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Overview: Mr. Lustbader was born and raised in Greenwich Village, where he developed an interest in art as well as in writing. He lived downstairs from the young Lauren Bacall and built orange-crate racers in Washington Square Park with Keith and David Carradine. He is a graduate of Columbia College, with a degree in Sociology, but his real education came much earlier at The City & Country School where, as Mr. Lustbader, is fond of saying, “I learned all the important lessons that would stay with me for life.”

In Eric Van Lustbader's richly imagined fantasy saga The Pearl, magic and science clash on an epic scale. The Kundalan people have suffered for a century under the viciously oppressive, technologically-superior V'ornn invaders, and their religion is suffering a crisis of faith. But a fabled ring may hold the key to their salvation—or annihilation of Kundalan and V’ornn alike. The twisting plot raises provocative moral questions in the course of a constantly surprising, sometimes shocking, fantastic adventure.
Genre: Fiction > Sci-Fi/Fantasy

1. The Ring Of Five Dragons:
With The Ring of Five Dragons, Eric Van Lustbader returns to his roots with the monumental launch of a towering multi-volume fantasy, The Pearl. Filled with action, intrigue, murder, and magic,The Pearl is the first great new fantasy series of the new millennium.

Using the conflict between technology and spirituality as the backbone of The Ring of Five Dragons, Eric Van Lustbader deftly spins the story of the clash between two cultures and the resulting battle between them. One hundred and one years ago the quiet, pastoral land of Kundala was invaded by a wandering race of beings called the V’ornn. Technologically advanced and brutal, the V’ornn easily conquered the more spiritual Kundalan and relegated them to slavery and subjugation. Weakened by its failure to stop the invasion, the ancient and magical Kundalan religion is losing adherents to a new faith, one secretly created by the V’ornn to further undermine Kundalan solidarity.

While most V’ornn dismiss all things Kundalan as worthless, their mysterious rulers, the Gyrgon, believe that Kundalan magic may hold the secret of immortality they have long sought. The answer lies in the mystical Pearl, the most sacred artifact of the Kundalan, lost since the invasion. In order to possess the Pearl and its power, the Gyrgon must first find the Ring of Five Dragons, the key to the door of the fabled Kundalan Storehouse.

The Storehouse lies deep beneath the palace of the Regent who rules in the Gyrgon’s name from his seat in Axis Tyr. Eleusis Ashera is an exceptional V’ornn, for he is fascinated by the Kundalan, and has taken one, the sorceress Giyan, as his lover, and allowed her to raise his son, Annon. Eleusis dreams of building a new city where V’ornn and Kundalan can freely trade, exchange information and learn from each other. But Eleusis has many enemies and one in particular, Wenn Stogggul, will stop at nothing to attain Eleusis’ position as regent. In a brutal attack against the regent’s palace, Wenn Stogggul’s minions kill Eleusis and his entire family except for Annon. He manages to escape with Giyan and begins an adventure fraught with danger and magic as he vows to avenge his father’s death. Required to adopt the body and mind of another in order to protect himself from his father’s enemies, Annon is slowly drawn into the magic and sorcery of the Kundalan religion and learns that he is part of an ancient prophecy and is destined to help free the Kundalan from their unbearable servitude.

2. The Veil Of A Thousand Tears:
Having staked his claim as a master of epic fantasy with The Ring of Five Dragons, Eric Van Lustbader now returns to his world of Kundala to unearth new riches of wonder and excitement in this second volume of The Pearl saga.

With the help of her friends, Riane, the prophesied redeemer known as the Dar Sala-at, saved Kundala from annihilation, preserving natives and V’ornn invaders alike. Together, the companions avenged terrible crimes and secured the Ring of Five Dragons, but their struggles have only just begun.

The Ring averted doomsday, yet it did not open the magical Storehouse Door as expected. That sorcerous treasury remains sealed because of the spell cast by Giyan and her sister. A spell to migrate Annon Ashera’s male V’ornn psyche into Riane’s dying Kundalan female body. By combining them into a single being, it saved them both and fulfilled the prophecy that the Dar Sala-at would be “born at both ends of the cosmos.” But the spell also breached the Abyss, releasing daemons who could wreak havoc on Kundala. The daemons were imprisoned there aeons ago by the Goddess Miina. Now the fiends must be vanquished, not only so the quest for the Pearl can continue, but to save Giyan, who has been possessed by the archdaemon Horolaggia. Their only hope is the fabled Veil of A Thousand Tears.

3. Mistress Of The Pearl:
Kundala is Miina’s world, created by that Goddess with the help of the dragons. But Miina is missing, and her people have been enslaved by the alien V’ornn. Now a savior has come, the Dar Sala-at, a messiah promised by prophecy yet unlike anyone’s expectations: within the body of a beautiful young woman is the mind and spirit of a unique Kundalan female who is joined in mystical partnership with the mind and spirit of Annon Ashera, a V’ornn male, the last survivor of a noble family. Together the two adolescents have matured and merged into a new joint identity. Now their common destiny, and Kundala’s, is in their own hands.

In Lustbader’s richly imagined saga The Pearl, magic and science clash on an epic scale. As in the Midkemia novels of Raymond Feist, the juxtaposition shows that neither is inherently good or evil. It is the people using magic or science who give them meaning, and Lustbader has created people you will never forget:

Riane, the Dar-Sala-at; Eleana, the woman she loves twice over; Kurgan, the V’ornn usurper who raped Eleana and sired her child; Marethyn Stogggul, Kurgan’s defiant sister, an artist who joins the Kundalan resistance; Marethyn’s lover, chief trader Sornnn SaTrryn, who secretly helps the resistance as well; and the fabulous Krystren, the Sarakkon woman from the mysterious southern continent, who comes north on a secret mission and will change the lives of everyone she meets. All the while, the evil Sauromicians threaten the world as they seek to use banestones to bind a dragon.

With each new volume, The Pearl has bloomed and ramified like a gorgeous flowering vine. The Mistress of the Pearl is the best yet, and those who have read the previous books will find new sources of excitement and enlightenment, but this is also a great place to begin catching up with the series, as the Pearl shines ever brighter.