Acknowledgments

 

 

Books don’t spring into being, pure and perfect at first try. Mine don’t, anyway (not that they ever become perfect). As usual I have a list of people who read the various drafts and made invaluable suggestions. Sean Stewart made himself available for long discussions about the book and its direction and also helped purge the text of echoes of past books (my own and others). Jill, Walter, Rose, and Brian all read at least four drafts of the river sections and aided me with their insights. My agent, Howard Morhaim, among all the other things he does so well, saw the book this could be and pushed me to write it. Diana Gill became one of the book’s champions, for which I thank her. And last, but far from least, my editor, Jennifer Hershey, believed in this project from the beginning and offered both wisdom and patience to this wandering story finder.

 

 

 

About the Author

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SEAN RUSSELL is rapidly establishing himself as one of the strongest and most important of the new epic fantasists. His previous works include the River Into Darkness books (The Compass of the Soul, Beneath the Vaulted Hills); the Moontide and Magic Rise books (Sea Without a Shore, World Without End); and the novels Gatherer of Clouds and The Initiate Brother, as well as The One Kingdom and The Isle of Battle, books one and two in his epic fantasy trilogy the Swans’ War. Mr.�Russell lives in British Columbia with his family. You can visit his website at www.sfsite.com/seanrussell.

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Praise for

SEAN RUSSELL

is emerging as one of the best fantasists of his generation.”

ELLEN DATLOW AND TERRI WINDLING,

The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror

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“A cause for celebration! Sean Russell has

already proven himself a master of

intelligent fantasy—subtle, exciting, and well-crafted—

but in The One Kingdom, he has begun

his most gripping story so far.”

STEPHEN R. DONALDSON,

author of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

“The sprawling first volume in a new high fantasy series distinguished by intelligent characters and believable politics. . . . Russell so neatly interweaves the supernatural characters into the story that the magical elements seem an organic part of the history being made. This is a perfectly plotted, beautifully written fantasy.” Publishers Weekly (*Starred Review*)

“S torytelling of elegant simplicity—a plot with marvelous depth.” JANNY WURTS, author of Grand Conspiracy

“Splendid. . . fascinatingly plotted, with life-sized characters.”

Kirkus Reviews

“Memorable. . . an interesting and engaging fantasy novel. It certainly shows promise that it might be the first part of an exciting and rewarding series.”

Winnipeg Free Press

 

 

 

Also by Sean Russell

Coming Soon in Hardcover

THE ISLE OF BATTLE:

BOOK TWO OF THE SWANS’ WAR

 

 

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE ONE KINGDOM. Copyright © 2002 by Sean Russell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound™.

PerfectBound™ and the PerfectBound™ logo are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Microsoft Reader September 2005 ISBN 0-06-111895-8

First HarperTorch paperback printing: February 2002

First Avon Books hardcover printing: February 2001

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