The Wizard of Karres

By: Dave Freer, Eric Flint, Mercedes Lackey

Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith

The witches of Karres are back - and now there's also a wizard!

It just wasn't fair! Captain Pausert had foiled the deadliest of space pirates and eliminated the threat of the Worm World, yet his troubles kept piling up.

Sent on a secret mission to stop the nanite plague, a self-aware disease that could devastate whole worlds, he quickly found that someone had convinced the Imperial Fleet that he was actually a wanted criminal, which led to a battle leaving his ship in urgent need of repairs. And while Goth and the Leewit, two of the notorious witches of Karres, could do amazing things, ship repair was not in their line. So he stopped at the next planet for repairs, but found that somehow his bank account had been cut off, and the authorities were looking for someone matching his description.

There was only one thing to do - join the circus! An interstellar traveling circus, that is. All the galaxy loves a clown - as long as Pausert, Goth and the Leewit can keep their disguises from slipping. The show must go on - or the galaxy is doomed!

©2004 Dave Freer, Eric Flint, Mercedes Lackey (P)2021 Recorded Books

“What fun!”

James H Schmitz seemed to promise at least one sequel at the end of “The Witches of Karres” back in the early 70’s. I personally was so sad that it didn’t happen before he passed away. It has been one of my all-time favorite stories and I have read it many times, laughing and enjoying it just as much or more with each reading.

Lackey, Flint, and Freer are to be greatly commended for continuing the story, not only for great entertainment, but for also continuing Schmitz’s style and almost never-ending action, puzzles, predicaments, and tongue-in-cheek humor of the original. It’s hard to tell where the story is going next, but that unpredictability makes it wonderful. I found myself laughing over and over again.

Please, please, please, please put the original into an Audible version. My two hard copies are literally falling apart, and the performance by Smith is superb.

As the little, silver-eyed Vatch would say… “What fun!”