Dead: The vampire is revealed to have been a townsman who committed suicide and was buried in unhallowed ground. He returned as a vampire because of this improper burial. No Man of Woman Born: Lythande tells the townspeople she will not be able to kill a vampire, because it is already dead.

This turns out to be true - however, should that which is dead be returned to life, it can then be killed. Our Vampires Are Different: The vampire is described as being a creature of pure magic unaccustomed to even being in human form anymore. Then it veers back into "our vampires are traditional", because the vampire turns out to have been a man who died of suicide and was buried in unhallowed ground. Once reduced back to human form, the vampire is immediately attempting to change shape again.

To Drive the Cold Winter Away. Lythande comes to a town in which all sorts of happiness and fun have been outlawed. The winter seems to have been extended because music in all its forms was outlawed, and she plays and sings her song, bringing spring back to the land. Here There Be Dragons. Lythande goes up a set of magical stairs into a strange world.

Series: Lythande

The evil nature of the world is revealed by a disgusting metallic sun Lythande finds absolutely abhorrent. Lythande thinks of them as separate entities, but interchangeably, and what is described as and seems to be a dinosaur breathes fire, which dinosaurs are not known to be able to do Excalibur in the Stone: As this story was written for and published originally in an anthology about Excalibur, the unnamed sword Lythande finds and draws from the stone is implicitly Excalibur.

Lythande is carrying a crucifix, despite pointedly not being of the religion, and it proves to be a powerful force of good that hides the nature of the evil surroundings as long as she has it. The story has a couple errors within its own continuity, but it also states that Lythande has never carried a sword, which is explicitly false - she has a sword in "The Secret of the Blue Star", "Somebody Else's Magic" is all about her carrying a sword unwillingly, and in the latter she is skilled enough with the sword to show she has used one willingly in the past.

The Complete Lythande, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Lythande finds there to be something subtly wrong and disturbing about everyone she sees in the town. What Happened to the Mouse? The sword, once drawn, is completely forgotten when she escapes. It should still be in her hand while going down the stairs, but it is not there or mentioned again once back in the real world. Lythande and another Pilgrim Adept are turned into dogs by an angry ghost.