The Book of Joby - Softcover

Ferrari, Mark J.

 
9780765317537: The Book of Joby
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0765317532 ISBN 13: 9780765317537
Verlag: Tor Books, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

The Book of Joby is an epic fantasy complete in one volume.

Lucifer and the Creator have entered, yet again, into a wager they've made many times before, but this time, the existence of creation itself is balanced on the outcome. Born in California during the twilight years of a weary millennium, nine year old Joby Peterson dreams of blazing like a bonfire against the gathering darkness of his times, like a knight of the Round Table. Instead, he is subjected to a life of crippling self-doubt and relentless mediocrity inflicted by an enemy he did nothing to earn and cannot begin to comprehend.

Though imperiled themselves, the angels are forbidden to intervene. Left to struggle with their own loyalties and the question of obedience, they watch Lucifer work virtually unhindered to turn Joby's heart of gold into ash and stone while God sits by, seemingly unconcerned.

And so when he is grown to manhood, Joby's once luminous love of life seems altogether lost, and Lucifer's victory assured. What hope remains lies hidden in the beauty, warmth, and innocence of a forgotten seaside village whose odd inhabitants seem to defy the modern world's most inflexible assumptions, and in the hearts of Joby's long lost youthful love and her emotionally wounded son. But the ravenous forces of destruction that follow Joby into this concealed paradise plan to use these same things to bring him and his world to ruin.

As the final struggle unfolds, one question occupies every mind in heaven and in hell. Which will prove stronger, love or rage?

The Book of Joby is an instant classic of contemporary fantasy.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

For seventeen years, Mark Ferrari has made his living doing freelance illustration for such clients as Lucasfilm and Lucas Arts Games, Industrial Light and Magic, Electronic Arts, Chaosium Games, Amaze Entertainment, Tor, Ace, New American Library, The Science Fiction Book Club, and many others. The Book of Joby is his first novel.

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The Book of Joby

By Ferrari, Mark J.

Tor Books

Copyright © 2007 Ferrari, Mark J.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780765317537
Chapter One
 
( Only Name the Quest )
 
“Run! . . . Run, you scaredy cat! The king will always beat you, Zoltan! And all your dumb ugly creatures too! Ha! Just one of Arthur’s knights is better than your whole stupid army! Ha, ha ha haaaa!” Joby laughed in unrestrained exultation, brandishing his wooden sword from the castle walls as the humiliated enemy fled yet another great battle in disarray.
 
“Joooooby! . . . Joby?”
 
Joby’s shoulders slumped, but he ignored his mother’s voice and waved his sword once more at the fleeing horde. “I’ve got better monsters than you out of my cereal!” he hollered in contempt.
 
“Joby. I know you can hear me,” his mother called, from the side yard this time. “Did you leave all this stuff on the driveway again?”
 
It was the kind of question Joby had never figured out how, or why, he was supposed to answer.
 
“I don’t think so,” he called back lamely, turning reluctantly from the battlefield beyond their backyard fence.
 
His mother came around the corner of the house carrying a large disk of cardboard in one hand, painted yellow, a red dragon scrawled uncertainly at its center, a banged-up book in the other hand, and a tattered red bedspread draped over her arm.
 
“It must have been some other knight then,” she said with the grim half smile that meant she was annoyed, but not enough to cause him any real trouble.
 
Joby remembered having left these encumberments behind in the heat of battle, but, like any knight worth his salt, he knew when to keep his own counsel. Did she really think warriors could run around cleaning up in the middle of a battle? Girls could be so pathetic!
 
His mother set his book, cape, and shield on the lawn in front of him and said, “If you do find the knight who left these there, please point out that your father could have driven right over them when he comes home. Unless that other knight wants tire tracks added to his family crest, he should find someplace better to leave his things.” Her grin widened. She seemed very pleased with herself for no reason Joby could see, but since this meant he was in even less trouble than he’d thought, he obliged her by grinning back. “You might also tell him,” his mother added, “how tired I get of reminding Arthur’s knights not to leave their things where someone will break a leg on them.”
 
