The Alchemist's Code (Venice Trilogy Series #2)

by Dave Duncan

Overview

It is said the legendary Maestro Nostradamus is able to glimpse the ever-changing future, but even he cannot see the danger that is about to envelop him when he is hired to find a foreign spy by Venice’s ruling Council of Ten. Especially since the only clues are the spy’s intercepted messages, encoded in a seemingly unbreakable cipher.
 
But Nostradamus soon detects evil influences working against him, and realizes the spy can only be caught by occult means. He turns to his able apprentice, the daring young swordsman Alfeo Zeno, whose unique talents may prove essential to unraveling the truth. But the truth may be the end of both master and apprentice…

“One of the best writers in the fantasy world today.”—Writers Write

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101208885
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/04/2008
Series:	An Alchemist Novel , #2
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	1,047,572
File size:	393 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Originally from Scotland, Dave Duncan has lived all his adult life in western Canada. He enjoyed a long career as a petroleum geologist before taking up writing. Since discovering that imaginary worlds are more satisfying than the real one, he has published more than 30 novels, mostly in the fantasy genre, but also in young adult, science fiction, and historical. Dave now lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

Editorial Reviews

Slightly overbalanced by dense, lush descriptions, Duncan's elaborate sequel to 2007's The Alchemist's Apprenticefinds footing in intricate plots and conspiracies. Able swordsman Alfeo Zeno, a brash young noble serving as Nostradamus's apprentice, provides a firsthand account of murder and romance in an alternate 16th-century Venice. This time the mystery centers around coded messages from an enemy agent, with Nostradamus and Zeno aiming first to crack the code and then to find the spy through a combination of magic and Holmesian investigation and deduction. Zeno's chatty narration breathes life into the city as he describes its political and social structure. The level of detail occasionally stifles the flow of Duncan's prose, an effect offset by the energy of the twisting plot. The only snag is the somewhat superfluous element of the fantastic, which adds little to this tale of interpersonal intrigue. (Mar.)

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Publishers Weekly

The prophet and clairvoyant Nostradamus occasionally accepts commissions to use his psychic talents to find runaway daughters and other tragedies of the nobles. When Venice's Council of Ten hires him to find a spy, however, he must call upon the skills of Alfeo Zeno, his noble-born apprentice and master swordsman, little knowing that he is sending Zeno to almost certain death. This sequel to The Alchemist's Apprentice continues Duncan's fantasy "biography" of the legendary prophet, focusing as well on his young apprentice, who represents the liveliness and richness of the Italian Renaissance. This should appeal to fans of historical fantasy and belongs in most libraries.
—Jackie Cassada

Library Journal