March's End

By: Daniel Polansky

Narrated by: Gabra Zackman

The Harrows are a typical suburban family who, since time immemorial, have borne a sacred and terrible charge.

In the daylight, they are teachers, doctors, bartenders, and vagrants, but at night they are the rulers and protectors of the March, a fantastical secondary world populated with animate antiquated toys and sentient lichen, a panorama of the impossible where cities are carried on the backs of giant snails, and thunderstorms can be subdued with song.

Beneath this dreamlike exterior lie dark secrets, and for generation after generation, the Harrows have defended the March from the perils that wait outside its borders—when they are not consumed in their own bitter internecine quarrels.

In the modern day, the Harrow clan is composed of Sophia, the High Queen of the March, a brilliant, calculating matriarch, and her three children: noble Constance, visionary, rebellious Mary Ann, and clever, amoral Will. Moving back and forth between their youth, adolescence, and adulthood, we watch as this family fractures, then reconciles in the face of a conflict endangering not only the existence of the March but of the 'real world' itself.

March's End is a multi-generational portal fantasy in which the familial struggles of the Harrows are threaded through the mythic history of the fantastical land they protect. It is a story of failure and redemption, in which the power of love is tested against forces that seek to break it, and the necessity of each generation to recreate itself is asserted.

©2023 Daniel Polansky (P)2023 Podium Audio

Excellent prose

A great low fantasy, easy read, attention to prose not just story, nice narration, overall great experience.