Friends of mine used to share a plywood palace on the outskirts of town and called it the "Keep on the Borderlands". I am given to understand that the starter adventure for D&D was called this; I don't see any reference to D&D or on the copyright page here, but who knows where Wizards of the Coast, Inc., mined their ore?
People talk of the .com rage as a phoenix, a comet; but WoTC was even more sudden and surprising in both its rise and its fall.
Anyhow. This particular novel, judging by its first sixty pages, has no good parts that aren't done better by , particularly in The Witches of Wenshar &ff. That also has a failing empire, monster-troubled wastes, comrades in arms drawn from distant lands, and a blonde icy swordswoman, all at least as convincing. The swordswoman in Hambly is a lot more convincing; her qualms and weaknesses are more neatly drawn from her background, and she doesn't whimper about them to her men-at-arms, which really I don't find likely. I've just reread the first three Aubrey-Maturin novels, so have just seen really well-done examples of commanders hiding or failing to hide their weaknesses from the crew.
ISBN: 0786918810
So wrote clew in SF&F. | TrackBack