The Sword, The Ring, and The Chalice by Deborah Chester

The Sword, The Ring, and The Chalice by Deborah Chester

This is a three book high fantasy series. High fantasy concerns kings and nobles in a fantasy setting. The book is in the older tradition of writing. There are no gaming references in the book and the author tries to use older names for different groups like elddin for elves. The book has a classic formula which has been used many different times.

The rightful king is driven from his realm by his usurping brother. He must hide the three keys to the kingdom, the sword, the ring, and the chalice so that they later can be reclaimed. He also hides his son, Dain from prying eyes.

Dain does not know who he is and must through various trials reclaim his birthright and his kingdom. This is the story of how he becomes a squire, then a baron, then reclaims his kingdom. There are all the elements of a good fantasy series, poison, intrigue, kidnapping, swordplay, court politics, evil magic, and a reformed church that no longer follows the old ways. On the good side there are the humans, eld, and dwarves, on the bad side, there are the bad humans, nonkind and soul eaters, and evil sorcery.

Each book is about the process of reacquiring the three keys to the kingdom. First Faldain must become knighted and have a sword, then he must become royalty and have a ring, and then he must seek out the chalice and get a kingdom. Each book is a self contained quest.

The writing is solid, predictable, and enjoyable. There is very little that is new. It is a nice escape to read these books. They have a nice mix of heady battles and courtly intrigue and romance. The reading is light and quick. The kind of book where you can read it on the train without missing anything. I could only find images for The Sword and The Ring on Amazon, but not the chalice.

Daily Thoughts 3/2/2009

Joseph Skelton (1888-1893)
A Forgotten Author
Oil on board

Daily Thoughts 3/2/2009

Today it was snowing very hard outside. I took the train up to the White Plains Supreme Court Law Library to do a tour. A gentleman there showed me and my new colleague around the law library. It was a very interesting experience.

Recently, the size of the White Plains Supreme Court Law Library collection was reduced. They had to move from having a full floor for their collection to a section of the floor, one third the size. To do this, they now have twelve workstations for patrons with Loislaw, Lexis, and Hein for their subscription. They seriously reduced the number of federal print books and focused on keeping their New York law books in print. They also only keep the most recent copies of the print journals and rely on Hein for most of their journal subscriptions on the database. Keeping lots of paper is not an option for them anymore.

I found the collection to be fascinating. It shed a new light on our collection. There was also the Office of the Self Represented which was in the same office as the White Plains Supreme Court Law Library for New York state. They were there to help people with legal information for people who did not have a lawyer. This was not legal advice, but forms for things like how to change your name, file a motion, register your case and similar things. We took a set of forms for our library to keep. One of the forms listed many of the agencies which provided pro bono work for people.

Two books were waiting for me when I came in, Haunted Heart The Life and Times of Stephen King by Lisa Rogak and Words In Your Face A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz.

On the way home, I read some of The Sword by Deborah Chester. It is a fantasy novel. I almost finished reading it. The trains were very slow because of the snow.