1610: A Sundial In A Grave (Gollancz S.F.)

by Mary Gentle (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $6.78

  Four hundred years ago, Hermetic magic is about to transform into science: 1610 is the year when everything could change. Robert Fludd, English physician and astrologer, wields the heritage of Doctor John Dee and Giordano Bruno to foretell the future. But Fludd doesn't like the centuries that he is predicting. So someone will have to change the future ...Valentin Rochefort, duellist, down-at-heels aristocrat and spy for the Duc de Sully, France's powerful finance minister, has troubles of his own, thank you very much - not the least of which is Dariole, a young man of his acquaintance who is (in Rochefort's opinion) lust walking on legs - and as irresponsible as an alley-cat. The last thing Rochefort needs is a mad English astrologer in his life. Continental Europe is briefly at peace, but Henri IV of France is planning to invade the German principalities. In England, only 5 years earlier, conspirators nearly succeeded in blowing up King James and his Parliament. The seeds of the English Civil War and the Thirty Years War are visibly being sown ...For a man of no conscience, Rochefort is about to find himself caught between loyalty, love, and blackmail, between kings, queens, politicians and Rosicrucians - and the woman he has, unknowingly, crossed land and sea to meet.

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.40

  Valentin Rochefort, professional duellist and down-at-heels aristocrat, arranges the assassination of Henri IV, King of France. Fleeing from the consequences, he makes for England, on the way picking up two companions - a young boy, Dariole, and a ship-wrecked 'demon'. Dariole is discovered first to be a girl, and then to be Rochefort's sister; the 'demon' is Tanaka Saburo, a Japanese samurai on ambassadorial mission to England from the Shogun; and Rochefort is found by a pack of Hermetic mages and conspirators, who want him to arrange the same thing for King James I/VI of England as he did for Henri of France. Rochefort is blackmailed into arranging the death of King James at the performance of a Hermetic magic play. Meanwhile, Dariole is busy making forays into Shakespeare's theatre as England's first (and worst) female actor ...1610 really isn't Rochefort's year - And as the play's performance and the assassination approach, Rochefort's dreams of the future that may spring from this crucial year grow increasingly stranger and more contradictory. He realises he must act - but, how? What is the right choice? And how much of the future will depend on what he does?