The Last Rune Series
                             By
                        Mark Anthony

                  Reviewed by David Froude

This is an author I came across by accident while browsing through
the bookshelves in a local charity shop.  Once I started reading,
I was hooked, drawn in and landed.  I subsequently discovered that
a further three volumes had been published and a fifth and sixth
volumes would be published in 2003 and 2004.

The series is saga of magic, adventure, courage and fate on
parallel worlds.  The old age struggle between good and evil.

The Last Rune 1: Beyond the Pale

On a world called Eldh, an ancient gate bound by runes is
weakening and an evil force that has been imprisoned for more than
a thousand years is stirring and it's effects are spilling over
into Earth.

Beyond the Pale is a novel about people drawn from our world into
another and it begins typically enough with the two main
characters feeling out of place and then strange things begin
happen around them.

Travis Wilder is rootless saloonkeeper in a small Colorado
mountain town. Grace Beckett is a doctor in a Denver hospital. The
two of them do not meet until well into this first volume, so the
reader gets to know them individually before they meet.

In the Colorado town of Castle City on Earth strange things are
happening.  Unknown symbols are appearing on storefronts and
ancient legends are coming to life.  Travis is handed an ornate
iron box and a mysterious mission. In Denver doctor Grace Becket
sees dead men walk and witnesses a terrifying and inhuman scene of
carnage. Destiny draws Travis and Grace to the otherworld of Eldh.

Eldh is a land of gods and monsters, myths and rune-craft,
conspiracy and blood.  It is a world that has secretly coexisted
beside our Earth for millennia. The boundary between two worlds is
crumbling in the face of a monstrous evil. Travis and Grace need
to save this strange land in order to safeguard their own world.

Pick up this book and you won't put it down until you've finished.

The Last Rune 2: The Keep of Fire

Travis Wilder has returned to Earth from the world of Eldh, hoping
to settle back into his normal tedium in the mountains of
Colorado.  However this is not to be.  He finds himself stalked by
two shadowy organizations, each aware of his incredible journey to
Eldh, and each determined to exploit it, no matter what the cost
is to Travis or Eldh.  Meanwhile, a terrifying new plague is
spreading like wildfire, a disease with no cure.  When the disease
strikes his closest friend, Travis is drawn back to Eldh, where
the same epidemic, known as the Burning Plague, is wreaking
another kind of havoc. There, in a realm of gods and monsters,
myths and rune craft, Travis and his former companion from Earth,
Grace Beckett who stayed on Eldh, must solve the riddle of the
plague. Where did it come from, what is its purpose and how can it
be stopped before it completely destroys the two coexisting worlds
of ancient Eldh and modern Earth.

The Last Rune 3: The Dark Remains

Travis Wilder and Grace Beckett have returned to modern Earth to
get medical help for their severely wounded friend Beltan, a
knight from the world of Eldh.  As Beltan lies unconscious in a
Denver hospital, a shadowy organisation plots to kidnap him for
use in cruel experiments. Sinister forces of dark magic cross the
boundary from Eldh to Earth in a murderous search for Travis and
Grace.  Meanwhile, in Eldh itself, a young baroness, her witch
companion, and their mortal and immortal friends journey to a
dying city to confront a nameless evil that has begun to
annihilate the gods.

Travis and Grace have to save themselves and Beltan and journey
back to Eldh.  Only on Eldh in can they hope to defeat a demonic
enemy that can shatter time, devour space, and turn existence into
nothingness.

The Last Rune 4: Blood of Mystery

A twist of time while escaping in their last adventure has left
Rune-breaker Travis Wilder and three of his Eldh friends stranded
in a lawless Colorado mining town in 1880's Earth.  As they search
for a way back to their own time, Grace Beckett, in present-day
Eldh, journeys to a frozen kingdom where she learns of her own
background and of her own terrifying destiny to oppose the Pale
King and his monstrous army in the coming cataclysmic battle that
will decide Eldh's future forever.

If the Pale King emerges victorious, his master Mohg, the dread
Lord of Nightfall, will return from exile, break the First Rune,
and remake Eldh in his own dark image. Earth, Eldh's sister world,
will then suffer a similar fate.  Travis needs to find a way to
return to Eldh in time to align his calling as Rune-breaker with
Grace's destiny as Blade-mender if there is any hope to defeat an
ancient evil enemy.

This volume links back to the happenings in Beyond the Pale.

Finally

I am enjoying this series. The characters are complex, distinctive
and plentiful. Since they are constantly travelling, the world of
Eldh is being fully explored.

Eldh is interesting, its magic intriguing, and its politics
complex.

Both Grace and Travis are believable heroes with each carrying a
trauma from their past which influences them as the person they
represent.  Both are able to find the courage to struggle through
the problems they encounter on Eldh and Earth.

I recommend reading the series in sequence as each book builds on
the previous one. If read out of sequence it will not have the
same impact, as both the characters and the world of Eldh are
evolving as the series goes on.

5 August 2002















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