Hollywood, 1923. A small town on the verge of greatness, filled with silent film stars, directors, producers, and an ancient Chinese Rat God hell-bent on taking his bride!! His intended is Chrysanda Flamande, aka Christine Blackstone, one of the new up-and-coming stars of the silent film era. She lives the good life with her widowed sister-in-law Norah and her Pekingese dogs in the hills of Los Angeles. With her big-time producer boyfriend, she is the toast of the town, while her dowdier sister-in-law tries to keep her from getting into too much trouble and helps her to get to work on time. This idyllic existence is interrupted by the arrival of a myserious Chinese gentleman, who tries to warn her that the Rat God is coming for her, because of the old Chinese necklace she wore in her last film. She pays him little attention until people around her begin to die or disappear and strange things start happening around her home. Suddenly Christine, Norah, and their friends are thrust into a whirlwind of danger and magic that threatens their very souls. And the only thing standing between her and a "hellish" marriage is the old Chinese man, who happens to be a wizard. But can they muster the strength of body and mind to overcome such an ancient evil?

This is another good book by Hambley. Again she dazzles us with her precise, vivid writing and heartfelt characters. She makes you worry about what will happen to them. The reader will also learn a bit about what Hollywood was like 80 years ago, before all the glitz and glamour (although Hollywood 1923 at times sounds like Hollywood today). Seeing Norah finally climb out of her pit of despair from her husbands untimely death in World War I and find love again uplifts the heart. Glimpsing the vulnerability of Christine and seeing past her confident facade makes one wonder about the stars of today and the price of fame. The story itself is a bit rough around the edges, but generally this is an enjoyable book that readers of all ages and genres should enjoy. Another great addition to anyone's library. Really, this book rates 3.5 stars, not 3.

I wish there were more like this one! Barbara Hambly creates such vivid three-dimentional pictures of a by-gone era. This book evokes the images of great black and white adventure movies with heroines slinking through in elegant floor length gowns and no gentleman went out with out a hat. Even though the story is from her superb imagination, she has taken incredible pains with the accuracy of the setting. Living in the great megalopolis of Los Angeles/Orange County, we often forget that once there were tremendous open spaces, that we wouldn't be living here if not for the film industry. How skillfully Ms. Hambly gives us a history lesson about what is under our very feet and enthralls us with a great story at the same time. As always, I look forward to her next endeavor.

The only thing wrong with Bride of the Rat God is cover illustration. It seems that the artist only read the squib on the back cover.

Christine Blackstone, aka Chrysanda Flamande, is one of the biggest stars of the silent film era. She lives with her widowed sister-in-law, Norah, and her Pekingese dogs, in the hills of Los Angeles. After wearing an ancient Chinese necklace in one of her movie costumes, she is cursed to be killed by the Rat God.

Sounds just like a pulp thriller, right? Fortunately this particular book was written by Barbara Hambly, so what you get instead is an intelligent, well researched, somewhat spoof of Hollywood in the 1920's. The characters are well rounded, the plot is interesting but not overly complicated, and the writing is superb. Now if there was only some way to get rid of that terrible cover....

Published in the early eighties, this series is easily one of the classics of the field.

Barbara Hambly practices the martial arts, and this lends considerable reality to her depictions of combat.

The magic system rocks.

The primary plot, two ordinary people in our real live world are contacted by someone in the fantasy world and are drawn into the action via interdimensional travel, while still fresh when these books came out, has been duplicated so often in so many ways since then, that some people might feel it is just one more story in a sub-genre of fantasy that is already overloaded. Well, I say, go and read these books.

Two people from our world, a biker named Rudy and a history scholar named Gil, are drawn into another people's struggle for survival by Ingold, a wizard from another universe.
There, mysterious creatures known as the Dark hunt mankind as there natural prey.Perhaps even more dangerous than the Dark is the political infighting of these people's Church and state as both are impotent to provide a true solution.The only ones who might be able to save man are the wizards, feared or misunderstood by most ordinary people, hated as evil by the church,and considered a double-edged sword by the ruling powers that be.
The characters are very realistic and the storyline is seamless and full of surprises and twists that are done in a very unaffected manner.It's almost like the story really happened and Hambly is merely relating,rather than creating.
Just don't get too far into book three unless you have time to read to the end, because you won't want to put it down.

