The Reign of the Departed

A young man looking for death finds purpose in a world beyond our own in this sweeping fantasy from Greg Keyes ( The Briar King , Newton's Cannon ). Errol Greyson hadn't intended to commit suicide. Or so he told himself. But waking up after his "cry for help" in the body of a wood-and-metal construct magically animated by Aster?the strange girl from school?was not a result he could have imagined. Aster's wild explanations of a quest to find the water of health that would cure her father seemed as unreal as her description of Errol's own half-dead existence, his consciousness stuck in an enchanted automaton while his real body was in a coma from which it might never wake. And of course, they would need to recruit a girl?a virgin, no less?who had been dead for thirty years, to lead them through something called the Pale, beyond which a bunch of magical kingdoms existed. Plus, the threat that Aster could turn him off like a light switch, sending...