Gold Unicorn - Softcover

Gr. 7-10. Lee's sequel to Black Unicorn (1991) continues the adventures of 16-year-old Tanaquil, runaway daughter of an idiosyncratic sorceress. Here, the young mender and her familiar, a spirited, intelligent peeve, are taken captive by a band of soldiers that is part of the army of Empress Veriam, who is intent upon conquering the world and rendering it "perfect," with a law for everything. To Tanaquil's complete astonishment, the empress, rumored "conqueror and child-eater," is her 16-year-old, half-sister, Lizra. To further her cause, Lizra has had constructed a huge, mechanical, gold-plated unicorn as a symbol of her power, but the unicorn doesn't work, and Lizra bades Tanaquil to mend it. A great part of the story follows the advancing army as it pursues the conquering of all the lands. However, the unicorn turns out to be far more than a machine of war; it proves to be a gate to an alternate world, where war is king and the fallen rise on the morrow to fight yet again. Although the story drags in places as the empress wages war, the scenes in the alternate, Inferno-like world are mesmerizing and scary; there is enough humor to leaven the whole, and the conclusion is open to yet another sequel. Not a starting place but an appealing story for readers of the first fantasy. Sally Estes

Grade 6-10?In this sequel to Black Unicorn (Atheneum, 1991), readers rejoin Tanaquil after a year of travel has broadened her knowledge of the world and of herself. Coming to terms with her gift for sorcery, the teen finds herself in the midst of a war between a conquering Empress and the lands she is besieging. The Empress, who turns out to be Tanaquil's misguided half-sister, has built a mechanical golden unicorn. Tanaquil senses its evil nature but cannot deny her gift; she breathes "life" into it, only to find that she has helped create a war machine. The plot then follows the golden beast into war, eventually leading Tanaquil into an unpleasant alternate world that is virtually the opposite of the perfect world she had discovered in the previous book. This novel is not as captivating or as smoothly constructed as the first one. However, readers who enjoyed that title will want to continue following the heroine's adventures, and Lee does introduce some new and interesting characters. Although the immediate conflicts are resolved, there is definitely room for a third volume. A foreword summarizes Black Unicorn.?Susan L. Rogers, Chestnut Hill Academy, PA
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