Our hero, the gallant and noble Lord Wizard Matthew Mantrell, engaged to Queen Alisande has just made a huge mistake. He's sworn to God that he will remove the foul sorcerer Gorgogrosso from his tyrannical rule of the neighboring kingdom of Ibile or he'll die in the attempt. In his normal world, his statement would have been boastful but harmless. In this world, though, his careless oath to God has bound him to the quest and he is forced to enter the deadly kingdom and do his best to overthrow the usurper. Along the way he meets some new friends (Narlh, Yverne, and Fadecourt) and reunites with some old ones (Stegoman, Sir Guy, and Max) all the while finding out that he's his own worst enemy.

I didn't care of this one quite as much as the first in the series. And I've got a bad feeling... if Stasheff continues to add three or so major characters to each book, by the time we hit book number six or so, Matt will have entourage of 20 to 30 each time he steps out the front door. We also get some imports from other mythology - Robin Hood, Puck and the Kingdom of Ys make an appearance. This also concerns me regarding the long-term viability of the series. I have to give Stasheff credit, though, in the Warlock series he was able to keep things together for a solid 10-12 books without resorting to terrible choices. So while I'm concerned, I still have hope.

In this book, I was more able to identify Stasheff's puns and cultural/historical/mythological references. In some cases, I was able to tell a particular thing WAS a references to something without quite knowing what it was a reference to. But they were done with some subtlety - a far more palatable presentation than Piers Anthony... ( )