Customer Reviews (1)

If these be Demons...
Some might be put off that the heroes of this book (and heroes they truly be) are of the race of demons. Yet, if these be demons, then one scarce ever have need of angels. These Lords of Demonland are the embodiment of honor incarnate. Nor is this petty personal honor in name only, but it is the deep noble honor of those whose very existence is the soul and sap of the realm they serve. This is not a modern book, nor be it wrote in modern language. The heroism and nobility of its characters will be as difficult for the modern mind to comprehend, as is the high language that frames it. Truly, prose like this has not been written for 400 years, before the King's English was ossified and codified to death and a great writer could still conjure up his own new-forged words of power to fit his subject.

I was reminded of the great mythic tales of Ireland, of her heroes and high Kings, when I first started reading this tale. Lord Goldry Bluszco reminded me of nothing so much as great Cuchulainn. Yet, I was also reminded of the epic tales of India. Indeed, the classic illustration by Henderson of the Lords Juss, Bluszco, Spitfire, and Daha immediately reminded be of the Pandavas. These are tales of glory and high adventure from the most eternal mythic heights.

Some seem put off by the opening of the book, while nothing could be more apropos. The character of Lessingham is that of an astral explorer. The martlet is his power animal and guide. The lotus room- well, the lotus is the symbol of the sacred portal on the threshold of the unconscious and conscious worlds. As for Mercury being the home of great kingdoms existing at a higher, finer state of vibration- read your Swedenborg...

This book was originally published in 1922. The term "Middle Earth" appears to have been used here first (The Hobbit wasn't published until 1937, I believe.) But then Tolkien praised Eddison as the finest writer in the genre.
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Fatasy full of perilous journeys, base treacheries and mighty deeds. ... Read more

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Science Fiction, Fantasy ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Fantasy Epic of Might and Main
I reviewed this book some years back right here on amazon.com, though amazon seems to have washed that effort away long ago. In fact I read the book many years earlier still and so I'm a little tentative about returning here to review this book again. Can I do it justice after such a long remove? Will I even remember enough to talk about it? Still, since it's one of the great ones in the much-maligned (often deservedly so) fantasy genre, I feel I must.

Readers here will certainly have heard of J. R. R. Tolkien, the father, if you will, of modern fantasy. And, presumably, those finding this page will also know something of E. R. Eddison, the author of this wonderful book. Suffice it to say that, in this book at least, Eddison outshines the estimable Professor Tolkien, despite this book's clumsy opening. Although he lacked Tolkien's comprehensive and detailed mind and was certainly not the scholar, or perhaps even the craftsman that Tolkien was, Eddison's WORM has a magnificent poetic sweep that even Tolkien's great trilogy of magic, adventure and ancient worlds decidedly lacked.

Here is a tale of magical beings and high adventure set, oddly enough, on a mystical version of the planet Mercury to which we are spirited in the form of an astral projection of one Lessingham, an adventurer and dreamer, who is taken one night on a journey by a spiritual guide in the form of a little bird. All very strange and distracting and, ultimately, unimportant. For Lessingham soon fades into the background of the narrative as the vision of this strange world swells and surrounds and overpowers him as it does the reader who is following him to this strange and enchanting place. We are soon caught up in the sweep of a tale that is a veritable medieval tapestry, never mind the awkward and almost childish nomenclature which Eddison relies on.

This is the story of a Demon kingdom besieged by its enemies in Witchland and their cruel and formidable ruler, King Gorice XII, who conspires to overthrow and consume the heroic Demons of Demonland who are under the rule of heroic brothers and a noble cousin (not unlike the three kings of Burgundy and their cousin, the noble warrior Hagen, in the German Nibelungenlied -- literally the Lay of the Nibelungs). There are treachery and mighty deeds to redeem the fallen here, and great battles and an ending which is as surprising and strange as it is oddly satisfying.

If Tolkien's trilogy is an epic fairy tale writ large, this one is a veritable medieval saga of heroic proportions. That it is ultimately magical and fantastic places it squarely in the fantasy tradition which Tolkien gave credibility and new life to. But Eddison came first (he wrote this tale in the mid-1920's I believe), though he is still little heard of today. He deserves better as does this book.

He's also the author of a more or less historical novel (albeit with a fantasy element near the end)which is no less deserving to be read: Styrbiorn the Strong, based on the old Icelandic saga tradition which, to some degree, also influenced THE WORM. More, he did a translation of one of the original Icelandic sagas, EGIL'S SAGA, the tale of a powerful, overbearing and yet still sympathetitic Viking poet who remains an ornery cuss and poet to the end of his tumultuous days. His is one of the major sagas in the medieval Icelandic literary tradition -- though Eddison's translation of it is hard to come by these days, given the preference in the marketplace for less robustly ornate prose.

SWM
author of The King of Vinland's Saga

If these be Demons...
_Some might be put off that the heroes of this book (and heroes they truly be) are of the race of demons. Yet, if these be demons, then one scarce ever have need of angels. These Lords of Demonland are the embodiment of honor incarnate. Nor is this petty personal honor in name only, but it is the deep noble honor of those whose very existence is the soul and sap of the realm they serve. This is not a modern book, nor be it wrote in modern language. The heroism and nobility of its characters will be as difficult for the modern mind to comprehend, as is the high language that frames it. Truly, prose like this has not been written for 400 years, before the King's English was ossified and codified to death and a great writer could still conjure up his own new-forged words of power to fit his subject.

_I was reminded of the great mythic tales of Ireland, of her heroes and high Kings, when I first started reading this tale. Lord Goldry Bluszco reminded me of nothing so much as great Cuchulainn. Yet, I was also reminded of the epic tales of India. Indeed, the classic illustration by Henderson of the Lords Juss, Bluszco, Spitfire, and Daha immediately reminded be of the Pandavas. These are tales of glory and high adventure from the most eternal mythic heights.

_Some seem put off by the opening of the book, while nothing could be more apropos. The character of Lessingham is that of an astral explorer. The martlet is his power animal and guide. The lotus room- well, the lotus is the symbol of the sacred portal on the threshold of the unconscious and conscious worlds. As for Mercury being the home of great kingdoms existing at a higher, finer state of vibration- read your Swedenborg...

This book was originally published in 1922. The term "Middle Earth" appears to have been used here first (The Hobbit wasn't published until 1937, I believe.) But then Tolkien praised Eddison as the finest writer in the genre. ... Read more

Product Description
Three individual mass market paperbacks comprising the complete Zimiamvia trilogy. ... Read more