Deverry cycle
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The Deverry cycle is a series of fantasy novels by Katharine Kerr set in the fictional land of Deverry. As of May 2008, fourteen books have been published in the series and one more is planned.
The series is written in a non-linear style: the principal narrative is frequently interrupted by flashbacks to events that occurred decades, or even centuries, before. These flashbacks concern the prior incarnations of characters in the principal narrative, and provide insight into the relationships of the characters in their current incarnations.
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[edit] Novels
Kerr began working on what would become the Deverry cycle in 1982, expecting to produce a short story. The project grew much larger than that, eventually expanding into a series of fifteen novels. Kerr has likened the Deverry cycle to a play, dividing the story into four acts:
- Act one: Deverry
- Daggerspell (1986) — "Author's definitive edition" issued in 1993
- Darkspell (1987) — "Author's definitive edition" issued in 1994
- The Bristling Wood (1989) — US title; issued in the UK as Dawnspell: The Bristling Wood
- The Dragon Revenant (1990) — US title; issued in the UK as Dragonspell: The Southern Sea
- Act two: The Westlands
- A Time of Exile (1991)
- A Time of Omens (1992)
- Days of Blood and Fire (1993) — US title; issued in the UK as A Time of War
- Days of Air and Darkness (1994) — US title; issued in the UK as A Time of Justice
- Act three: The Dragon Mage
- Act four: The Silver Wyrm
- The Gold Falcon (2006)
- The Spirit Stone (2007)
- The Shadow Isle (2008)
- The Silver Mage (expected 2009?)
[edit] Cultures and peoples
Though much of the story takes place within the kingdom of Deverry, there are several other cultures which also occupy the world of Annwn.
- Westfolk
- Also known as Elcyion Lacar ("Bright Spirits"), and as elves, the Westfolk are a tribe of nomadic horse herders that live on the grasslands west of Deverry since the destruction of their cities by the Horsekin and Gel da'Thae. The Westfolk can be recognized by their pointed and furled ears, and by their eyes, which have catlike irises. The Westfolk live much longer than humans, with five hundred years being the norm. There is an ongoing problem of a low birth rate within the tribes although a human-elf pairing can produce offspring. Half-elves tend to look more human than elven, though they may have some muted elven traits, such as slightly sharp ears or strange eyes. Half-elves also live longer than most humans, but not so long as a full-blooded Elcyion Lacar.
- Bardek
- Though Deverrians refer to this southern archipelago as if it were a single country, it is in fact a collection of independent city states. Bardekians, who have much darker skin than Deverrians, consider the Deverrians barbarians. Many Bardekian city-states have a semi-democratic system of government, much like Classical Athens. Their medical skills are valued highly. There are oblique suggestions in the novels that Bardek, like Deverry, was settled by people from our world, and Kerr has flatly stated online that they are descended from Hellenized Moors.
- Mountain Folk
- Living in the mountains north of Deverry, the Mountain Folk, or dwarves, are short but stocky. They see no reason to waste anything ("Thrifty as a dwarf" is a common saying in Deverry). They also take their obligations very seriously. They distrust the Elcyion Lacar, considering them to be thieves. They call their land Dwarvenholt. A remote and sparsely populated city, Haen Marn, travels through space and possibly time. To enter, one must first find it, then use a boat to travel through its river's strong current, then ask for entry. The water contains mysterious monsters.
- Guardians
- The Guardians are spirits who dwell in one of the higher planes. Though they were meant to incarnate like all other souls, they somehow "stayed behind." Most have no sense of individuality. Some Guardians have great magical prowess, most notably Evandar who is responsible for bringing the original human settlers of Deverry from our world to Annwn.
- The Rhiddaer
- To the north and west of Deverry is the Rhiddaer, or Freeland, which is occupied by the descendants of escaped bondsfolk (serfs). Riddaer folk, who speak an archaic-sounding dialect of the Deverrian language, refer to the people of Deverry as "The Slavers." They have a democratic system of government, headed by an elected Chief Speaker.
