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Douglas W. Clark

Autor(a) de Alchemy Unlimited

8+ Works 371 Membros 2 Reviews

About the Author

Includes the name: Douglas W. Clark

Séries

Obras de Douglas W. Clark

Alchemy Unlimited (1990) 121 cópias
Saving Solace: Champions (1623) 90 cópias
Rehearsal for a Renaissance (1992) 57 cópias
Whirlwind Alchemy (1993) 45 cópias

Associated Works

The Search for Power: Dragons from the War of Souls (2004) — Contribuinte — 120 cópias
Dragons of Time (2007) — Contribuinte — 89 cópias
The Book of More Flesh (2005) — Contribuinte — 38 cópias
The Doom of Camelot (2000) — Contribuinte — 29 cópias

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Sexo
male

Membros

Resenhas

In the second volume of Douglas W. Clark's series about Corwyn the aquatic alchemist and his apprentice Sebastian ( "Rehearsal for a Renaissance" ), the story revolves around bits taken from the works of Shakespeare; in this, the third, he shifts his attention to "Don Quixote".

Previously a staunch supporter of the coming Renaissance, Corwyn is less than pleased when the drop in publishing costs caused by the introduction of the printing press results in a popular book that makes him look like a mad fool. "El Ingenioso Alquimista Don Corwyn de La Mancha", by Cid Hamete Benengeli, recounts the same events that happen in "Alchemy Unlimited", but they are slanted in the worst possible way, as though the author is purposely depicting him as a buffoon. Alternately enraged that Benengeli would dare slander him so, and depressed by how easily his neighbors accept the ridiculous depiction of him as literal truth, Corwyn rushes off to Spain to try to put a stop to the publication. In his absence, he places Sebastian in charge of his college of alchemy, despite the obvious fact that several of them are just the sort of disruptive jerks that Sebastian was when he first arrived as Corwyn's apprentice.

Between the string of disasters that result from Sebastian's attempts to keep order among a class of obnoxious teenage boys and the trouble Corwyn gets into by continuing to use his own name when seemingly everyone in Spain has read of what a demented idiot "Don Corwyn" is, there's hardly time for them to notice the danger inching toward their village along a line of windmills being constructed under the auspices of the Inquisition.

From the back cover:
Tongues are wagging throughout the town of Pomme de Terre, concerning a scandalous new biography of Corwyn, the world's only aquatic alchemist. The lying tome portrays the venerable wizard as a fake -- and, worse, a witless, bumbling fool!

So the intrepid enchanter is off to Spain, to do battle with the sinister windmills, demon-filled wineskins...and the scurrilous author who besmirched his good name. But Corwyn's absence will inadvertently leave the safety of Pomme de Terre in the less-than-capable hands of his inept assistant Sebastian -- and at the mercy of the fiendish Hydro Phobius, who gleefully plots to unleash a plague of newly exorcised demons upon the unprotected community.

Don't miss the previous misadventures of Corwyn and Sebastian:
Alchemy Unlimited
Rehearsal for a Renaissance

(Duplicated from my Amazon review. )
… (mais)
 
Marcado
Khavrinen | Feb 17, 2007 |
In this second volume of the adventures of the aquatic alchemist Corwyn and his incompetent apprentice Sebastian, the two make a strategic retreat from their home in the village of Pomme de Terre. It seems the villagers are beginning to have second thoughts about the enthusiastic welcome they gave to the collection of new-fangled ideas from Italy known as the Renaissance, and blame Corwyn for introducing the now-questionable fad.

Anticipating that the pendulum of public opinion will eventually swing the other way, Corwyn and Sebastian, along with Gwen ( former tavern wench, now Sebastian's betrothed ) and Oliver ( Corwyn's animated broomstick ), travel to Genoa, Florence, and Venice in search of the knowledge that Pomme de Terre will then be ready for. Along the way, they encounter several characters that seem to have wandered in from various Shakespeare plays, and even from the Canterbury Tales. The names of the chapters, or "acts", are mostly some jokingly muddled allusion to Shakespeare -- "A Midwinter Night's Scheme", "Much Adieu About Nothing", "Two Gentlemen From Barcelona", etc. Not surprisingly, given their itinerary, it is "The Merchant of Venice" that supplies the most significant borrowed characters, and we learn what was "really" in the ship whose failure to arrive led to the famous court-room scene. It was the final ingredient for the latest plot by Corwyn's nemesis Hydro Phobius, to "bring down" the city of Venice, literally.

Intended as a humorous series, I'm afraid that I'd have to say its performance rarely rises above the mediocre. The main character, Sebastian, is just too much of an arrogant jerk to be very sympathetic, and the continual jokes about his clumsy use of French grow tiresome, particularly for anyone who does not speak it themselves. By the very end he seems to finally mature a bit, but given his history one could be forgiven for being skeptical about how long it will last.

From the back cover:

Hoping to bring a bit of the Enlightenment home to his backward town of Pomme de Terre, Corwyn, the world's only aquatic alchemist, travels to Venice with his well-meaning but astonishingly inept assistant, Sebastian. The ancient enchanter's hapless helper is solely concerned with proving his disputed nobility -- and thus fails to notice a perfidious plot he has inadvertently stumbled upon. For Corwyn's most loathsome nemesis is conspiring to sink the fabled city into the sea -- a sinister strategem that seems to ensnare everyone from Cosimo de Medici to the Merchant of Venice himself. And now there's much ado about Doomsday -- as Corwyn and Sebastian must battle a terrible sorcery that generates the dark magic of total destruction.

*****
Don't Miss the Earlier Mishaps and Misadventures of Corwyn and Sebastian in Alchemy Unlimited.

( Duplicated from my Amazon review. )
… (mais)
 
Marcado
Khavrinen | Feb 17, 2007 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
8
Also by
4
Membros
371
Popularidade
#64,992
Avaliação
½ 3.3
Resenhas
2
ISBNs
8

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