Her grin faded as she reached up to tuck a stray lock of mahogany hair behind her ear, and went back to whatever she’d been doing.
 
“Break a leg on them,” Joby scoffed quietly, stooping to pick up his things. She always said that, as if people were out there snapping limbs off on every little thing they passed. His toys, his books, his trading cards, even his underwear? Heaving a long-suffering sigh, he went back to the fence, dragging his cape behind him. God help his mother if she ever got into a real battle. She’d find out in a hurry how much more damage a mace could do than any pair of underpants she’d ever seen.
 
After looking hopefully out over the battlements again, Joby sadly decided that the enemy had truly given up and gone away. He slumped down against the fence, and wondered what to do, almost glad school was starting again soon. He’d heard terrifying stories about what fifth- and sixth-graders did to fourth-graders at recess—especially during the first few weeks; but he was practically dying to be an “upperclassman” at last. For one thing, he’d finally be allowed to play dodgeball! Sadly, all that was two weeks off yet. Practically forever. At the moment, it seemed practically forever just until lunch.
 
Almost unconsciously, he opened the book, his most sacred possession; the dog-eared, grime-smeared, finger-smudged, broken-spined, long since loose-leafed tome around which his entire cosmology revolved: A Child’s Treasury of Arthurian Tales. It had been a gift from his grampa, entrusted to his parents on the day he was born; and the very map and outline of his boyish soul had formed slowly around its contents. Even after nine years of punishing use, a marvelous smell still wafted from its pages whenever it was opened, like some pungent musty incense rising from within the cathedral of his most secret, joyful dreams.
 
It had long since ceased to matter what page he opened to. Just lifting the Treasury’s battered cover transported Joby instantly to Arthur’s vast, shadowed throne room, dappled in misty rays of jeweled illumination streaming from stained-glass windows high above his head. He waited, as always, on one knee before the High King’s dais, his eyes cast respectfully toward the black-and-white marble floor tiles at his feet, his heart filled with the kind of urgent devotion that perhaps only a child can countenance—though here he was no child. Sir Joby was a knight; handsome, brave, and loyal, awaiting, as always, some new adventure in service of the glorious Roundtable and its beloved lord.
 
At Arthur’s command, Sir Joby had battled countless tyrants and terrible beasts, withstood searing temptations, and defeated devious wizards, armed with nothing but unyielding faith and courage. In victory, Sir Joby felt his liege lord’s approval like a shimmering song through his entire being. And on those rare occasions when the beasts proved too fierce, the wizards too crafty, or the temptations too great, Joby had only to call out for rescue, knowing that Arthur would instantly appear with whatever feats of skill or miraculous power were required to save the day. Joby’s heroic liege lord, his finest friend, had never failed him, nor ever would.
 
“My King,” Joby whispered, eyes closed in delicious expectation over the open book, quoting lines he’d long since memorized, “I would serve you with my life. Only name the quest.”
 
h
 
Michael sat alone on the bright summer headlands, gazing out to sea, as still and silent as another pale outcrop of weathered coastal stone. Out wandering the dun-colored cliffs two days before, he had suddenly been taken by the sparkle of afternoon sunlight on the restless Pacific surge beneath him, and sat down to watch awhile. He had neither slept, nor moved, nor blinked since that moment, but had given his entire attention to the theater of water, sky, and stone constantly transformed before him by starlight, moonlight, and sunlight in the dark breathless hours before dawn . . . and day and dusk and night and dawn again.
 
He had served his Master here for nearly two hundred years, and still the novelty of so much beauty so completely unmarred by the Dark One’s touch had yet to wear thin for him—which is not to say that angels are easily entertained, only that they find more meaning in the least fragment of shell or surf-polished glass than the most appreciative mortal mind might draw from a Russian novel or a week at the...

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Verlag
Tor Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2007
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0765317532
ISBN 13 
9780765317537
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
638
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Braun
https://in.pg.com/contact-us/

Sulzbacher Str. 40-50
Schwalbach/Ts.
65824
Deutschland

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