Gemmel, David
GHOST
KING
David Gemmell
Del Rey Books 1988
Pb 287 pgs
ISBN# 0-345-37902-0
This is a cool twist on the legendary “Uther
Pendragon, High King of Britain” story. I liked it, but then I like most
everything David Gemmell writes. I fancy calling him the Louis L’Amour of Sword
& Sorcery, for the writing styles are similar.
GHOST KING begins with young Prince Thuro orphaned and stranded in a cold winter landscape, surrounded by enemies and ill prepared to defend himself. But Thuro meets Culain, a great aging warrior who takes Thuro in and teaches him all he needs to know in order to reclaim his father’s throne. Culain is a strange man, however, with a long mysterious history of legendary heroics. It is this mentoring of an older, skilled man to a younger man in great need that marks David Gemmell’s stories, and the reason I keep coming back to his works. Gemmell’s heroes are always honorable men, yet they are human too—they have their own weaknesses to overcome before they can lead others to victory.
There is just as much sorcery in GHOST KING as there is sword fighting. “The Stones Of Power Book One” it says on the cover, though I don’t yet know if the next volumes continue the same story or only offer new stories in the same fantasy world. It is through the power of one of these stones that Culain has lived so long, and it is with a Stone Of Power that he is able to teach Prince Thuro so completely. However, it is also through the Stones Of Power that Thuro’s enemies catch up to him. So Prince Thuro must find his father’s sword “taken by a ghostly hand below the surface of the lake” at the time of his murder. Only then can Thuro escape the grasping of his enemies and return to his people as a man worthy of the title “King”. It is a journey into another world, full of action and great deeds. A fun read.
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