Grafton, 1992, 414 p.

Sadly not a book about last season’s FA Cup winners nor indeed the building erected in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851 (subsequently moved to Sydenham in 1852 before it was destroyed by fire in the 1930s) and after which that football club was named. Neither is the palace built of crystal, nor even glass. Instead, it’s an ice palace, built in the realm of Ice from a seed planted by the demon Regneniel.

Though Cray, son of sorceress Delivev Ormoru of Castle Spinweb, familiar from Eisenstein’s previous book Sorcerer’s Son, is the nominal protagonist of this sequel, it is actually Aliza, Cray’s heart’s desire as revealed in the mirrored web constructed by his friend Feldar Sepwin, around whom it revolves. After many viewings where he saw nothing in the mirror, she first appeared to him as a girl, then over the years grew into a young woman. Only much searching in the realms of Air, Water, Fire and Ice (each realm has its own kind of demon) by Cray’s mother’s demon lover, Gildrum – not a hyperbolic description, Gildrum is literally a demon in this scenario, but that does not necessarily mean he is demonic – finds Aliza’s location in the titular Crystal Palace. It is effectively a prison where she has been placed by her grandfather Everand, a minor sorcerer, to be taught to be a great sorceress by Regneniel whom she believes to be under her control but is really beholden to Everand. This involved Everand removing Aliza’s soul and hiding it somewhere in the palace.

Prior to the book’s opening Cray had freed as many demons as he could from their enslavement to their masters. For a certain kind of sorcerer this made him their enemy. Everand did not need Cary’s interest in Aliza to feel animosity towards him.

Everand is, though, an unsatisfactory antagonist, too one-dimensional and blinkered to be any sort of foil for Cray and his chums.

I only really read this one as I had already read Sorcerer’s Son. I prefer Eisenstein’s stories of Alaric the Minstrel to these ones.

Pedant’s corner:- Nothing to report.

Grafton, 1991, 444 p.

After Lady Delivev of Castle Spinweb turns down his offer of marriage, fellow sorcerer Lord Rezhyk of Castle Ringforce, ever one to think the worst of people, believes she wishes ill on him. He conceives a plan utilising his enslaved demon Gildrum to go to Spinweb, disguised as a knight called Mellor, to seduce Delivev and make her pregnant as under those conditions she will not feel Rezhyk weave for himself a protective covering of metal. Neither he nor Gildrum ever thought that she would go on to bear the child or that Gildrum would fall in love with her (a fact which Gildrum conceals from his master.)

Delivev’s special power is affinity with spiders and snakes. She can use spiders’ webs as a means to see far and wide across the world as they spin a sort of screen for her to witness what they see and hear. (Though the screens are temporary this is a literal world-wide web, but of course on first publication in 1979 no-one would have thought of it in those terms.)

The child she bears is the Sorcerer’s Son of the book’s title since, as a demon, Gildrum could not have provided the necessary procreative material, which came from Rezhyk. The child is named Cray Ormoru.

As he grows up, despite being close to his mother, he does not want to become a sorcerer but instead to find his father so he goes on a quest to discover the knight, whose shield bore three pink crossed lances on a white ground; a quest doomed to failure.

Deceived by Gildrum – through Rezhyk’s instructions – into believing his father is dead (Gildrum has a way with manipulating matter and appearances) Cray decides the only way he can find out who his father was is to conjure a demon himself and so must seek apprenticeship. Rezhyk wants the true situation to remain unknown to Cray but invites him to learn the arts but with the intention of misleading Cray. Many years of fruitless endeavour ensue until Gildrum reveals to Cray Rhezyk’s duplicity.

As with many such fantasy tales we are presented with a society having mediæval value systems and hierarchies, only here with sorcerers replacing Lords as the ruling class. This default fantasy setting I find irritating. I suppose they are trying to represent less enlightened times but can fantasy writers not eschew such lazy backgrounding? The effect is made worse here by the dialogue being couched in cod mediæval language.

The summoning of demons is presented as being akin to alchemy, with gold extraction its most important aspect. Again this seems somewhat lacking in imagination. Still, this sort of thing is not read for its newness of treatment. It slips down easily however.

There is a sequel, The Crystal Palace, and a third in the sequence which was never published.

Pedant’s corner:- “‘none of them ever know’” (none of them ever knows,) callouses (calluses.) “‘I an not one’” (I am not one.)