Cage

"The Cage" ranks among the best novels I've read, ever, but rather than explaining why, I'll simply point out that I'm not the only one who thinks so:Eric S. Raymond (programmer, Open Source evangelist) is also a major SF fan, and he reviewed "The Cage" back in 1990. His conclusion: "The Cage is strong stuff -- and strongly recommended."

He stole her life she had built up from nothing and sold her to slavery thinking she was gone forever. Now she is back to destroy her worst enemy that caused her unbearable pain. He had stole her friends, house, money and everything she had every worked for and cared about, but he gave her something no one could ever take away inless she eased it. Revenge. Now Habiku Smoothtongue will feel the stress that he had given to Megan. He will pay....................

_The Cage_ is one of the best works of sf/fantasy written in the past two decades. It is a tragedy for the genre that there aren't more novels like this one being written these days. Like the rest of the Fifth Millennium series (Mr. Stirling, Ms. Meyer, Ms. Wehrstein, if you're reading this, won't you please think about writing a few more for us?), it is set in a brilliantly crafted future world which sets itself apart from the usual run of post-destruction-of-current- civilisation settings by not being a cheap copy of the Middle Ages with a few odd bits of anachronistic technology floating about. Instead, there are many carefully thought out cultures, complete with their own languages. Language, after all, is necessary to completely developing a culture, and, despite what some irritating people seem to think, there are many people (especially three thousand years in the future:-) who really don't speak twentieth century English. And, BTW, all the languages of the novel are perfectly pronounceable. People who don't like created languages (especially the beautiful developments of Stirling and Meyer) really shouldn't read SF. Or would such people perhaps prefer the atrocious attempts of certain past authors to represent the language of post-nuclear America with strange phonetic renderings of Southron speech? I'll take Brahvniki over the Duchy of Memfiz any day.

Without a doubt the best fantasy book I have ever read. "The Cage" is wonderfully exciting, sweeping the reader into a world of danger and adventure. The characters are deep and very human, each utterly alive and unique. The chilling tale will open passageways into your imagination...