El rey Jorian no deseaba perder la cabeza, ¡y mucho menos bajo el hacha del verdugo!
Por eso le pareció que su promesa de robar el Kist de Avlen, un tesoro formado por antiguos manuscritos sobre magia, era un precio bastante pequeño a cambio de la oportunidad de librarse de su decapitación.
Pero, cuando la búsqueda le hizo enfrentarse a un peligro tras otro -- un mago asesino y su ardilla gigante, un castillo lleno de verdugos, una tropa indeseable de hombres-mono, y una voluptuosa princesa de 500 años de edad que era también una serpiente -- , Jorian se preguntó si habría hecho una buena elección.

What a terrific surprise! I expected (no longer sure why) a generic fantasy, and instead got a delightful, slightly satirical, charming little story. It's very similar to the tone of the Matthew Hughes Archonate books, if you're familiar with them. It's quite episodic, as the protagonist Jorian travels from society to society and has adventures everywhere he goes.

I suspect if it were written today there would be less emphasis on hot women throwing themselves at our hero, and of course there's no evident gay characters, etc., but diversity aside it's really an engaging book.

Technically a 4.5 but I'm rounding up because of it so exceeded my expectations!

(Note: 5 stars = rare and amazing, 4 = quite good book, 3 = a decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. There are a lot of 4s and 3s in the world!) ( )

Classic fantasy from the 1960's! This book was clearly an inspiration for the Dungeons and Dragons game. Jorian is the King of Xylar but he has one small problem, the King of Xylar is beheaded at the end of a 5 year reign and today is his last day as King! The rest of the book concerns his following adventures, accompanied by an old wizard who representsa guild of wizards that have geased (compelled) him to find an old collection of scrolls for them. This quest leads them all over the continent on many adventures. A fun book. ( )

Jorian is a dashing, hulk of a man... Loved by the ladies... alot. A master fighter - large and in charge. A jack of all trades/ master of none. While on vacation in Xylar (a neighboring city-state to his beloved Kortoli) he sees a large ball headed right at him, which he, of course, catches. As it turns out, this ball is the head of previous king of Xylar. And by catching the head, Jorian has just made himself King of Xylar - with a fixed end date of five years in the future. Not wanting his own melon to become the hot potato with which the next King of Xylar is chosen, Jorian decides to escape. With help from his friend Karador, he manages to escape. Like the A-Team, he's hunted from one place to the next. But this only goal is the settle down into the life of a simple craftsman and rescue his favorite Xylarian wife, Esmirildis.

And that's just the first 30 pages or so. This is a humorous adventure story with Jorian doing his best to do his duty to the gods of the various countries he finds himself in. Somehow, though, it always ends up that he either needs to the woo the ladies (even if they are giant snake ladies) or kill the men (even if there are many, many men). It's a fun story and ( )

Die etwas andere Fantasy.
Eine Geschichte mit Ideen die in anderen Büchern nicht zu finden sind. Auch heute noch erfrischen anders. ( )