I would really recommend tha those interested in books about fantasy and magic to buy the book w/c is filled with suspense from start to finish and has a very exciting ending I deeply regret that it is out of print

This book, which I stumbled onto some years back in a used bookstore, has to be one of Hambley's best efforts, and that is saying something from such a talented and diverse author. This is a different kind of fantasy book, not about awe-inspiring heroes or mighty wizards, but one told from the viewpoint of an ordinary everyday soldier, who turns out to not be so ordinary. It details the life and philosophies of a mercenary, which is not common in fantasy literature. The characters are well-written and fully fleshed out, very believable. The main character, Capt. Sun Wolf, is one of the best "everyman" characters in print. His efforts to train a group of women how to fight to rescue their men are the central focus of most of the book, and it is wonderful to see how his attitudes change throughout the book. The main female characters are strongly written, and the central female character, Sheera, is one of the unforgettable characters in fanstasy literature. The tale of love between the capt and his second-in-comman Starhawk, both believing the other has no feelings for them, is heartwrenchingly beautiful and gripping. All in all, this story introduces the reader to a world that feels so real you almost expect to open a door and enter it. And the main plot twist of the secret of magical power is so shocking that it is doubtful the reader will know it's coming. This is a great story, and I highly recommend it to anyone lucky enough to find it in some old dusty bookstore.

This book was lent to me by the most unsuspecting person:My Tae Kwon Do teacher(Sabumnim).As soon as she found out that I loved fantasy ,she lent me this book.
I was enchanted by how thouroughly Hambly describes her world,and how realistic the training of the women is.The character was a bit dislikeable at first,but he developes.
Warning:The violence is exrtremely explicit.

This is a great book. Lots of plot twists and things. With a cute love story in it too. It's one of my favorites. You can connect with the charactors. there so cool. read this it is good.

The third in the series following A Free Man of Color and Fever Season, Graveyard Dust continues the story of Benjamin January in 1834 New Orleans. January's sister, a voodoo priestess, is charged with murder in the death of a young man whose body has yet to be found. Purportedly, she provided the gris-gris used by a young wife to kill her husband. Olympe is jailed and seems unwilling to defend herself. Setting out to prove the innocence of both women, January is forewarned that his own life is in danger when he finds graveyard dust in his bed. January's investigation turns up family secrets, greed, and illicit sex. Hambly again invokes the colorful nineteenth-century New Orleans with all its humidity, mud, stench, disease, and vermin, as well as its polite society, racial divisiveness, judicial corruption, Catholicism, and voodoo. Not as engrossing as the first two in the series, Graveyard Dust, nonetheless will please Hambly's legions of fans.

Graveyard Dust by Barbara Hambly is the third in a series about Benjamin January a freeman of 19th century New Orleans who is both a physician and a musician. At the start of the book we find that January's sister Olympe, a voodooienne has been accused of murder of Isaak Jumon. January will have to unravel the mystery of Isaak's death to free his sister.

Hambly's New Orleans is a dangerous fog shrouded place. It is fever season again and various voodoo factions are involved in the plot. Some are leaving graveyard dust at January's doorway. Tennessee trappers are trying to murder him as he desperately seeks clues to exonerate his sister.

This book does not move as quickly as others in this series. It sometimes bogs down at various twists and turns. It does however add depth and interest in the characters involved. The authors insights and research about the history of New Orleans brings the time and place to life.

The third novel in Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January (Janvier)series, "Graveyard Dust" shows further development of her central character.

A young "colored" sculptor, Isaak Jumon, has apparently died of poisoning, procured by his wife from January's voodoo sister, Olympe. Yet his body has not been found. Also, there is an issue with his father having left him an inheritance and his mother trying to claim him as a slave. Throw in an opium addict brother, a shadowy uncle and a demon of a grandmother and you have the makings of another southern gothic mystery set in old New Orleans. It's up to Benjamin January to find out what really happened to Jumon if he is to free his sister before she is hanged or taken with fever from the filthy jail, the notorious Cabildo.

