Like nearly every other modern writer of fantasy, Kurtz owes a debt to J. R. R. Tolkien. She has created an alternate Earth on which to stage her story, and she adds authenticity to its history by beginning each chapter with a quotation from the Gwynned Bible. Both these things are drawn from the Tolkien model.

Kurtz's books are curiously political.

One seldom finds such an emphasis on politics within a work of fantasy, but a precedent may be seen in Frank Herbert's Dune books, especially the first.

Dune (1965; see separate entry) seethes with the political jockeying of the Bene Gesserit, the Spacer's Guild, and the two rival Houses of Atriedes and Harkonnen.

If the Eleven Kingdoms are an alternate Earth, one could call its pervasive religion an "alternate Catholicism." Many of the major characters are monks or priests. Camber himself is ordained when he takes...