The Cyborg and the Sorcerers

Slant is a cyborg, a weapon created by Old Earth to find Old Earth's enemies and kill them. However, Old Earth lost the war, and there is no one left alive to release Slant from his computer enforced mission. And when he arrives at an enemy world that has been bombed back into the Dark Ages during the war, his computer is surprised to find out that on this world magic actually works. But, Slant is tired of fighting an already lost war, and wants to quit - but if he does, his computer controller will terminate him but good. What can Slant to do win his freedom on this crazy world? It's magic versus high-tech, and may the best man...or machine, win! For many years now, I have been a great fan of Lawrence Watt-Evans' wonderful series - Ethshar, Lords of Dus and Worlds of Shadow. Having finished all of those books currently available, I have moved on to his War Surplus series. This book is another great read; one that shows off the author's writing ability. I loved the way that the author combined magic and high-tech to make an exciting and thoroughly believable story. This is another great Lawrence Watt-Evans book, and I look forward to reading the other book in the series (OK, it's a series of two). Lawrence Watt-Evans is a great author, and this book is another shining example of his abilities. I highly recommend this book!

All of Lawrence Watt-Evans books are wonderful. Please print these in hardcover though!!! I hope somebody is listening out there.

What a great story this is! I have read and re-read this book many times and each time I come back to it...it's still enjoyable how Watt-Evans has fashioned the world of Dest that was subjected to the nuclear fire of Old Earth in the war where her colonies tried to break away and did. Now, Earth is nothing but a cinder after the D-Series destroyed her...but her vengeance is still wreaking havoc on her descendants in the form of the Independent Reconaissance Unit cyborg spaceships that are still traveling the galaxy in search of inhabited worlds to determine if they're still loyal to a burnt-out cinder. In this macrocosm, Slant is at war with his computer-controlled spaceship, who will kill him at the slightest sign of disloyalty. Check it out. A very well done book, oh, and they come across magic, which the computer controlling the IRU spaceship thinks is enemy weapons activity and wants to investigate. It can take over Slant through the connection in the back of his head, and does.

This was one of my very first fantasy books to read, therefore my opinion is probably biased. I recently hunted down the book again from a used books dealer to read the story again and I still enjoyed it immensely. In his earlier novels, Lawrence tends to take seemingly improbable or heterogeneous elements and make them work extremely cohesively. Cyborg meets Sorcery?? For those that are temped to balk....just read the story. It's a short read, but very entertaining filled with colorful characters and creative dialogue. What can I say... this will always be a classic novel for me.

It is sad that this book is out of print. There are so few good books that are not three to ten books long. If you have the luck to come acrossed this book, buy it! It is a very good story. A very good read.