It's another steamy summer and Ben is still recovering from injuries he suffered in "Fever Season." Money is hard to come by, with the music season slow and Ben being unable to earn a living as a doctor. Yellow Fever, and perhaps even Cholera, are taking their toll on the population, and Ben must confront his deepest spiritual beliefs in a conflict of voodoo and Christianity.

I liked the further development of January and found him to be an excellent observer of his surroundings. Although a man of deep moral conviction, he is full of conflict with his societal role, mourning for his dead wife, and challenged by the voodoo signs haunting his every turn. His main ally continues to be Oxford educated, opium-addicted, Irishman Hannibal, slowly descending with consumption. Rose Vitrac returns and their friendship continues to grow.

The complex web of families continues to be fascinating. I would love a peek at Hambly's notebook detailing the genealogy of whites, blacks and colored, creoles and Americans, wealthy and poor, that she so aptly illustrates in her writing.

Her writing is very descriptive and one really gets a full range of senses, from the smell of the gutters to the detail of a house in the swamp.

At times, the detail can become overwhelming and drag parts of the story. Also, I still would like a "cast list" to keep all of these people straight, as there are so many names, both American and French, that I sometimes forget who is who. The sheer number of characters makes it difficult to keep them all straight.

Still, I am enjoying watching the growth taking place with Ben January, and look forward to the next book, "Sold Down the River."

I've always been a fan of Hambly's and the Benjamin January series has been a great favorite for not only the excellent, believable charactors and solid storylines, but the little details. The motivations for the charactor's actions and the way they react come through, especially in this book. A regular reviewer would put it this way: Ben finds himself pursuing justice on a plantation run by a brutal former master, and the difficulties with reconciling with his past as well as the prejudices he faces get in the way of his investigation.

But it is much more - one sees motivations and the way that friendships develop under adverse conditions, and what prices people pay to protect themselves and their loved ones to the best of thier abilities. And how people reconciliate thier actions to themselves.

Yes, there are a few spots that are a little jarring to the consistancy, and a bit of a deux ex machina at the end, but in all, the plot development, the charactors, and the logical actions and reactions blended quite well - as well as the historical and location feel.

When Ms. Hambly is your historical tour guide, you can feel the mists and swampy miasma rise around you as you make your way through the cypress tangles bordering the cane fields along the river...

You won't get sold down the river with this one...

I've read Hambly's fantasy and vampire books, and enjoyed them. Looking through a bookstore in Maine before a research cruise for something different to read, I was glancing through the fiction section and noticed this book. It sounded like an interesting read and since I'd never read anything dealing with a realistic depiction of American slavery, I picked it up.

Her writing is as well done as I expected, the descriptions of New Orleans, the plantation, the rural areas surrounding both, are all lush and/or disturbing. The depiction of slavery itself seems spot on also, and learning some of the details of went on made it a hard read in spots, but worthwhile. Her characters are all well differentiated from each other but there are quite a few of them to keep straight, I especially had difficulty with keeping track of everyone in the plantation owner's family for awhile. Hambly is able to write tender scenes, graphically violent events and suspenseful moments with equal skill.

While the writing is excellent, the story itself is sometimes hard to swallow. One of the keys to allowing the reader suspension of disbelief is to read the cover where it says "A novel of suspense." It's not really a mystery, as the clues tend to be discovered by the reader and the protagonist at the same time, with explanations as to what the clues mean fairly quickly. The character is somewhat amazing, as other reviewers have mentioned. Many of the scenes read like an action movie. The character always manages to stumble across the major elements of the puzzle even if he's not actively looking for them. This is all more easily forgiven if you realize what kind of a novel it is. Still, it does take away some from the believability of the story which is why I can't give the novel 5 stars. Because of its realistic depiction of slavery and great writing style though, it's on my highly recommended list.

