The Shadow Sorceress
core novel 2002 The Spellsong Cycle
Record
| First published | 2002 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.84 (2,080 ratings, collected 2026-08-30) |
| Page count | 544 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780765340139 |
| Internal chronology | 4 |
Synopsis
The Shadow Sorceress continues the Spellsong Cycle with a new threat emerging from beyond the borders of Anna Marshall's established rule in Erde, testing both her own spellsong abilities and the stability of the order she has worked to build across the earlier novels. As Anna contends with rivals and skeptics of her authority, the series continues to explore Erde's music-based magic system, including how it can be practiced and misused by others beyond Anna herself, raising the stakes of the ongoing political and magical conflicts that have defined her rule since arriving in Erde as an outsider. The novel extends the cycle's recurring themes of the costs and responsibilities of wielding song as both magic and instrument of governance.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Spellsong Cycle
- Series: The Spellsong Cycle core; position 4 of 5 in the series' recorded order
- Author: L.E. Modesitt Jr.
Notes
- From the series record (The Spellsong Cycle): Five-book sequence; a magic system built on the power of song, following a professional singer transported into a fantasy world.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Spellsong Cycle: position 4 of 5: previous Darksong Rising (2001) · next Shadowsinger (2003)
Sources
← The Spellsong Cycle dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.