- Horsekin
- A large and hairy humanoid species which possesses a strong psychic talent which manifests as animal empathy. They are responsible for the destruction of the former elven civilization having been pushed out of their own homelands by the humans when they arrived in Annwn. They are referred to by the elves as 'meradan' (demons) and also as Hordes. Because one of their cultural practices is to eat the flesh of their own dead, the Horsekin were struck with a cholera-like plague which almost completely destroyed their population. The survivors abandoned the elven cities and constructed new settlements nearby. The term “Gel da’Thae” refers to civilized Horsekin that live in these settlements, while the term “Horsekin” in its stricter sense refers to the uncivilized tribes that dwell on the high plains north of the Rhiddaer, who have a culture extremely different from those living by the elven ruins, and who are considered barbarians by the city-dwelling Gel da’Thae. The more savage Horsekin hate the Elcyin Lacar and Guardians, while the civilized Gel da’Thae revere some of the Guardians as gods and consider the Elcyion Lacar the “children of the gods.”
[edit] Characters
Main article Characters in the Deverry cycle
[edit] Synopsis
The first four books deal with how Nevyn finally fulfils his oath to "set things right," and also with a complex plot by evil sorcerers to plunge the province of Eldidd into war.
Daggerspell deals with a rebellion in the province of Eldidd instigated by the mad half-elven sorcerer Loddlaen. The immortal wizard Nevyn searches for Jill in order to fulfil an ancient oath. Jill becomes the mistress of Lord Rhodry Maelwaedd.
In Darkspell, Rhodry is sent into exile by his brother Rhys, the Gwerbret of Aberwyn, and becomes a mercenary soldier, called a silver dagger. Jill goes with him; they become involved in an a sorcerer's plot to steal the Great Stone of the West, a magical gemstone which guides the conscience of Deverry's king.
In The Bristling Wood, Jill is kidnapped by a very peculiar lord, and Rhodry searches for her, but is captured by pirates and sold as as slave in the island country of Bardek. When Gwerbret Rhys is mortally wounded, the king overrides Rhodry's sentence of exile.
The Dragon Revenant deals with Rhodry's time as a slave in Bardek. Jill, along with Rhodry's half-brother Ebañy, travel to Bardek to rescue him, where they are later joined by Nevyn. Ebañy begins teaching Jill sorcery, and she becomes Nevyn's apprentice when she returns to Deverry. Rhodry becomes the Gwerbret of Aberwyn, fulfilling a prophecy.
The Westlands sequence (the fourth through eighth books) are concerned with Rhodry's self-imposed exile and subsequent quest to find a dragon, and a Horsekin invasion of Deverry.
In A Time of Exile, Rhodry fakes his own death, and leaves Deverry behind to live among his Westfolk kin. Meanwhile, Jill, now a powerful dweomermaster, tries to decipher the riddle of Rhodry's rose ring.
In A Time of Omens, Rhodry returns to Deverry as a mercenary, takes an apprentice of sorts, and helps a noble-born girl find her Elven lover who is the last descendant of Elven royalty.
In Days of Blood and Fire, Jahdo, a young boy from the Rhiddaer, aids a Gel da'Thae bard in searching for his brother. Jill sends Rhodry deep into the northern mountains to find the dragon whose name is inscribed on his rose ring.
In Days of Air and Darkness, a Horsekin army besieges the city of Cengarn, driven by a mad Guardian posing as a goddess.
[edit] Pop culture references
- The song Jillian, from Within Temptation's album The Silent Force, is about the relationship between Nevyn and Jill.
[edit] Trivia
- According to a post made by Kerr in the KatherineKerr Yahoogroup, the narrator of the books is not Kerr herself, but an eighteenth century Deverrian novelist, a woman named Cadda Cerrmor. [1]
- As a joke, and as an in-universe explanation for the delay in publishing The Dragon Mage sequence, Kerr had this fictional author become involved in a lawsuit with a "certain Elvish scholar of Elvish." Some fans believed that Kerr herself was actually involved in a suit (she was not). The Dragon Mage novels were really delayed because Kerr was seriously ill for several years with congestive heart failure. [2]
- Daggerspell and Darkspell were originally going to be a single novel called The Silver Dagger. [3]