Benjamin January was a slave who had been treated brutally by his former master Simon Fourchet. Fortunately for him he had been sold to another master who sent him to Paris where he was educated as both a surgeon and musician, and given his freedom. Because people had been hesitant to patronize a man of color, he had given up his surgery practice. Now, he lives off his music, playing at balls and teaching. He has returned home to New Orleans, his place of birth, a free man of color. To January's amazement Simon Fourchet has come to him for a favor. It seems the Fourchet's butler was poisoned by whisky meant for the master. Someone is trying to kill Fourchet, and he wants January to pose as a slave and act as a spy to uncover the guilty parties. January hates Fourchet and doesn't want any part of finding out who's trying to kill the man, but Benjamin's relative points out that if he doesn't do it, all the slaves on Fourchet's plantation will suffer and probably be sold down the river. Very reluctantly, January agrees, and thus begins a whirlwind dive into Hell. Sold Down the River is rich in description as well as history. In 1834 New Orleans January encounters everything from back breaking slave labor to voodoo rites. There are so many possible candidates for killing Fourchet, poor Ben is constantly in a quandary. A former slave as the protagonist and educated snoop? Hambly pulls it off with panache.

Barbara Hambley's Sun Wolf series is one of her best, and this book is a thrilling end to it. Sun Wolf returns to his old troop of mercenaries to help them against a dark wizard who is bent on their destruction. Again, a vividly written book where the characters are just like you and me. Multiple themes run through this book, some of the more prominent ones include things we all face as human beings. Sun wolf returns to the group of people (like family) he recruited, trained, and led for 20 years as a mercenary, but now he is a wizard, not a merc. Also, he is no longer the leader. Each character must deal with those changes in their own way, and Hambley is up to the task of showing us that the question, "Can we ever go home again?" is as real to mercenaries and wizards as it is to you and me. Hambley again displays her skill at both fantasy and mystery here, as Sun Wolf struggles to find out who put the curse on the troop, and why. The climatic finish is worthy of high fantasy, and will grip the reader to the thrilling end. The aftermath is bittersweet, and satisfying. I encourage fantasy fans everywhere to find the three books of this series and read them. You won't be disappointed, and I suspect they will find their way into your library to read over and over.

In this book, the erstwhile wizard Sunwolf and his lover, Starhawk, find that even when they are trying to find a teacher for 'Wolf's talent, the way is treacherous. Their old friends in the mercenary company are in trouble from a powerful wizard and ask for Sunwolf's help in defeating him. Faced with past loyalties and the need to find a teacher, Sunwolf dubiously accepts in the hope of placating both sides of the conflict. A Dark Hand of Magic deals with both magic and morality - a curious yet nevertheless attractive basis for a book.

This is the second book of a trilogy that has been waiting for the last book for at least ten years. If you like cliffhangers that are never finished, this book is for you. Otherwise there is no reason to bother reading this book or "The Rainbow Abyss" its predecessor. There are too many good series of books that have been finished, or will be finished to bother with these books.

Incredible! A mixture of magic, WWII, and the Holocaust with cunningly twisted plots. It does not take a fool to know that an immense amount of research was put in. No other Holocaust fictional story deals with the fact that Germans sought out magical rites as a weapon to win the war. Brilliant!

This book is another wonderful story set in the world of Antryg Windrose, although neither he nor Joanna Sheraden appears in it. I think the Windrose Chronicles happen to be Hambley's best series, and this book certainly lives up to that expectation. ... After she arrives the fur begins to fly between her and her estranged family, but once she meets the prospective groom and his family the fun really begins as she tries to delay the wedding and find out who wants her sister dead. This book is once again a great mix of fantasy and mystery, which seems to be a Hambley staple. Also typical of a Hambley book, the prose just draws the reader in, and enough twists and turns occur in the plot that you are never quite sure what is going to happen next. At various times throughout the book the reader will empathize with each of the main characters, which again points to the wonderful and heartfelt character development that I have come to expect from Hambley. This is a great book, and I encourage new and old Hambley fans to track it down and read it. I only hope she writes a few more stories about the characters in this strange new world.

