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Night’s Master

Tales from the Flat Earth, Book One

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Night’s Master

By: Tanith Lee
Narrated by: Susan Duerden
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About this listen

Night's Master is the first book of the stunning arabesque high-fantasy series Tales from the Flat Earth, which, in the manner of The One Thousand and One Nights, portrays an ancient world in mythic grandeur via connected tales.

Long ago when the Earth was flat, beautiful, indifferent Gods lived in the airy Upperearth realm above; curious, passionate demons lived in the exotic Underearth realm below; and mortals were relegated to exist in the middle. Azhrarn, Lord of the Demons and the Darkness, was the one who ruled the night, and many mortal lives were changed because of his cruel whimsy. And yet, Azhrarn held inside his demon heart a profound mystery which would change the very fabric of the Flat Earth forever.

Come within this ancient world of brilliant darkness and beauty, of glittering palaces and wondrous elegant beings, of cruel passions and undying love. Discover the exotic wonder that is the Flat Earth.

©1978 Tanith Lee (P)2012 Audible, Inc. Classics Dark Fantasy Epic Fantasy Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Heartfelt
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First read this as a young teen and now again at sixty and it still captivated and draws you into a magnificent world of magic and storytelling to rival and surpass Lord of the Rings. There you go, someone had to say it! Though unlike LOR in almost every conceivable way , still this series of books has been sadly overlooked. Well no longer! Read this book and be part of the magic!

Always a classic of poetic beauty

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I read the second book in the series when I was 17 and became obcessed with getting hold of the rest of them. Until I found them on Audible 12 years later I had no luck!



But this book is a treat if you like dark adult fantasy. The themes are put forward with a sensitive abivulance to the subject of morality and the sensuality of the writing is brought out more than I had thought possible by Susan Deurden's reading of it. The audiobook is hypnotic and drops you into a fully realised fantasy world inhabited by apathetic gods, alien demons and the mortals who are their pawns.

This is almost impossible to get hold of as a book

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I don't understand how Susan Duerden continues to get work as a narrator. While she does display some talent at character voices in this series, the main narration - which is a strange variation of her own voice - is both grating and boring, with an odd inflection applied every few words, and tends to go up at the end of a sentence. It's distracting, and takes away from Tanith Lee's rich tale. I suffered through the first two of Lee's Flat Earth boots, because the printed versions are like gold dust, but I don't think I can do another! Even set to a faster pace, it was a slog.

Great story & world building, awful narrator

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the narrator ruined what was otherwise a good novel, and made what should have been a pleasurable listen into a gruelling slog.

not sure what the direction was

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I was unsure at first, as this is not a genre I’m drawn to. But when I twigged that TL was attempting a grand mythic structure all her own - though freely taking elements of myths from many different traditions - I became absorbed. A writer very much out of her time, by centuries, and thus pigeonholed in a way that underestimated her. The scale and grandeur and richness of the thing is outrageous, and she pulled it off. Magical.

Epic myth written beautifully

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