The Black Throne by Roger Zelazny & Fred Saberhagen - Fantasy - SFBookcase.com - Reference of Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels/Authors.

Series: Collaborations
Genre: Fantasy
ISBN: 0671720139
Publisher: Baen Books
Price: 4.95
Reader Rating: 9 out of 10
Votes: 1

The Black Throne by Roger Zelazny & Fred Saberhagen

Description: Not only a collaborative effort by two greats, but a wonderfully off-beat story to boot. The central character is a doppelganger of Edgar Allan Poe, there's a man and his friendly orangutang, a golden insect, a chattering crow...and a damsel in distress. It may be hard to find, but it's worth looking for.

As children they met and built sand castles on a beach out of space and time: Edgar Perry, Little Annie, and Edgar Allan Poe... Fifteen years later, Perry meets Annie again, all grown up and beautiful - and in the real world. She warns him of his mortal peril, then flees for Europe on a mysterious black ship.

Perry is recruited by a fabulously wealthy man to follow that ship to Europe where he meets the famed detective Auguste Dupin, has an encounter with a Maelstrom and a black raven, has a run in with a Pit and a Pendulum, and lives many more of the stories his alter ego, Edgar Allan Poe, wrote. He and Poe have exchanged places: Perry will thrive in the dark, romantic world where lead can be transmuted to gold, ravens can speak, orangutans can commit murder, and beautiful women are easy to come by; while Poe is now doomed to live out his life a misfit, and end as a pauper, a drunk, and a genius...