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Series created by Christopher Stasheff
Description
Christopher Stasheff's 'Warlock' series is a science fiction series, but with strong fantasy elements. The author has done this by setting up a fantasy world, and then explaining it using science fiction terminology. The series describes the adventures of Rodney d'Armand, alias Rod Gallowglass, who as an agent of the interstellar Terran Sphere, arrives on the lost colony world of Gramarye. His mission is to guide it to become a democracy, so it might become a member of the Terran Sphere. What he discovers is a medieval feudal society, with a monarchy, barons, soldiers and peasants. In addition there is a relatively high degree of psychic ability in the population (telepathy, levitation, telekinesis, teleportation etc), but in the medieval setting this is interpreted as magic. The people with these abilities are referred to locally as witches and warlocks, and there is a lot of prejudice against them, from people without these talents, although they are now under the Queen's protection. To further complicate things, there is a fungus called witch moss, which under the influence of a projective telepath (not always intentional) can be formed into what the telepath is thinking of. Past activity of this kind has resulted in a race of elves coming into being (and once formed, they breed true), and other creatures of fantasy. Rod soon discovers that he is not the only visitor to the planet. Two groups of agents - the anarchists and the totalitarians - have arrived by time machine from the future. Realising the pivotal part the Gramarye telepaths will take in interstellar history, each group wants to steer Gramarye society in their own direction. Rod must constantly combat the chaos they are causing - unrest, civil war, and attempted revolution. In the later books (in both the 'Warlock' and 'Warlock's Heirs' series), Agent Finister emerges, a woman native to Gramarye, with powerful psychic abilities, but recruited by the anarchists to defeat the Gallowglasses. Because of Rod's knowledge of high technology and political science, and his possession of a robot horse Fess, he is soon known as the High Warlock, and becomes an adviser to the King and Queen. Rod marries a local girl, Gwendolyn, with psychic powers, and by the time of 'The Warlock Unlocked' they have four children (Magnus, Cordelia, Geoffrey and Gregory), each of whom have strong psychic powers. What Rod does not realise for some time, is that the Catholic monks have retained a knowledge of technology within the monastery walls, and are also doing scientific research into psychic abilities.
