Ithanalin's Restoration

When I first started reading this book, I was like 'why did I but this?' That only lasted for about three pages. Really, when I found out that this book was about animated furniture that had escaped, each part with a different peice of a wizards self of soul of some such thing, i thought it would get boring eventually. I was wrong, it only got better. Wheather because it was kind of short or because it was such a good read, i read this book in about four hours.

I hadn't read an entire novel in one sitting for a long, long time. Yesterday afternoon I picked up Ithanalin's Restoration, intending to read just a chapter or two until a headache cleared, but I didn't put it back down until I had finished it. Watt-Evans spins an utterly delightful tale about Kilisha, a young wizard's apprentice who must reverse a spell gone awry, which scattered her master's soul into his runaway parlor furniture. To recapture the missing pieces from throughout the city and to restore Ithanalin, she must manage her own impetuous nature and apply all the spellcraft she has learned. Along the way she must also placate Ithanalin's distraught wife and children, enlist the aid of the young soldier who unwittingly sparked the accident, and cope with the unhelpful customers and colleagues. If you need a break from interminable epic fantasy doorstops, this simple story of a young woman out to prove herself is a perfect diversion.

_Ithanalin's Restoration_ is Lawrence Watt-Evans's latest Ethshar novel. (Of late he has been alternating his more serious, and longer, Dragon novels with his generally light-hearted Ethshar fantasies.) The main character is Kilisha, the 17 year old apprentice to Master Wizard Ithanalin. One of Ithanalin's spells gets disrupted by a mischievous spriggan, with the unwitting help of a tax-collector, and Ithanalin's "essence" ends up distributed among various objects, including several pieces of furniture. The spooked tax-collector leaves the door open, and the furniture, having legs, escapes. It falls to Kilisha to track down the escaped furniture and to learn the spell that can restore the pieces of Ithanalin from the pieces of furniture to his inanimate body. Her job is made more complicated because the more senior wizards in the town are unable to help her, as they are concerned with a political crisis: a revolt in another town that may spread.The story is quite fun, a fast and always enjoyable read, with plenty of clever sequences arising from the central situation and the use of limited wizardly magic (such as Kilisha's way of using a love spell to lure back an escaped rug). Also noteworthy is the basic decency and commonsense of the various characters in the book. This is, I think,a particular characteristic of most of Watt-Evans's work -- his characters are pretty normal people, for the most part, and basically act like decent ordinary people we know, with to be sure the occasional foible. To take just one example from this book, we are introduced to the city's overlord, after a scene setting him up to be a lazy fop (semi-evil overlord model 3B, or something). It turns out, though, that he's basically a nice guy, who maybe gets a bit tired of long meetings. I do like this aspect of LWE's stories -- which is present in most of them, though you do get some slightly more extreme characters in for example the Dragon books.

Ithanalin's Restoration (2002) is the eighth Ethshar novel, but the chronology is more complicated. This novel actually occurs during the latter part of Spell of the Black Dagger and stands in contrast to it. This story is a cautionary tale, taking place in Ethshar of the Rocks. It demonstrates how wizardry is a dangerous business. It even shows why a wizard should never be allowed to cook the family dinner. Kilisha of Eastgate is the apprentice of Ithanalin the Wise. The first impression of most people is that she is very ordinary. Most of the time she doesn't even wear her apprentice robes, but she is quite capable of proving that she is a wizard's apprentice. She is talented, but much too impulsive. After a hard day trying to get the blood of a gray cat, she comes home to find the parlor empty of furniture, but containing one deanimated wizard, Ithanalin. The mirror informs her that he tripped over a spriggan and spilled an animating potion all over the room, thereby losing portions of his persona to the furnishings and door latch and, of course, the spriggan. Kilisha determines that Javan's Restorative spell can reanimate her master, but only if all the pieces of his persona are present. Naturally, all the furniture, and the spriggan, have run away. Kilisha tries to get help from the Guild, but they are preoccupied with the events in Ethshar of the Sands. She then undertakes the task of recovering the furniture, and spriggan, collecting the proper ingredients, and learning Javan's Restorative on her own. She does have help from Ithanalin's family, the neighbors, her family, and Kelder, the tax agent who was the proximate cause of the accident. She employs a number of magical ploys to find and take back the furniture, including a death-defying dive off the Fortress walls. This novel stars a young woman who accepts responsibility for restoring her master, facing and solving problem after problem. She is plagued by her impulsiveness, but takes steps to correct that problem also. By the end of the story, she has shown a strength of character and resourcefulness of which even she wasn't aware. In many ways, this is a typical Ethshar story. The plots and problems vary, but the hero/heroine perseveres through everything that faces him/her. Spell of the Black Dagger was an exception in that the story was not told from the point of view of the heroine; of course, that gimmick displeased a lot of his fans. In this novel, the heroine is the center of the story and is everything that a fan could want ... except ravishing beautiful, but Kelder might not agree. Recommended to all Ethshar fans and anyone who likes light fantasy adventure with magical touches and dashes of humor. -Arthur W. Jordin

Kilisha is entering the final year of her apprenticeship to Ithanalin the Wise, one of the foremost wizards of Ethshar of the Rocks. However, when a freak accident disrupts his spell casting, Ithanalin's spirit is transferred to his parlor furniture, which animates and flees out into the city. To restore her master, Kilisha needs these items back. How hard can it be to collect a group of uncooperative runaway furniture? You'd be surprised...and amused! This is the eighth Ethshar book by Lawrence Watt-Evans, and is just as good as any of the others; which is to say, excellent! Funny in the way that With A Single Spell was, this book is also an excellent and exciting read. I enjoyed the situations and the wonderful magic, but more than anything I liked the characters, especially the strong female characters, particularly Kilisha (the heroine of the story). This is an excellent story, one that I highly recommend to everyone!