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First came the Collapse, when the fossil fuels ran out and the world fell into a new dark age. Then, at the height of all the chaos, the legendary Merlin awoke from his long slumber and set the world on a path to using magic as the new energy base. Some fifty years later, society is based on magic use and Wyrdrune, a young New York City warlock kicked out of school for casting spells without a license, reads about an auction of artifacts unearthed in the Euphrates Valley. Among the items up show more for auction are some enchanted runestones of "unknown properties." Hoping for a score, Wyrdrune plots to steal them. But at the same time, a streetwise cat burglar known as Kira also tries to steal the stones and the two barely manage to escape together with the loot. Neither of them has much use for the other, but all they have to do is fence the stones and split the take. The only problem is, the runestones won't stay fenced. They keep magically returning to the thieves.Now, hunted by the authorities, by thugs employed by dealers in stolen goods who think the pair have cheated them, and by a mysterious international hitman known only by the name of Morpheus, the thieves have only one place left to run -- the home of Wyrdrune's old professor, Merlin, who is the first to realize that the runestones are a key to an immensely powerful and dangerous spell dating back before the dawn of human civilization. And as if that were not frightening enough, the runestones are alive.... show lessTags
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Member Reviews
[Update 3/8/16: Another reading funk...lots of work reading, plus two monster books in progress (The Complete Sherlock Holmes, and Lisa Randall's Warped Passages), as well as a big ADD Tom Peters work Re-Imagine, recovering from a trip to Italy...I look to old standbys like this to break it. Yes, even more dated. But yes, still quite fun. Enough that I'll keep going, again.]
As I read and re-read traditional science fiction lately, I find that many of the classic authors don't grab me like when I was an adolescent. Niven/Pournelle and Chalker still can, as does Herbert (except the many Dune books after Dune Messiah), but I'm discovering a lack of imagination in straight up sci-fi that is hard to overcome with just space trappings.
Simon show more Hawke writes light, fun and imaginative fantasy. The Time Wars series does weave in sci-fi elements, but it is still fantasy. The Wizard of 4th Street is a welcome diversion from the plodding of Asimov (I'm still working my goal of reading all of his Foundation universe this calendar year...on Foundation's Edge right now.) Goofy, dated, but still fun. show less
As I read and re-read traditional science fiction lately, I find that many of the classic authors don't grab me like when I was an adolescent. Niven/Pournelle and Chalker still can, as does Herbert (except the many Dune books after Dune Messiah), but I'm discovering a lack of imagination in straight up sci-fi that is hard to overcome with just space trappings.
Simon show more Hawke writes light, fun and imaginative fantasy. The Time Wars series does weave in sci-fi elements, but it is still fantasy. The Wizard of 4th Street is a welcome diversion from the plodding of Asimov (I'm still working my goal of reading all of his Foundation universe this calendar year...on Foundation's Edge right now.) Goofy, dated, but still fun. show less
Ok, maybe 3.5 stars. It started out as light fun, but then hit its stride about 2/3 through and got more intense and thought-provoking. I do own more (most?) of the series, so I'll keep going for a while.
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Author Information
77+ Works 8,084 Members
Some Editions
Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Wizard of 4th Street
- Original publication date
- 1987-10
- People/Characters
- Sheik Rashid Ilderim Al'Hassan; Merlin Ambrosius; Apollonius (an AI); Archimedes the A.I.; Allan Cleary (Detective Sergeant); Fats Greenberg (a fence) (show all 13); Kira; Mordred (as Modred, Michael Cornwall, Morpheus); Morgana (Fay Morgan); Dominic Riguzzo (Detective Lieutenant); Porfirio Rozetti (Pony); Mustafa Sharif; Wyrdrune (Melvin Karpinsky)
- Important places
- USA; New York, USA; New York, New York, USA
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 284
- Popularity
- 112,910
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.47)
- Languages
- English, German
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 2
