KNIGHT'S DAWN
Red Pavilions, Book I
By Kim Hunter
Orbit (Little, Brown) - January 2002
ISBN 1841490903
Fantasy

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde, MyShelf.com
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A knight awakens on a hillside unaware of his identity, apart from the fact that he has recently fought in a battle. But no battle has been fought here for over a hundred years and he is an unwelcome stranger in the city of Zamarkand. He finds work collecting the hands of the dead for grubby stallholder Spagg for him to turn into "Hands of Glory" and comes under the unwelcome scrutiny of those in power. Outside are the red pavilions of the mercenaries and maybe the knight will find his career there, but Zamarkand is ruled by a mad queen and her sister and the knight - who calls himself Soldier - gets sent on an extraordinary quest with Spagg that leads them into many strange adventures.

Kim Hunter manages to cram as much action into this taut novel as many other fantasy writers put into books three times as long. This is a pacy, exciting adventure and Hunter manages to keep the action lively and the characters interesting and likeable enough to keep the whole thing bubbling merrily. Some of the adventures and motifs in the story - the princess's whims, the talking enchanted raven, the strange wizard child, the dragon's egg - are reminiscent of folktales and an earlier type of fantasy to the standard modern "sword and sorcery" tale, which is a welcome change and brings fantasy back to its true roots. There is nothing new here, but since when did that spoil a good story, and this is certainly that.

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