story identification - What book has a man in a world on the brink of an ice age with a wizard mentor?

I'm trying to find the title of an old fantasy book I read at least 20 years ago, but I have very little to help identify it.

Obviously I don't remember the author name, I think it was written in the 80s or late 70s.

It was a classic premise with a modern day man from our world, transported to a fantasy setting. The world I remember was on the brink of an Ice Age and the main character and wizard mentor found a keep to save the human race.

In the keep they found ancient machinery to produce light, warmth and food.

The magic in this world was glyph based, using the true meaning of word to change reality. Obviously the main character becomes a magician even if not really that skilled.

I think there was also a triangle with the main character, a princess and a dead husband who was not so dead after all, but it's all really foggy.

There were at least two books in the series.

Answer

This sounds a bit like Time of the Dark by Barbara Hambly. It is the first book of the Darwath trilogy and was first published in 1982.

Story is about Rudy and Gil from our world who meet a wizard (Ingold) from Darwath and are transported back to that world

Darwath is on the verge of an ice age and civilisation their under siege from the "Dark". The Dark are a mysterious race of monsters that appear in the night & cold and fear the light & fire

Rudy discovers that he has the ability to become a wizard and is trained by Ingold

Rudy also has a love affair with the "widowed" queen of Darwath (Minalde).

In one of the later books (3?) it is discovered that the King is not actually dead but was captured by the Dark

Rudy & Minalde cannot be together due to politics and religion (the Church persecutes wizards)

The survivors of the Dark attack are led by Ingold to an ancient keep which provides shelter, warmth & food via mechanisms the survivors do not understand

Gil becomes a warrior & Ingold's lover

I can't recall the details of the magic system exactly, I don't remember glyphs, but there were elements of power via true understanding of reality. And Rudy was an artist in our world, so that may be related too.

Comments

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...

Blog

Search This Blog