In Blade of Amber, the traditional motifs of high fantasy—the quest, the talisman, the war against evil—frame the story of a young woman’s effort to define herself. Born on the world of Knownearth, Vic grew up in a small town isolated from the goings-on of the larger world. She studied as a child to be a Logkeeper and preserve knowledge handed down 200 generations from a group of spacefarers marooned and abandoned in an uncharted solar system. Kidnapped by pirates, Vic is sold as a concubine to Lornk, the Lord of Relm. He discards her knowledge, robbing her of her sense of herself.