Once upon a time, scientists from the Earth discovered there existed another inhabited planet in the Universe. In order to get to know more about it, the expedition was organized and eight specialist were sent to Midgaard. Everything was going according to plan until one day the usual reports stopped.
New covers of the series.
Two years after the start of the project, a rescue team is sent to Midgaard. A one-member rescue team. Vuko Drakkainen, also known as Ulf The Night Wanderer, is a special agent trained in different kinds of martial arts with more than average knowledge of sabotage techniques, equipped in state-of-the-art accessories characterized to fit the Medieval-like world he enters. He also has a few other tricks up his sleeve. His goal is to find the expedition members, evacuate them and clean up the mess they left. He has a year to complete the mission. Apparently, Vuko has an easy task.
However, when he gets to the research station, he discovers that four of the members are already dead, one of them half-petrified and the other turned to a tree. Another four are nowhere to be found.
At the same time, a young man – Filar the son of Javelin Maker, the emperor deprived of his throne – is wandering across the land of Midgaard in the pursuit of his mysterious fate. As the Wise Ones had forseen, he is the Carrier of Destiny, his own as well as his whole nation’s. His last order from the deceased father is to go from the hot South to the freezing North lands at all costs, yet he does not know what awaits him there.
To make it all the more interesting, Midgaard is amidst the so-called war of gods at the time with two powerful Makers (a local name for mages) gaining more and more power. Strange phenomena occur – a cold mist rises and carries the Awaken – half living creatures made of magic; people do not come home and are found dead in odd circumstances; on the island far North the city rises overnight. Something is wrong and there are too many changes to the planet’s status quo maintained for years by thoughtful limitations of the Song of Men – a mysterious guide defining all aspects of everyday existence. And where there are too many changes and the instructions of the Song of Men are disobeyed, dead snow might start to fall throwing everyone into oblivion.
The original covers.
What you have just read is a general plot motif of “Pan Lodowego Ogrodu” (“The Ice Garden Master”) – a four-volume novel by a Polish writer Jarosław Grzędowicz. The book is a powerful and very well-written mixture of sci-fi and fantasy. The author gained this by combining the reality of future Earth and the world of Medieval-like Midgaard, the only known other planet inhabited by humanoid creatures. Apart from the clever world creation, the book delivers some of the most likeable main characters – Filar and Vuko – and a wide and varied gallery of background characters. As you probably already have guessed, this is the kind of book you read in a flash and re-read again and again.
There is no English translation (yet, as I think making one is unavoidable and not making one – unforgivable) as the fourth and last volume was just released in autumn (after long awaiting), but what I am trying to say is that when the translation is complete and released, just be sure to grab the novel as fast as you can ;) Do not hesitate!
The author and the important info: “I wrote it :) Release in autumn 2012″
Note: All the names of people, places and notions used in the post are unofficially translated by me. These are not the official names!
