The Blood Debt, 2

by Sean Williams

Book Overview

In a remote city on the edge of two worlds, where blood has power and water is more precious than freedom, three far-flung friends unite on a quest to save their families. Sal Hrvati's estranged father has brought more into the world than the woman he loved. Instead of saving her from the Void Beneath, he has summoned an unknown creature -- a creature with a mission of its own and a past that stretches back to the beginning of the world. The quest...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591024935
• ISBN13: 9781591024934
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Pyr
• Length: 463 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A Millennium Later

Blood Debt (2008) is the second fantasy novel in The Cataclysm series, following The Crooked Letter. In the previous volume, Hadrian searched the three realms for his twin brother Seth. They were reunited in Sheol and made their choice. Ellis also made a choice and the twins found themselves within the Void Beneath, becoming the first Lost Minds. A thousand years or more after the Cataclysm was suspended, most people followed either the Wardens of Air and Water or the Mages of Stone and Fire. The Wardens lived near the ocean and the Mages lived in the interior. They were separated by the Divide, a vast man-made chasm. In this novel, Skender Van Haasteren the Tenth is a Stone Mage trainee. He is the latest in a line of respected Stone Mages. His father is an instructor and Principal of the Keep, the school for Stone Mages. Shilly of Gooron lives in a hidden dwelling near Fundelry. She has the talent of sensing Change forces, but she cannot directly affect the Change. Yet she can borrow the talents of others to use these forces. Sal Hrvati lives with Shilly. He is a wild talent, depending neither on air nor stone. He has direct access to the Change forces. Tom is a Sky Warden Engineer. He has talents with both machinery and Change forces. Chu Milang is a resident of Laure and a former miner. She damaged her wing and lost her license while attempting a dare. Now she is seeking ways to restore both. In this story, Tom comes looking for Sal and Shilly. Sal's biological father -- Highson Sparre -- apparently had constructed a homunculus and used it in some ritual. A man had died from fear and the Homunculus left across the wilderness. Highson followed the construct. Skender learns that his mother is lost. His father tells him that she has not contacted him through the Change for two days. Skender decides to go searching for his mother and his father tells him where to go and gives him the keys to a buggy. Sal, Shilly and Tom ride a buggy after the warden search party that is following the Homunculus. Eventually they reach the searchers, who have been stranded in a null zone where the Change cannot reach. It appears that the Homunculus leaves a wake behind it that temporarily nullifies the Change. Skender reaches Laure several days after his departure from the Keep. He searches the Divide near Laure and then checks the tunnels under the city. When he gets stuck in a narrow tunnel, Chu rescues him and gives him some advice. Skender is searching on the wrong side to the Divide. The city on the other side is the most likely place to find his mother. The Aad has long been deserted by humans, but is inhabited by monsters from the Divide. They start thinking of ways to get to the other side. Sal, Shilly and Tom join the Sky Wardens. Tom gets their vehicles moving again and the party heads toward Laure. They reach their side of the Divide before the construct arrives. The wardens spread out and conceal themselves from t

A Part of the Books of the Cataclysm, Kinda, Sorta, Maybe

/The Blood Debt/ is a trade reprint of the 2006 hardcover from Sean Williams. The story takes place in the future, where the Earth has been broken into zones where magic is used for power instead of electricity and ghosts and golems (animated statues) exist. There are both some very unique aspects to Williams' world, and some familiar ones. This particular story takes place a thousand years after the first book (/The Crooked Letter/) and follows two friends, Sal and Skender as they each separately try and find their missing parents and find themselves trying to track down and stop a Homunculus that Sal's father had mistakenly summoned from another realm, the Void Beneath. There are elements of fantasy and science fiction, and Williams creates a convincing landscape and characters. The story is fairly stand alone if you can't find the previous volume, and not a lot connects the two stories due to the major time differences.

Australian SF Reader

Having read The Crooked Letter a while ago, somewhat of a surprise to find this jumping into a story with older verions of the characters from The Books of the Change. A pleasant surprise nonetheless. As the characters have aged this series is again more adult in tone and content, not deliberately designed to be young reader friendly like The Stone Mage and the Sea, et. al. It is still very good, and revolves around Skender's lost mother, and Sal's father, creating a homunculus, that it turns out, unsurprisingly, is carrying the minds of both Seth and Hadrian from the first book. The setting is a desert city called Laure, where people used charmed hang-gliders to retrieve articles from the divide for sale, and there are Change practitioners who use blood as a source. No need to blood bank ads, here!

fabulous fantasy

In the distant future Earth is a vastly strange different place in which magic is the energy source of choice in isolated enclaves. With this energy source comes unwelcome byproducts; living humans uneasily share the area with ghosts, golems, and other paranormal creatures that run the gamut of myths including living statues. Separately friends Sal and Skender become concerned over their respective missing parents who apparently vanished due to some unexplained esoteric disorder. Each without consulting with the other decides on a quest to find and if need be rescue their parents from whatever void that traps them. However, neither is quite ready to learn about a dangerous homunculus pseudo human that apparently Sal's dad brought back from the Void Beneath which may lead to death and destruction of more than just their parents: a world is at risk. This tale somewhat suffers from the middle book syndrome even though plenty of action occurs, but for practical purposes nothing is resolved. As testimony to the spellbinding writing skills of Sean Williams, fantasy readers will still enjoy the latest Book of the Cataclysm as the lead duo Sal and Skender return (see THE CROOKED LETTER) to embark on a new quest. Readers will root for the pair whose adventures are exciting, dangerous, and fun to follow as they anchor the exhilarating story line of THE BLOOD DEBT. Harriet Klausner

Awesome

The Blood Debt is awesome! Williams' books just keep getting better. Although this could be read easily as a stand alone, do yourself a favour and go and read The Crooked Letter and then read this! Then just try and stop yourself reading the third book! Fantastic characterisation and pageturning prose set in a mystical and unpredictable world. Five stars!!!