| MORE SURPRISES FROM HAMBLY The Rainbow Abyss & Magicians of the Night by Barbara Hambly (Review by Jane Beaumont, Cape Town, South Africa) The last 2 Hambly's I read were so different from each other (Dragonsbane and Travelling with the Dead) albeit separated by a decade, that I went to trawl for some more and found the above two, written and published somewhere during the intervening years. The first - The Rainbow Abyss - is fairly standard, competent fantasy fare but enjoyable. The second - Magicians of the Night - which is a sequel, is astonishing, if only for its setting and subject matter which I really can't reveal as it would ruin things, honestly. Hambly herself says in an afterword that it was an extremely difficult book to write and I can well believe it. Part of it is (almost) documentary, part of it high fantasy but the two parts are interwoven into a nearly seamless and fascinating whole. I realise that this is extraordinarily frustrating but I can tell you that Hambly's characters are, as usual, well drawn, her "hero" Rhion as forgivably flawed, her villains frequently endowed with charismatic charm and her heroines admirably feisty. Her "rules" are stringent - no leaping out of trouble with a single bound here - and any magic performed is done so at a cost and with risks. It is up to the read to decide if the results are worth the price demanded. But as for the price demanded for the books - well worth it I say ( well I would wouldn't I, seeing that I get them, for free, from the library - sorry authors all) and I fully intend hunting down more Hambly, if only to see what she gets inventive with next!
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