Subject: REVIEW Seekers Mask

From: [email-masked] (Henry Lazarus)
Date: 3 Apr 1995 19:09:59 GMT

Author:P. C. Hodgell
~Title: Seeker's Mask
Publisher: Hypatia Press
Price: $35.
	This review is a lot longer than my usual one, two liners because
I realize that not too many people will take the trouble to call Hypatia
Press to get a copy of this book. Since it is impossible to touch the
volume in any book store, I feel I must take the time to go over it. 
	The real question, I think, in most people's minds is -- Is it
worth thirty five hard earned dollars to get the missing part of a story
started a decade ago.
	The short answer is yes. For the longer answer keep reading.
	A good decade ago Jame showed up in a SF Book Club edition as well
as a hard cover of _God Stalk_. It received a lot of notice and it was one
of the more interesting fantasies of 83. Jame appeared out of the waste,
an amnesiac young lady who has to find her way in the god filled city of
Tai Tastigon. Gradually we learn that Jame is a member of a triple people,
who god had, many generations ago, melded them together to fight the
primal darkness. they had lost and had drifted from world to world. In the
previous world a traitor had sold out the kencyr leading them to the
present world lost and hopeless. Jame and her twin brother are the last
pure-bred members of the ruling clans.
	In _God Stalk_ Jame, apprentices to a master thief, memorizes the
complicated city, learns that the various gods of the city are created by
beliefs (she destroys and then recreates a frog god) and generally makes a
nuisance of herself.  We also learn that Jame had escaped from the
traitor's house in the Primal Darkness with the three sacred items of her
people.
	In_Dark of the Moon_, written a few years later, she ventures out
of the city and finds the rest of her people, and her brother Tori (now
ten years older than her because of her time in Primal Darkness)
	_Seekers Mask_ begins with Jame learning the very constricted life
style ways of the high born of her people. When members of the shadow
guild (people in invisible cloaks) come hunting her, she is forced out, on
the run, to discover a place for herself.Probably one of the more
interesting aspects to this book is the weirding storms that frequent the
area that the Kencyr have settled in. In a storm one can end up anywhere
on that world if alone. But Jame finds herself in a Keep stretched all
over her world by such a storm, allowing her to leave the keep at the
places she needs to and then return.
	P. C. Hodgell is one of those rare authors who create an usual
world whole. There is nothing borrowed here, nothing blue. The world of
the Kencyr with their silent god and their hopeless quest is not our
world. It is, however, a rich and complex world that is very interesting
to visit and very enjoyable to read about._Seekers Mask_ is not the
completion of Jame's story, but it provides a temporary stopping place and
resolves many of the issues created in the precious books of the series. I
cannot imagine any reader of the previous books (and I've read them
several times over the years) not being satisfied with this addition to
her story. 

Henry L Lazarus [email-masked]