Meredith Ann Pierce's Darkangel Trilogy consists of these three books: The Darkangel A Gathering of Gargoyles The Pearl of the Soul of the World
They read like myths set on a terraformed world among bioengineered people and lifeforms. The darkangel himself is a vampyre...these books are very different,a mixture of science fiction, fantasy, and myth and I thought they were quite enjoyable...
Quote:They had been searching the mountain for a rare nectar - the mistress, Eoduin, carelessly scoffing at old tales of the evil creatures they might encounter...the slave, Aeriel apprehensive, and rightly so. For a darkangel did swoop from the sky, and he stole the beautiful Eoduin away... The settlers who first attempted to colonize the moon lived in domed cities during the terraforming process. They populated the lunar surface with bioengineered life, most quite practical in design, right down to their reproductive capability; others, oddly whimsical - dwarves, witches, and even vampyres, or darkangels. But the taming of the moon was never completed. War summoned the humans back to earth, and in the wake of that devastation there was no one left to return to the colony. So those like Aeriel and Eoduin inherited a strange mixed legacy of human ideals and myths made real. Irrylath, the darkangel who'd taken Eiduin, had been born human, like the others of his kind. But he was bound to steal the soul of a maiden once every year for fourteen years - a gift for the witch mother who'd raised him. Only then would he lose all trace of his humanity, and weakness. Loyal Aeriel understood nothing of the darkangel's purpose, yet knowing would not have stopped her. She vowed to rescue her friend and mistress - and thus placed herself in Irrylath's power. He took her to his cold, lonely castle to serve Eoduin and his twelve other brides - tormented, soulless wraiths who had once been flash-and-blood women. Unlike them, Aeriel had the freedom of the castle and its grounds - liberty that enabled her to befriend the darkangel's gargoyle guards, and an odd being named Talb, who lived in the caves beneath the castle. And Talb revealed to her a wealth of knowledge and lore - tales of the Ancients who'd transformed this once barren, airless place into a land that could sustain life...and prophecies which, if fulfilled, might free her people from the darkangels forever. Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell ****Tavern Wench of DOGMA, the Defenders of George Martin's Art****<i>Edited by: Duchess of Malfi at: 6/6/03 6:30 pm </i>
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