The Walrus and the Warwolf

A troublemaking youth comes of age after many fantastical and at times squalid adventures in this fourth volume of Cook's Chronicles of an Age of Darkness (following The Women and the Warlords ). In a barbaric world scattered with the remains of high technology, swordsmith's apprentice Drake Douay is promised (he thinks) the hand of the daughter of King Tor of Stokos, falls for and tries to seduce ex-priestess Zanya Kliedervaust and is cast off by his master Gouda Muck for general shiftlessness. Stealing the swordsmith's favorite weapon, the boy takes sea passage to find profit and glory. He is captured by the pirate Slagger Mulps of the Walrus , whose crew bear a grudge against Drake, and is rescued by the competing pirate captain Jon Arabin of the Warwolf . After surviving many adventures as king, slave and mercenary, and as the object of religious hatred by a powerful cult led by Gouda Muck, Drake is reunited with his true love Zanya--only to face further trouble. Cook's picaresque odyssey goes on and on. While the tale occasionally shows flashes of imagination, the reader eventually loses interest in this world and its crude inhabitants. (Sept.)