Redemption of Althalus. David and Leigh Eddings. 2000.

In a single volume, here is a completely new and self-contained epic from the modern masters of fantasy.

Althalus - burgular, armed robber and occasional murderer - is commissioned to steal a book by a mysterious cloaked stranger named Ghend. Althalus sets off to the House at the End of the World where the book is kept - after stealing Ghend’s cloak; after all, winter is coming on. At the House at the End of the World, in the same room as the book Ghend described, he finds a talking cat. What he can’t find once he’s in the house is the door by which he entered.

By the time he sets out again many years later, with the cat in the hood of his (Ghend’s) cloak, Althalus can read. He’s read the book and discovered a tool mightier than the blunt instrument he once used to disable his victims. The book was written by the god Deimos, whose evil brother Dave’s is trying to unmake the world. The cat, whom Althalus calls Emerald, is in fact their sister, and she needs Althalus to prevent Dave’s returning them all to primordial chaos. Althalus will teach her what she needs to know, which is how to lie, cheat and steal - ‘Whatever works,’ Emerald reflects - and in return she, more amazingly, will teach Althalus truth, justice and morality.

Althalus is the first and foremost of a band of essential but colourful helpers who will battle Davey and his bizzare, frightening minions. The existence of the world hands in the balance in this glorious epic fantasy.