Partial Timeline for the 11 Kingdoms
| This is a
basic timeline, describing which books cover which years. ** Deryni Magic - a grimoire
of Deryni Magics and their Orders |
1100:
Deryni Archives, Bethane |
Information Below was taken from Lisa's Katherine Kurtz
Page |
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| Camber of Culdi With the start of the Camber trilogy, we move more than 200 years into the past, to get a first-hand look at Camber MacRorie, his children, and Prince Cinhil Haldane, as the Festillic Interregnum is ending. Cinhil, who has been hidden in a monastery for the last 20 years, is the sole survivor of the Festillic coup almost ninety years before -- or rather, he is the only grandchild of the sole survivor. Rhys Thuryn and Joram MacRorie are charged by the dying grandfather to find and restore his grandson to the throne, toppling the current Festillic King, Imre. Political intrigue runs as rampant in this novel as in any other by Kurtz, and although the end is a somewhat foregone conclusion, the process of getting there keeps the reader in thrall till the final line.
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| Saint Camber With this novel, we move almost a year after Cinhil's defeat of Imre and his subsequent coronation, to a time when Cinhil's twin sons are only a few months old and he is facing invasion from Torenth, which supports the claim of the Festils (now in the person of Ariella, Imre's sister, and their bastard son Mark) to the Gwynedd throne. The first half of the book deals with the war with Torenth, but the latter takes some surprising twists and turns showing us the immediate aftermath -- including the canonization of Camber of Culdi.
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| Camber the Heretic In this final book of the Camber trilogy, we now see Cinhil, thirteen years after his coronation, dying of a disease which, though never named, is probably tuberculosis. Before he dies, though, he must pass on the Haldane legacy to his sons -- the ability to wield powers almost, though not exactly, like those of the Deryni -- for avoidance of this task would leave his sons helpless. The political connivance of corrupt regents moves the Deryni race into an ever-darker age as the novel progresses and concludes.
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| The Harrowing of
Gwynedd This first book of the Heirs of Saint Camber trilogy picks up within months of where Camber the Heretic leaves off, painting an ever-grimmer picture of the political and religious situation within Gwynedd. Corrupt, self-serving regents now wield the power of the Crown entirely for their own benefit, even stooping to such measures as drugging and threatening thirteen-year-old King Alroy, the minor monarch. Javan, Alroy's twin, begins to emerge as a very important person as this novel progresses, and we see just how corrupt the regents have become in several very graphic scenes, including a subtle but compelling church service establishing a new monastic Order whose only thinly veiled mission is to seek out and kill Deryni -- the Ordo Custodem Fidei.
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| King Javan's Year King Alroy is dying, and summons Javan from the monastery where, like his father twenty years ago, he has taken refuge. Although the regents had intended to pass over Javan for his younger brother Rhys Michael (who is much more controllable than the intelligent and clever Javan), Javan takes his throne and holds it, sometimes at a terrible price. We also get a glimpse of Mark of Festil, now age seventeen, at Javan's coronation. As always, political intrigue runs through the novel as a steady backbeat, creating problems and pitfalls for Javan and his associates.
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| The Bastard Prince Rhys Michael, six years on the throne, is king in name only -- his wife, four-year-old son Owain, and unborn baby are held hostage to the regents' avarice and greed. But he is determined not to leave young Owain a shackled crown, and through careful connivance, prayer, and a great deal of luck, makes the attempt to throw off the yoke of the regents and make a bid for the freedom of his House. A confrontation with Torenth and the introduction of new characters from the borderlands near Eastmarch and Kheldour provide the necessary mechanisms to move the plot along.
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| Deryni Rising Good King Brion Haldane is dead. His son and sole heir, Kelson, is not quite fourteen, the age of majority in Gwynedd. Brion has left his son a legacy of magic, which Kelson must have if he is to defend his throne against the sorceress Charissa, who claims a long-dead right to it. However, since this magic is regarded as evil both by the Church and by most common folk, Kelson must tread a fine line between the need to avoid being censured and the need to keep his throne, and his trusted advisers Morgan and Duncan, from harm.
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| Deryni Checkmate Gwynedd is facing war with far Torenth and its King, Wencit, in the spring after Kelson's coronation. But the Church in Gwynedd is facing schism over a proposed Interdict of Corwyn, Morgan's duchy, and there is also a self-appointed rebel leader calling for civil war. With war on three fronts facing him, Kelson manages a few bittersweet moments of calm before the storm by attending the impending wedding of Morgan's younger sister to Duncan's older brother, but the calm does not last for long.
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| High Deryni War is upon Gwynedd, from two fronts: internal, led by Warin de Grey and the conservative Archbishop Loris, and external, led by Wencit of Torenth and one of Kelson's own traitor earls. Plots within plots, political intrigue, and the possibility of a love interest for up-until-now devoted-bachelor Morgan create a tightly woven story where no event is certain and no one's fate is predetermined.
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| The Bishop's Heir Put together a captive archbishop with dreams of vengeance against the upstart young king who deprived him of his position, a soi-disant pretender princess who longs to regain the throne of her ancestors, and a very recently dead bishop, and you have the seed for a story that stuns. Bishop Carsten of Meara's death opens up the seat for a new Mearan bishop, and the Mearan princess Caitrin wants her nephew Judhael to be that bishop. The eventual appointment of a different man creates new problems for the now seventeen-year-old Kelson, as the Mearan Pretender and her family spirit ex-Archbishop Loris out of his prison and prepare for a new civil war with Gwynedd and an attempt to win back the coronet their ancestor gave away.
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| The King's Justice It is war again in Gwynedd -- the brutal reality of civil war. The Mearan Pretender, with ex-Archbishop Loris, her husband, and her son, stages guerilla defense against the Gwynedd Grand Army during the heat of summer. Intrigue figures strongly in this tale as well, as Torenth attempts to take advantage of the chaos in Gwynedd and stages another invasion attempt -- but this one much more subtly than that of three years before. This book will keep the reader on the edge of his seat, and probably wiping sweat from his brow in sympathy with the characters, and the conclusion is a shocker.
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| The Quest for
Saint Camber The war is over -- again. The kingdom has settled back into a routine, and in the intervening months, Kelson, his blood-brother Dhugal, and his cousin Conall have all become eligible for knighthood. Their quest for the elusive Saint Camber, however, goes sadly awry during a storm on a high mountain, and the kingdom falls into mourning for their beloved King and his blood-brother. Conall, the eldest son of Kelson's uncle, is quick to take advantage of his new position as heir, and... well, any more and it would be spoiled. Read the book. The intrigue just never stops.
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| Deryni Magic Not precisely a novel, this book is more a grimoire -- a book of magic. Kurtz goes into great detail about ritual and non-ritual magic, occasionally interspersing the treatise with narrative glimpses of Healers in training (personified by Dom Kilian, a Healer at the time of Camber), as well as bits and pieces from the novels which amplify and expand on the point at hand. A well-written book which answers many questions raised by the magic we see throughout the novels.
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| The Deryni Archives This is, to date, the only collection of short stories set in the Deryni universe which has seen print. In each story a facet of a character or characters that we have already come to care about is polished and held up to the light. We discover new things about most of the main characters of Kurtz' universe, and even a few relatively minor ones who edged their way into one story or another. This book also contains the original draft of Deryni Rising, at its inception titled "Lords of Sorandor". Although it is not the novel, it is interesting to see which bits of it survived and which did not in the final manuscript. Finally, this book contains several appendices and also a comprehensive timeline of events both explicitly mentioned and not in the novels. Definitely a keeper. |
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