The Shattered World

The Shattered World, Michael Reaves, Timescape Books, 1984

This is a fantasy novel that takes place a millenium after the world has been torn apart by an evil sorcerer called the Necromancer. Each of the fragments, measuring a few miles across, retains gravity and atmosphere, and relatively stable orbits around each other, by magic.

Beorn, a master thief, is subject to a werespell that occasionally turns him into a bear. With promises of a cure, he is coerced into stealing a certain Runestone, a fragment's magical power source, by the enchantress Ardatha to be used against her enemy, the sorcerer Pandrogas. The theft goes awry, and it turns into a chase from fragment to fragment before the final end of everything (the only transportation between fragments is by sailing ships made from the bones, skin and tendons of dragons).

This is an interesting book which gets better in the last third of the book, but, ultimately, it isn't enough. This is an above average novel, but just barely above average.