I Read Books: Mordant's Need
This is a fantasy duology made up of The Mirror Of her Dreams and A Man Rides Through. Stephen Donaldson wrote a trilogy (now a decaology), the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever a portal fantasy in which the title character does not believe in the fantasy world. In this pair of books, Teresa Morgan, already doubting her own existence, is brought through to another world where people believe she is a mere image. Indeed you could consider this as a look at the themes of Thomas Covenant in a mirror.
But that doesn’t tell you about this actual pair of books. It’s a little dark and grim, with threats of rape and torture. There’s a lot of plotting and uncertainty. There’s magic, which comes out of mirrors (Imagers are mages, in one of several straight-faced and unacknowledged bits of wordplay). There’s occasional moments of existential morality and a few quite exciting fights.
Mordant was a land fought over by its neighbours, Alend and Cadwal, and so got the brunt of wild imagery unleashed on it. King Joyse managed to free the land and gather all the Imagers under his control, after which he set them on a path to peace, refusing to use his control of all the magic in the world for conquest. Now though he’s old and indecisive, and Mordant is under attack by imagery and bandits. The Imagers try to bring out a champion to meet the need of Mordant and instead get Teresa Morgan, a woman from New York who is desperately unsure of her own existence and meaning.
Anyway it’s pretty good.
Read This: It’s a good fantasy duology that had a few fresh twists on big castles, mirror magic and what’s real and what isn’t
Don’t Read This: What was state of the art in the 80s isn’t any longer and also rape, torture etc
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