Wars of Light and Shadow

The Wars of Light and Shadow is a series of fantasy books by Janny Wurts. When completed it will consist of five story arcs, with the first three arcs complete.

Working as a writer and a painter, Janny Wurts' work on her Wars of Light and Shadow is realizing her ambition of describing and illustrating a world born in her imagination. Her research included experiencing some of the work of her characters, adding a gritty realism to her novels. She included a magic system in which she strives for a continuity and logic that spans the entire series.

The idea for the Wars of Light and Shadow originated while researching tactics and weapons. A documentary film on the brutal Battle of Culloden Moor gave her the historical sense of the fighting stripped of any romantic patina. It also helped her realize that education, written history and entertainment serve to justify the actions of the winners and portray the losers as morally wrong and evil. The series attempts to portray the fictional conflict of Lysaer and Arithon in sympathetic terms, illustrating each side with equal pathos. The story tracks the martial, political and personal conflicts of the characters, and the different tactics used by each - a mass following in one case, and a solitary wandering in the other. Wurts narrates each character from their own perspectives, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions about the morality of individual actions.

Deals with events that preceded the Rebellion. Meiglin lived under the shadow of a death sentence all her life, although she was townborn and kept ignorant of her ancestry. When the shocking fact of her birthright forces her onto the streets at fourteen years of age, she must flee with only the clothes on her back. Amid the tempestuous turmoil of the Mistwraith's incursion through South Gate, these are the lawless times, with clan survivors being hunted down for bounty. Alone, without kin, she has nowhere to turn, driven as she is by a blood-gifted heritage too overpowering to deny. Originally printed in Masters of Fantasy anthology, also available as digital book on the Author's website.

Deals with events at the start of the Rebellion, the uprising that dethroned the High King of Havish. Originally printed in The Solaris Book of New Fantasy, also available as digital book on the Author's website.

A back history prequel dealing with early events in this universe. Long before Mankind sought refugee settlement on the world of Athera, Koriathain served as a secret society, sworn to humanitarian intervention. A young woman bound between two clandestine identities faces a terrible choice, while caught in the teeth of a pivotal encounter that must alter her fate, and the course of history. Originally printed in Under Cover of Darkness anthology, also available as digital book on the Author's website.

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