In Saberhagen's original invention, our Earth has experienced a dramatic Change not too distant from our own time. During a potentially apocalyptic nuclear war, an intelligent computer named Ardneh—Automatic Restoration Director/National Executive Headquarters—triggered a vast paradigm shift in the very fabric of reality. Physics died—saved for scattered technological remnants—and magic came to rule the planet. 50,000 years passed, during which a lamed Ardneh survived, guiding mankind, until a final showdown with the computer's evil doppelganger, Orcus, during which both were destroyed and the role of magic considerably reduced.

As the new book opens, a further thousand years of mostly peace and quiet have gone by. Humanity is divided into rival kingdoms. One of these kingdoms—the Sarasvati—has decided to mount an expedition to search for the legendary Ardneh's Workshop, where the fabled Ardneh's Sword is said to reside. The humans believe that possession of the Sword—whatever it may be—will confer not power but knowledge, allowing for the advancement of the whole race.

A seemingly minor part of this expedition is the 15-year-old Chance Rolfson, a lineal descendant of the famous hero Rolf, whose exploits we saw in the initial trilogy. Prone to disturbing prophetic dreams involving Ardneh, Rolf soon comes into possession of a talisman known as Ardneh's Key. With intermittent help from a capricious djinn named Zalmoxis and a young enchantress named Abigail, he will move ever closer toward the vast underground sanctuary containing Ardneh's Sword. But first he and his friends will have to overcome a demon named Avenarius; the demon's human followers, led by the brigand Nathan Gokard; and Chance's own doubts and trepidations.

The Berserkers creator goes wild

Once upon a time, before the great Genre Change, there were no such things as fantasy trilogies beyond Tolkien's and Peake's. I know, it's hard to believe. Then, in 1977, came The Sword of Shannara, and the very fabric of publishing's reality rewove itself into its current configuration.

But before this epochal sea change, we had Saberhagen's pioneering series, decidedly Tolkienesque-with-an-SF-slant. Imagine, if you can, how fresh this seemed at the time to us unjaded readers. Stirring, light in execution, fast-paced and vivid, these three books, tinged with elements from Zelazny and Laumer as well, earned a fond place in fandom's memory.

Today, Empire of the East still reads well. But of course, in the retrospective light of what's come since, it can't have the impact it once did. In fact, a few customer-reviewers on Amazon wonder publicly what all the fuss was about concerning this series. Well, I guess you just had to be there.

The new book heroically attempts to recreate the same thrills. And while it delivers a neat tale, it simply cannot duplicate the original effects. I tend to think the task is impossible, although Saberhagen strives manfully.

His new protagonist is modeled along similar lines as the original Rolf, but with brave differences. He's not a warrior like Rolf, nor is he lowly born, rather being a scholar in training and hailing from a wealthy family. Nonetheless, his intelligence and curiosity, rather than martial skills, are just what's needed for this milieu.

The new book lacks the sense of enormous rival empires at war. Confinement to Chance's point of view alone differs from the previous installments, where we got to share the minds of such conflicted anti-heroes as Lord Chup. The timespan of events here is very short, not the four years of the original trilogy. And yet the page count of the new novel rivals the total for the first three books, making for a somewhat drawn-out narrative.

Still, the climax at least of Chance's quest is a bravura performance by Saberhagen, and in the end, returning to this beloved subcreation engenders not dissatisfaction but renewed respect for the ancestral tomes.