Continuing the thread started in her Windrose Chronicles,
Barbara Hambly weaves yet another yarn that is well-spun
with character depth and a plot that, convoluted as it may
sometimes seem, is internally consistent and easy to swallow -
despite its liberal sprinkling of wizards, ghosts, spells and
curses. The story includes characters and a historic setting
that is comfortable and familiar to any who have read her
Windrose Chronicles, yet the story is independent of those
works and stands on its own, with a very different perspective
on the politics and day-to-day lives of the inhabitants of the
Empire.

Kyra - whom we met briefly in Hambly's "Dog Wizard," is the
central character, and her unravelling of the mystery as to what
has twisted her own developing magic skills, who and what is
threatening the life of her sister, and how to navigate through
the quagmire of paternal resentment, socialite scheming, the
suspicions of the Church's Magic Office and her surprisingly
conflicted heart over the man who would be her brother-in-law,
are expertly and masterfully interwoven by Hambly's skills as
a storyteller. A very good read - even more than once.

This was one of my first forays into fantasy several years ago. I enjoyed it then, and upon rereading it, I find it holds up rather well.

Hambly excels at describing, in a matter-of-fact manner, surroundings that may be fantastic, unreal. Kyra is bold, even fierce, and in Spens we find a surprising equal. The magic in the book is fun, the plot engrossing, and the ending is perfect.

LEGACY OF THE DARK MAGE....

Someone was crossing the forbidding Void between the universes. In San Serano, Joanna felt the terror strike, before dark hands were seizing her to kidnap her and take her...elsewhere. In the Empire of Ferryth, Caris watched a wizard murdered by a figure that vanished into a tunnel of darkness. And abominations were crossing through the weakening fabric of the Void.

And in the Silent Tower, where every stone was sealed and spelled against all magic, Antryg Windrose, student of the Dark Mage, was supposed to be going mad.

Only Antryg and the Dark Mage had understood the Void, the Archmage claimed. Yet the Dark Mage had been executed for his evil twenty-five years before. And Antryg was helpless. Or was he?

Barbara Hambly's the Silent Tower is a beautifully written book. It has well-developed and affable characters. For what the plot lacks in credibility, it makes up for by keeping you guessing. This could have easily been a 5-star review were it not for the plot's shortcomings. despite the unbelievable portions of the plot, I still could not stand to put it down. It is an excellent and fast read. Enjoy.

A friend loaned me a copy of this book as an introduction to Barbara Hambly's books. His copy was really battered, and it wasn't his first, as he'd given away and worn to dust other copies. I've since done the same with this and the other two books in her Windrose stories, Silicon Mage and Dog Wizard. The characters live and breathe, and that's what makes this great, why I've read these many times and will do so again. I love books in general, but there are some books that I will never ever be "finished" reading, and this is one. I hope it comes back into print soon, but used is as good as new!

Ya know good stories take many forms but bad ones are remarkaly consistent. Bad stories tend to have either weak characters, poor plot, or too much description. Such is the case of this overwrought hambly potboiler. Why use one adjective when 3 or 4 will do? She constantly goes off track with endless exposition,and bores us with details at best trivial. The end result is a story that steams along at a snails pace en I felt never really engages the reader. I see by the bio that hambly once taught high school. I hope never taught english because any english teacher I know worth their salt would have known better than to overwrite every page in this book!

I absolutely loved the original trilogy and have read it multiple times.

Just when you thought there wouldn't be more to add to this series Hambly pumps out another good story.

This is a book in and of its own...it isn't necessary to read the earlier books. But there are reoccuring characters from the earlier books and having read those made this more enjoyable.

Again BH throws us into darwarth, a world where anarchy and chaos rule. Society is crushig down, church takes over, with all the terrible consequences that appear only when reason is substituted by faith and prejeduce. The describtion of a once splendid culture now reduced to ruins made my heart cry. You also almost want to cry out in pain for the knowledge, the books that are destroyed. It is as if the ghost of Claude Maniere participated : "... knowledge - written treasure; once found; and now forever lost;

knowledge - yes; but wisdom never; wraiths are paying now the cost..."

But in this environment of hopelessness and despair there is hope, life. The story of Ingold and GIl, Rudy and Sante goes on blooms and makes me long for more