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Overview: Tanya Huff lives and writes in rural Ontario with her partner Fiona Patton. She has a degree in Radio and Television Arts from Ryerson University. She’s written many novels, a Ravensloft book for TSR, and has three collections of short stories. One of these, her Blood Books series, featuring detective Vicki Nelson, was adapted for television under the title Blood Ties.
Several of her works have been nominated for the Aurora Award. She was on the jury for the 2000 Philip K. Dick Award. For eight years (1984-1992) she worked at Bakka, North America’s oldest SF bookstore, managing it for part of that time. She writes the occassional book review for Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper, not minding the fact it’s only occassional because she just so damned pleased they’re reviewing genre books at all. During 2000, she wrote regular columns for the Toronto magazine, Realms.
Genre: Fiction > Sci-Fi/Fantasy
1. Sing the Four Quarters
The Bards of Shkoder hold the country together. They, and the elemental spirits they Sing – earth, air, fire, and water – bring the news of the sea to the mountains, news of the mountains to the plains. They give their people, from peasant to king, a song in common.
Annice is a rare talent, able to Sing all four quarters, but her brother, the newly enthroned King Theron, sees her request to study at the Bardic Hall as a betrayal. To his surprise, Annice accepts his conditions, renouncing her royal blood and swearing to remain childless so as not to jeopardize the line of succession. She walks away from political responsibilities, royal privilege and her family.
Ten years later, Annice has become the Princess Bard and her real life is about to become the exact opposite of the overwrought ballad her fellow students at the Bardic Hall wrote about her. Now, she’s on the run from the Royal Guards with the Duc of Ohrid, the father of her unborn child, both of them guilty of treason – one of them unjustly accused. To save the Duc’s life, they’ll have to cross the country, manage to keep from strangling each other, and defeat an enemy too damaged for even a Bard’s song to reach.
2. Fifth Quarter
THE SONG OF DEATH-
Bannon and Vree, brother and sister, they are assassins of the highest caliber who have long plied their trade for the Havalkeen army. But all their skill and experience cannot save them from a magic-sprung trap that will see the two forced to share one body when the very man they’ve been sent to assassinate steals Bannon’s body for himself. How long brother and sister can coexist in one body neither can guess. And so they set out to catch and defeat this foe who has already bested them once.
But when Bannon and Vree confront this master of a magic beyond their comprehension, he offers them a terrible choice – to continue their new dual existence forever, or to betray the Empire they have served all their lives. For it is not control of Bannon’s body which is Gyhard’s true goal but rather the body – and with it the identity and power – of the Imperial Prince!
3. No Quarter
Having offered sanctuary to the soul of the man who stole her brother’s body, Vree heads north to Shkoder with two kigh struggling to co-exist in a single body. Although the odds aren’t in their favour, there’s a chance, a small chance, the Bards can find Gyhard a body of his own without anyone else having to die. But Vree was an assassin train to kill on command, Gyhard has chosen to kill again and again on a quest for immortality, and the Bards aren’t certain which of them is the more dangerous. No one, from the guard on the Citadel gate to the King himself, wants them anywhere near the single Healer who can Sing the Fifth Kigh.
No one except Magda, the Healer, whose heritage has taught her that things are not always as they seem.
In the end, Bardic suspicion becomes the least of Vree’s problems. The dead walk in the mountains of Shkoder, kigh confined in rotting corpses, and Gyhard’s past returned to haunt them. Hunted by the Bards and the Healer’s family, Vree, Gyhard and Magda head for the mountains to try and Sing Gyhard’s past to rest. To make matter’s worse, Vree’s brother has yet to forgive her for saving Gyhard’s life and is determined to bring Gyhard — and therefore Vree — back to the Empire to pay the price for treason.
4. The Quartered Sea
Benedikt Sings the most powerful water in the kingdom, but water is the only Quarter Benedikt can sing, which isolates him from the Bardic Captain and his fellow Bards. When the Queen of Shkoder outfits a voyage to discover the lands across the sea against the Bardic Captain’s objections, Benedikt is the only Bard willing to brave the Captain’s wrath and volunteer.
In uncharted waters, a storm strikes and the kigh of the deep seas rise. All of Benedikt’s skill is unable to save ship or crew. Shipwrecked in an unfamiliar country and unable to send word to Shkoder of the ship’s fate, Benedikt must play the part he’s been given: a pawn in the game of politics and religion between brother and sister — who both intend to use his Song to their advantage.
As the Queen waits for word, the kigh of the deep seas rise again…
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