The Gifts of Asti [short story]

Well...a rather silly short story, very much in the Norton mold. Magic, or lost science, as a religion; barbarians at the gate, alien ally, man from the past, long-lost colony, and a potential romance - all stuffed into 28 pages, with little exploration of who or why, just events piling on events. It ends just as they need to begin interacting as people and not symbols (and I wonder what he thinks of her "crown"...). Not terrible, but there's not much there.

[2009-05-16] Short story originally published under the "Andrew North" pseudonym, now out of copyright. Nice little short about the last priestess of a god with both genuine power and an implied policy of non-interference. As invaders take the city below, the priestess and her non-human colleague take the back door out of the mountain temple, and find themselves on a strange path to a strange place of safety.

With this being a short story, the world-building isn't to the same depth as in one of the novels, but Norton was adept at implying things with a few words. This has a number of Norton's favourite themes presented in miniature, and is well worth a read if you're a fan.

The text is available from Project Gutenberg and mirrors. The show more Gutenberg text is also available as a public domain audiobook at the LibriVox project, in both mp3 format and Ogg Vorbis format. The audiobook is about 41 minutes long and read by Mark Nelson. (You can find both the text and the Ogg Vorbis file mirrored at Wikisource.) I listened to the first ten minutes or so, and thought that it was an enjoyable performance.

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As the last surviving member of her conquered kingdom 0and the last priestess of Asti, Varta sets out across her world to find a new life only to discover the origins of her people.

A quick, easy read and a solid story. Just nothing that got me excited about the story or the characters.

I was hoping that this would be the pre-cursor to a series. I want to know more!