One day the Chosen Swordsman comes to Mad Oak. It turns out he is old, ready to retire, and he wishes to recruit a successor. Breaker, perhaps a bit to his surprise, agrees to take the job. This despite his lack of desire to kill anyone: but there has not been a Dark Lord for over a century, so what's the risk? (100 percent as the reader knows!) So after months of training, and a magical ceremony to transfer the Swordsman's special magical abilities to Breaker, he becomes the new Swordsman. After which -- perhaps just a bit late! -- the old Swordsman reveals reluctantly that he has some slight misgivings about the current Wizard Lord.

So Breaker decides to travel the world, or at least Barokan, and to try to meet his fellow Chosen, and to learn if the Wizard Lord really has gone mad. Of course he learns eventually that the lord has -- he has murdered an entire town. Several of his fellow Chosen agree that the Wizard Lord must be taken down, but others are surprisingly reluctant, for different reasons. It's clear something odd is going on (and most readers will guess the outline of the problem fairly quickly) but they push through to force a resolution.

The Wizard Lord is the first of a trilogy, but it comes to a definite close. However, questions have been raised about the very structure of Barokan society, particularly by Breaker. I am sure subsequent volumes will address those questions. The novel itself is ever readable, quite enjoyable, and just plain, well, sensible. The magical system is fairly original and interesting. Not quite as much happens as in many fantasy novels, and the closing battle is really rather abruptly presented. But as I said, the novel is striking for the way each of the powerful magical characters is portrayed as basically ordinary (even the Wizard Lord). There is a real sense that these are regular people, acting the way any of us would act had we grown up in this somewhat unusual world. And I have a feeling that there is considerable potential for more action and more intrigue in subsequent novels: that this book is very much a scene setter, an introduction. I enjoyed it, though I rank it as Watt-Evans at closer to the middle than the top of his range.