Path of the Eclipse

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

The inimitable Comte de Saint-Germain is back. Actually, pretty far back. Thirteenth-century, to be precise. Path of the Eclipse gives us three tales of Saint-Germain, connected only by the shadow of Genghis Khan’s increasing dominance over Asia. As usual, Yarbro gives us less of the horror and more of the historic here; oftentimes Saint-Germain’s exploits seem to take a back seat to the details of the world around him. An interesting point to note: dual pacing in the book. While there’s usually action going on around him, we find out about Saint-Germain himself at the most leisurely of paces, as is the case throughout the series (at least, the eight early novels).

There is, for the reader who’s unconcerned with the details of the main character’s life, more than enough action to go around. The Tibetan piece is somewhat slow, actionwise, but the pieces that frame it put Saint-Germain in two unwinnable situations (holding a fort with a few defenders against--sorry, I can’t resist--the wrath of Khan, and then finding himself on the wrong side of a provincial uprising in a remote part of India) and find intriguing ways to extricate him from both. For the reader less concerned with what’s going on in the rest of the world, the two outer pieces will serve as frames for Saint-Germain’s journey through Tibet and his long periods of self-examination. There’s enough here for either type of Yarbro fan to latch onto, but as is the case with most compromises, the average reader is likely to wish there were less of one part or the other to contend with here.