Michael Chabons Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier amp Clay sprang from an early passion for the derring-do and larger-than-life heroes of classic comic books Now once more mining the rich past Chabon summons the rollicking spirit of legendary adventuresfrom The Arabian Nights to Alexandre Dumas to Fritz Leibers Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser storiesin a wonderful new novel brimming with breathless action raucous humor cliff-hanging suspense and a cast of colorful characters worthy of Scheherazades most tantalizing talesTheyre an odd pair to be sure pale rail-thin black-clad Zelikman a moody itinerant physician fond of jaunty headgear and ex-soldier Amram a gray-haired giant of a man as quick with a razor-tongued witticism as he is with a sharpened battle-ax Brothers under the skin comrades in arms they make their rootless way through the Caucasus Mountains circa AD living as they please and surviving however they canas blades and thieves for hire and as practiced bamboozlers cheerfully separating the gullible from their money No strangers to tight scrapes and close shaves theyve left many a fist shaking in their dust tasted their share of enemy steel and made good any number of hasty exits under hostile circumstancesNone of which has necessarily prepared them to be dragooned into service as escorts and defenders to a prince of the Khazar Empire Usurped by his brutal uncle the callow and decidedly ill-tempered young royal burns to reclaim his rightful throne But doing so will demand wicked cunning outrageous daring and foolhardy bravado not to mention an army Zelikman and Amram can at least supply the former But are these gentlemen of the road prepared to become generals in a full-scale revolution The only certainty is that getting therealong a path paved with warriors and whores evil emperors and extraordinary elephants secrets swordplay and such stuff as the grandest adventures are made ofwill be much more than half the funFrom the Hardcover edition.
