After an evil wizard conquers Mandrigyn and kills or enslaves most of the men, the women of the city attempt to hire mercenaries to fight back. The mercenary captain refuses, so they kidnap him and force him to teach them how to fight so they can go and rescue the surviving men themselves. Meanwhile, the captain's second-in-command is out looking for him, but she experiences unforeseen delays...

I like Barbara Hambly's fantasy, generally speaking. At her best, she provides solidly entertaining storytelling and characters who feel like people rather than archetypes. She's also capable of writing a romance subplot that doesn't make me want to roll my eyes with annoyance, which is more than most fantasy writers ever manage. (Or most Hollywood writers. Or pretty much anybody for that matter.)

I'd say this particular volume is neither her best nor her worst. On the negative side, the pacing seems to me to be off, with events alternately passing too slowly or too quickly. The action isn't really terribly exciting. And the plot relies on a few awfully convenient coincidental circumstances. On the other hand, Hambly somehow manages to make the whole fighting-the-evil-wizard plot feel much less cliche than it really is. The characters develop in interesting ways. And there's a nice hint of a progressive sensibility to it that I think is usually lacking in this kind of fantasy. More often than not, what you end up with is the restoration of a status quo in a triumph of old-fashioned military values, and this story, I think, does something subtly and pleasantly different from that.

I already have the other two books in this series. I'll probably be reading them sometime soon. ( )

Captain Sun Wolf was taken from his band of mercenaries. When he wakes up, he finds himself kidnapped by the Ladies of Madrigyn. He trains them in battle to defeat the Wizard King and his army of undead. All the while, he learns that women can be tougher than a man. His second in command searches for him and finally aids him in the battle. They admit their love.
Why is it that best friends always fall for each other? These two have been comrades for years and yet, Starhawk remains silent about her love. Sun Wolf wants to keep his distance in the hopes of making Starhawk forever at his side. Lover's quarell is a big risk with friends but these two know each other more that anyone in their world. It took an army of undead, a group of ladies and a wizard king to make them admit love. ( )

Excellent fantasy novel in which a battle-scarred mercenary is captured by the women of a town whose men have all been enslaved by an evil sorcerer. By training them to go to war, he totally upsets the social fabric of the land, therefore assuring he will never be welcom there again. ( )