Princes of Sandastre

BOOK ONE OF THE PERILOUS QUEST FOR LYONESSE

In the year of Our Lord 1403, as England smoulders with suppressed rebellion, young Simon Branthwaite sets sail across the Atlantic in search of the lost realm of Lyonesse. His quest will take him to Rockall, a land wreathed in legend; a land of weird beasts and wondrous happenings, of great beauties and terrible dangers.

And there begin adventures stranger than the wildest of Simon's imaginings; adventures that will change the course of his life and reshape that land for ever...

PRINCES OF SANDASTRE is the first in Anthony Swithin's fantastical Lyonesse sequence, edited by Mark Sebanc.

“Rockall is one of the most significant achievements in the history of fantasy worldbuilding, and William Sarjeant was a true Renaissance Man. It's wonderful to see his vast creation being given new life, and being brought to new audiences”

Rockall is one of the most significant achievements in the history of fantasy worldbuilding, and William Sarjeant was a true Renaissance Man. It's wonderful to see his vast creation being given new life, and being brought to new audiences Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of The Oppenheimer Alternative
William Sarjeant's Rockall series is an impressive feat of world-building and story-telling. Mark Sebanc's thoughtful re-framing of these works makes them more accessible to a new generation of readers. I welcome this well-deserved re-emergence of Sarjeant's remarkable work Douglas A. Anderson, editor of The Annotated Hobbit

Antony Swithin (Author)

Antony Swithin (1935-2002)

William Antony Swithin ("Bill") Sarjeant (1935-2002) was born in Sheffield, England. An only child and blessed with a vivid imaginative life nourished not only by science but by the fiction of writers like Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and T.H. White, he became a professor of geology and taught at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada for some thirty years, until his death. Besides being a renowned paleontologist and historian of geology, he was also a naturalist, novelist, bibliophile, local historian, folksinger, and Sherlockian scholar- in other words, a brilliant Renaissance man, a polymath of rare and astonishing versatility.

One of his grand projects was The Perilous Quest for Lyonesse, an ambitious 12-novel cycle set in the alternative world of Rockall, an island continent that he construed as the legendary Atlantis, albeit as a place existing in another dimension. Situated northwest of the British Isles in the Atlantic Ocean and named after a tiny islet only 20 metres in size, it had sparked his fertile imagination as a child and held an enduring fascination for him. "Rockall," he once remarked, "is for me a lifetime quest and a continuing, very beguiling dream which I delight in sharing with my readers." The first four books of Sarjeant's series were published under his pen-name, Antony Swithin, in the 1990s, but then further progress on the series was forestalled by his untimely death. Sarjeant's richly conceived project has been resurrected under the editorship of Canadian novelist and independent scholar, Mark Sebanc.

Mark Sebanc (Author)

Mark Sebanc (1953- )

Mark Sebanc lives deep in the rural hinterland of Ontario near Algonquin Park, Canada's famed wilderness area with his Costa Rican wife. Trained as a classicist, with a B.A. and M.A. in Latin and Greek from the University of Toronto, he has worked as an editor and translator of numerous scholarly works. His editorial credits include, for example, The Flame Imperishable, Jonathan McIntosh's landmark work on the metaphysical underpinnings of Tolkien's legendarium. He is also the originating co-author of The Stoneholding and Darkling Fields of Arvon, the first two books of the Legacy of the Stone Harp epic fantasy series. Both are published by Baen as part of a project expected to run to five titles. Most recently, he was given the commission by the Estate to edit and overhaul extensively Sarjeant's monumental 12 novel Perilous Quest for Lyonesse epic historical fantasy series.

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BOOK ONE OF THE PERILOUS QUEST FOR LYONESSEIn the year of Our Lord 1403, as England smoulders with suppressed rebellion, young Simon Branthwaite sets sail across the Atlantic in search of the lost realm of Lyonesse. His quest will take him to Rockall, a land wreathed in legend; a land of weird beasts and wondrous happenings, of great beauties and terrible dangers.And there begin adventures stranger than the wildest of Simon's imaginings; adventures that will change the course of his life and reshape that land for ever... PRINCES OF SANDASTRE is the first in Anthony Swithin's fantastical Lyonesse sequence, edited by Mark Sebanc.

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