BEYOND WORLD’S END

Addition to an established series, the Bedlam Bards (none reviewed), by Lackey and various collaborators. Flautist-Bard Eric Banyon returns from Underhill (Elfland) and settles in New York City to finish his degree at Juilliard. The half-elf Ria Llewellyn, also magic-powered, arrives, determined to renew her acquaintance with Eric following a previous clash. Ria's the owner of a huge industrial concern; unknown to her, a subsidiary, Threshold, secretly operates a Black laboratory wherein disgruntled misfit Jeanette Campbell toils to develop drugs that will confer magic powers upon ordinary individuals. Her partner, the evil megalomaniac Robert Lintel, soon takes over; he thinks nothing of killing hundreds of unsuspecting junkies to further the experiments. Also into the picture rides Aerune mac Audelaine, a bigwig of the Unseleighe (Dark) elves, who wants to establish a new gateway in Central Park. Instead, he notices Lintel's experiments and decides to grab the results for himself. Eventually, the leading characters will meet in a showdown of sorts.

Glacially slow and mostly vacuous: strictly for series addicts.