A swell of vielles and incantations for legendary SFF author and forerunner Melissa Scott, whose riveting fantasy The Master of Samar enriches our world today! The work is an atmospheric, cinematic adventure in which Erikson’s Malazan meets Kushner’s Riverside in a vividly-hued alt-universe Venice where power is based on dangerous covenants with otherworldly powers. The haunting, evocative cover is by H. Won, whose stunning work has also graced a previous Candlemark title. The premise:
Rejected by his aristocratic family, Gil Irichels has been content to make his living as a traveling cursebreaker, working with his lover, the feral mage Envar Cassi, and their bodyguard, swordswoman Arak min’Aroi. After a series of deaths leave him the sole heir to the family’s house and fortune, Irichels’s main concern is to do whatever he must to settle the estate and return to his previous life. But these is something very wrong in seaborne Bejanth, starting with the deaths of his kin and spreading into the complex web of politics and magic that holds the city together. As he struggles to discover the truth behind his family’s losses, he realizes that there is more at stake than the fall of one house. Someone is unraveling the web of curses on which the city depends, and Irichels is the only person who can stop them—if it’s not already too late.
Melissa Scott is from Little Rock, Arkansas, and studied history at Harvard College and Brandeis University, where she earned her PhD in the Comparative History program. She is the author of more than 30 original science fiction and fantasy novels, most with queer themes and characters, as well as authorized tie-ins for Star Trek: DS9, Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Star Wars Rebels, and the anime series gen:LOCK. She won Lambda Literary Awards for Trouble and Her Friends, Shadow Man, Point of Dreams (written with her late partner, Lisa A. Barnett), and Death By Silver with Amy Griswold. She also won Spectrum Awards for Shadow Man, Fairs’ Point and Death By Silver, as well as the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her latest short story, “Sirens,” appeared in Retellings of the Inland Seas, and her text-based game for Choice of Games, A Player’s Heart, came out in 2020. Her most recent solo novel, Water Horse, was published in 2021, and Fallen, sequel to 2018’s Finders, will be out in late 2023.
The Master of Samar received terrific reviews from many SFF venues and personalities. Excerpts (more on the title’s shop page):
Lambda Literary award winner Scott (Shadow Man) sets a solid mystery plot within an aristocratic, Victorian-esque commonwealth held together by magical curses. // Scott hits all the expected beats, and her dark magic system keeps the stakes high. —Publishers Weekly
Lambda Literary Award–winner Scott’s solid fantasy-mystery is full of political intrigue, assassination attempts, and dark-magic conspiracies interspersed with scenes of cozy domesticity… // The magic systerm // is pleasingly different, as is the Venice-like // Bejanth. —Krist Hutley, Booklist
Intricate and elaborate scheming both civil and magical, in a wonderfully-realized city. I am in awe! —Ellen Kushner, author of the Riverside novels
Intrigue and bricolage. Complicated characters. Action and unpredictable mystery. This is exactly what I want in a fantasy, and The Master of Samar delivers. —Sherwood Smith, creator of the Sartorias-deles universe
//…a rousing and exciting story, // The magical system is intricate and fascinating, and the last several chapters are unstoppable. —Jo Graham, author of the Calpurnian Wars series
The Master of Samar is available on Amazon, B&N, Kobo – and of course on our website, where buying the lovingly prepared trade paperback also brings along the full digital bundle (PDF, Epub and Mobi) . All C&G ebooks are DRM-free.
Come lounge in a seaside courtyard, while the tale is read from intricate scrolls over bite-sized delicacies and coffee spiced with orange peel!
