The Prize in the Game

Jo Walton’s first two novels, The King's Peace and The King's Name, earned her widespread praise and moved her to the front rank of contemporary fantasists. Now she returns with a powerful epic set in the same world . . . 

The Prize in the Game is the tale of the intertwined fates of four friends, destined for kingship but riven by rivalry and war. Gods stalk the island of Tir Isarnagiri, laying subtle and inescapable dooms upon the feuding kingdoms there. And to those gods, the cares of men and women are less than nothing—but still men and women strive to defy their fates and build destinies of their own.

When a friendly competition leads to the death of a beloved horse and incurs the wrath of the Horse Goddess, the stage is set for a deadly game of politics, love, and betrayal. And as the goddess’s curse chases them down the years, Conal, Emer, Darag, and Ferdia will find that ties of friendship, and even love, may not be enough to prevent their respective countries from attacking each other in a war that will devastate the island.

The Prize in the Game takes us to a shining era of dark powers, legendary heroes, and passionate loves—all of them ruled by the hand of Fate.

“Walton sure-handedly evokes a primitive realm where the Otherworld seamlessly impinges upon reality, bringing sounds, smells, sorrow, hatred and burning love to life as powerfully as the thrust of a barbed spear. She also captures the terrible beauty of a warrior race in an outworn time, struggling, in Yeats’s phrase, to come clear of the eternal nets of wrong and right.” —Publishers Weekly