Roger Zelazny, creator
Baen
Fiction, Fantasy
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: The war is over. Evil Lord Kalaran has fallen to Prince Rango's forces of light, aided by four powerful magical artifacts obtained in mind-bendingly dangerous quests from the four corners of the world. In the days before Rango's wedding to the beautiful (not to mention brave and deadly) Princess Rissa, the land heaves a sigh of relief as peace soothes the scars of war... or not. Things have been downright strange around the capital city of Caltus lately. Sourceless music booms through the night sky. Great sinkholes devour lakes, and mountains sink and rise overnight. Impossible animals roam the countryside. And three comets of ill omen shine in the night skies.
Clearly, something isn't right.
The problem, sages seem to agree, is the very four artifacts that saved the land. Having that many magically potent items so close together warps and wears on the very fabric of reality. Unless they want the world to drown in a sea of chaos, the artifacts need to be scattered... returned from whence they came, or stashed in some other suitably out-of-the-way place until there is need to quest for them again. So, Prince Rango gathers the four heroic companions who found the artifacts and sends them forth once more. But there is some dispute about the true cause of the reality disruptions, and the questors each start to wonder the same thing: will getting rid of the artifacts save the land, or doom it?
REVIEW: There's a certain irony in the fact that the last book the late Roger Zelazny worked on before his untimely demise is the first book of his that I happen to read. In truth, this is more of an anthology: he came up with the idea, the quests' plotlines, and the between-quest chapters that tied them all together, but the four tales themselves were each written by a different author. Since it's all the same story in the end, though, I just called this one Fantasy.
Technicalities aside...
As light fantasies go, Forever After proves hit and miss. It pokes fun at the conventions of epic fantasy without being cruel or belittling, but much of the humor depends on references to our world as bits of it - modern and historical - dribble into their land through the reality distortions. It gets tiresome, being expected to laugh at the sweet, brown fizzy drink that replaces all the castle wine stocks again and again and again. One of the stories also leans too heavily on crude humor, even granting one of the magical artifacts the gift of flatulence. The strongest two stories find their own humor in their own world, and build to a good finale. There's also a problem with coming in on a story after the epic battle rather than before it. Names and places are tossed about with reckless abandon while I was still getting acquainted with the book. I knew I was reading the "after the battle" story, but I wasn't sure getting smacked between the eyes with such heavy info dumps about what happened before Kalaran's fall so early on was necessary.
Once I passed the halfway point, I started enjoying the story. Unfortunately, the earlier deadweight and the name tangle drag it down to three stars in the ratings.
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