Geomancer: Volume One of The Well of Echoes - Softcover

A page-turner of the highest order ... Irvine can now consider himself comfortably ranked next to the works of Robert Jordan and David Eddings. Formidable (SFX)

Ian Irvine has produced one of those rarities in the fantasy genre, and that is a unique, well-thought-through world coupled to a well-written storyline. A gripping read for Irvine fans, or a fresh new series for any other readers. (ENIGMA)

Geomancer starts a new sequence of novels "The Well of Echoes", set some centuries after Ian Irvine's earlier fantasy sequence "The View from the Mirror". The world of Santhenar is under attack from the Void by the lyrinx, giant winged intelligent carnivores, and generations of war have turned human society into a totalitarian spy-state with the front line of the war held over all men and so-called "Breeding Factories" held as a threat over women. Tiaan is a brilliant young artisan in a munitions factory whom the authorities are deliberately pressuring into excelling herself; when she falls foul of her rival Iriis and the apprentice spy Nish, events are set in chain which jeopardise the humanity of two worlds. (Irvine's strength here is that he makes us care not only about the idealistic, wet, misguidedly ruthless Tiaan, but also about the occasionally vicious and manipulative Iriis and Nish, who are not merely villains, but products of their unpleasant world so)

Roz Kaveney, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW ('Irvine has built a history and wonderful culture for his vivid world. His first novel vibrates with originality')