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After long years of struggle, the fight for acceptance and equality is over. The mutant clans have fit themselves and their extraordinary talents into the mainstream of human society. But when peculiar phenomena begin in the New Mexican desert – “miracle” cures, supernatural rescues – the issue of mutancy rises once more to the forefront of human affairs. At the center of the conflict are three strong and vastly different personalities, three men who will guide the tides of human destiny – and ultimately the tides of evolutionary destiny as well:

Joachim Metzger – Leader of the mutant clans, desperate to keep the hard-won peace and prosperity his people have finally achieved.

Julian Akimura – The brilliant therapist who banished his twin brother, Rick, in the hopes of saving humanity from his unsurpassed mutant talents.

Rick Akimura – The long-sought supermutant, the promise of whose power has been the building force of mutant society for centuries – and whose coming is nothing that anyone could have foretold.

The Whims of Destiny

Jorian, the one-time unbeheaded king, was now safely retired from a long career of getting into trouble. But his younger brother Kerin lacked such wisdom. The outraged father of Adeliza had caught him in compromising circumstances with the maiden. So Kerin had to be sent at once on a mission by sea to the Far East.

But Kerin’s talent for trouble was not to be denied. First came Belinka, a sprite sent by Adeliza to bring him back safe for her. The ship captain believed Kerin was seducing his mistress. Though innocent this time, Kerin left hastily in a rowboat. That got him to a hermit-wizard’s island – and a voyage on a pirate ship, where the kidnapped princess Nogiri was held captive. Kerin was unable to save her – until he gained the help of the hermit-wizard, who then betrayed him by seizing the girl and fleeing with her to be used as a human sacrifice.

From then on, events became hectic as Kerin managed to save Nogiri again, helped by a wizard who was the enemy of the first one. Belinka was much distressed by what happened then between Kerin and Nogiri – with cause – as they set out again, this time to the Emperor of the Farthest East.

There Kerin discovered more magic, and the Emperor learned that no man should be absentminded when using a powerful spell. But it was later that Kerin discovered the limitations of roller skates.

‘You will be a King, and Great King, and then you will Die, and you may not avoid that destiny, try as you may¿’

Two-thirds god, one-third human, Gilgamesh is a giant among men and a formidable warrior, even as a boy. When his father the king of Rurk dies, Gilgamesh is forced into exile by the newly crowned Dumuzi, jealous of his prowess and fearful of his intentions.

In neighbouring Kis his fighting skills are honed to perfection, and when in time Dumuzi dies, Gilgamesh returns to be proclaimed king by the wily priestess Inanna, goddess of beauty. Together they rule Uruk, and prosperity descends upon the land.

However, the kingship is not enough to satisfy Gilgamesh’s gargantuan appetite for adventure, and his boredom is only relieved by the coming of Enkidu, a strange wild man who proves the king’s equal in combat. The two become closer than brothers, but when Gilgamesh incurs the wrath of Inanna, the gods conspire to tear them apart, and for Gilgamesh all that remains is his search for immortality.

In retelling the legend of the great Sumerian monarch, Robert Silverberg brings all his superb storytelling powers to a mesmerising tale of ambition, power and obsession, against the background of an ancient and fearsome world.

His father had been slain in a heinous ambush; his grandfather, in an act of brotherly murder. His blood was of the Skjoldungs . . . and even the most unremarkable of seers knew his life would be as sweeping as it was savage.

From the roiling midnight years before his birth, to the unshakable love and twisted fates that brought him to the throne of his ravaged Icelandic kingdom, Hrolf Kraki’s magnificent saga is the story of an age of runes and ravishments, of blades and omens . . . and of a man who ruled and was ruled by an inescapable destiny.