"Echoes of the Great Song" by David Gemmell.

Essay by MechMagicianHigh School, 10th grade May 2003

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The Echoes of a Great the Song

War, carnage, and destruction - all the essentials needed to satisfy the archaic human attributes. Somehow though honor and wisdom find their way into this story. Echoes of the Great Song by David Gemmell is a fantasy tale filled with excitement and at the same time philosophical acumen. It achieves this through wars that are not without meaning and dilemmas met with reasoning. It contains the story of a grand empire and its ruler's noble sacrifice that is unquestionably stimulating for spirit and mind.

The Avatars are immortal kings of their world. Their everlasting youth is preserved by the power of magical crystals whose power source now lies beneath 60 million tons of ice. After the sudden arrival of the ice age, predicted by one Avatar thought to be crazy, the Avatars grand city was destroyed and with it the pyramid which grants power to their magic crystals and weapons.

The Avatars' iron rule over humans weakens as their advanced weapons lose power. The human subjects sense the waning of their rulers and revolt becomes a day-by-day crisis for the Avatars. With the arrival of a new threat though, petty revolts become forgotten and war a reality.

The mystics' predictions of two moons in the sky come true. The meaning of the phenomena though is that two dimensions have crossed paths and a gateway has opened between them. In one dimension are the Avatars who while are hated by their subjects are still fair and just. In the other dimension is a race of people very similar to the avatars in features and in technology. The only exception however is that the new breed of Avatars, known as Almecs, use the energy of blood to power their crystals and their weapons are...