As we often see in these fantasy stories, the magic sword will basically fight for its bearer: 'Valder made no attempt to direct it his hand went where the sword chose to go.' Even mediocre fencer Valder can now hack and slash with the best of them! But several of the sword's wizardly attributes are inconvenient, and some amount to burdensome curses.

Valder sets off back homewards, and along the way, besides having to deal with such threats as dragons, demons, and enemy soldiers, he has to figure out how to use his enchanted weapon. The wizard then casts various spells on Valder's sword, but doesn't explain to Valder what they are or how they work. Valder is concealed by a hermit, an Ethsharitic wizard, and narrowly escapes death. Magic is common in this world, and the people of the Northern Empire worship demons one of Valder's pursuers is a sorcerer, and another is a shatra, a sort of demon/human hybrid. As the novel begins Valder, a scout trapped behind enemy lines, is fleeing three Northern soldiers. The land of Ethshar has been at war with the Northern Empire for as long as anybody can remember, and Valder is a conscript in the army of Ethshar, one of three million such draftees. For whatever reason, I never read any more books by Watt-Evans, but a year ago I purchased a 1989 copy of 1985's The Misenchanted Sword, the first of several novels set in the land of Ethshar, and this week I read it.

Decades later I still recall parts of it. In my teens I read Lawrence Watt-Evans' The Cyborg and the Sorcerers and enjoyed it quite a lot.

The misenchanted sword