“Pure swashbuckling fun with a touch of bawdiness.”—P. Schuyler Miller, reviewer for Astounding Science Fiction and Analog.
“A remarkable job.”— Galaxy Science Fiction magazine
Celebrated author L. Sprague de Camp recaptures our imaginations with this accounting of the relationship between of God and Man in a tale that critic Groff Conklin says is “…in the Conan tradition in every sense of the word, though better written.”
When the Gods of the West assemble to talk about the fate of the bronze age lands of Poseidonis, Drax, the Tritonian god of war declares that a danger to their kind hails from the kingdom of Lorsk, and more particularly, from the royal family. Entigta, sea-god to the Gorgons, appears before King Zeluud, ordering him to make war upon those who threaten them the most.
In the kingdom of Lorsk King Zhabutir’s twin sons, Vakar and Kuros, are at odds. Vakar, being the younger by a quarter-hour, is heir according to their old system of ultimogeniture, which Kuros finds unjust. But when the threat to their kingdom becomes known, Vakar is sent on a quest to obtain the thing that the Gods fear most—The Tritonian Ring—for he is the one man whose actions the Gods cannot divine, the one man for whom the gods do not appear in dreams.
Granting its bearer the ability to repel magic or interference from the gods, The Tritonian Ring could turn the tide of any battle. But as Vakar traverses the many kingdoms for the ring made out of metal fallen from the stars, many obstacles—distractions—will stand in his way….
