Lion's Heart

Look for a highly-revised and expanded version of Lion's Heart (and Lion's Soul) to appear serialized online, along with the third Chevenga book, 'asa kraiya.' (Google "Chevenga.") If you wonder how there can be a third Chevenga book... it's all explained. Why am I returning to it? I found that I hadn't yet said everything I wanted to using Chevenga as a character, and visiting his world again with the greater knowledge and maturity I had acquired in the intervening years I find I really enjoy. As well, there are some Fifth Millennium stories that Shirley Meier and I conceived that have never got into print as of yet.

Not since I read "Lord of the Rings" have I been so absorbed by a fantasy series. Wehrstein's warrior-king Chevenga, a man who knows from childhood that he will die in early adulthood, draws the reader in and gains his/her admiration and sympathy very quickly. Through "Lion's Heart" and its worthy sequel "Lion's Soul", Chevenga tells his remarkable life story with heartfelt openness; I can tell you I passed several sleepless nights unwilling to put down the book and make myself wait to see what happened next. For any fan of the fantasy genre or anyone looking for a story that will never let go of your heart, I recommend these. One can't help but feel one is in the presence of two great souls - both Chevenga and Wehrstein.

This is one of seven books in the Fifth Millenium series by Wehrstein, SM Stirling, and Shirley Meier. It falls concurrent with Snowbrother (Stirling), Shadow's Daughter (Meier), and The Cage (Stirling/Meier) in the timeline of a post-Apocalyptic world filled with moral dilemmas, sweeping destinies, magic, politics, and swordplay. Every book in this series is wonderful, but the two books about Chevenga are extra-special. Indulge in "chiravesa" (a yeoli philosophy of "being the other") for a moment, and be Chevenga: by the time he was six years old, he knew he had a choice between early death (before the age of thirty) and everlasting glory, or an obscure life and the end of his people. What would you choose? What would any hero choose? But glory doesn't come without a price for Chevenga, beyond the guarantee of early death, and his sufferings and challenges in the two books (Lion's Heart and Lion's Soul) are enough to make one weep. The only bad thing about these two wonderful books (the entire wonderful series, for that matter) is that they are out of print.

This book, and it's sequel, Lion's Soul, are both one of my all-time favorites. When I bought Lion's Heart it was so good I read a third of it in the bookstore. I have since reread it several times.The basic story is set in a future Earth where modern day man has destroyed civilization, and after many years it has recovered to a basicly Greco-Roman level. Chevenga, the story's hero, is the young ruler-to-be of a small country facing absorption by a huge empire.But that doesn't tell the half of it. The characters are excellent, the writing well done. Interesting personal and philosophical ideas are expounded. I found the character of Chevenga staying with me long after I'd finished the book.It sorrows me greatly that Ms. Wehrstein has not published in recent years and that Lion's Heart was never truly discovered by the SF/F reading public. Truly a loss.