The Slave and The Free: Books 1 and 2 of 'The Holdfast Chronicles': 'Walk to the End of the World' and 'Motherlines'

Suzy McKee Charnas

Macmillan, Jun 12, 1999 - Fiction - 448 pages

After thirty years, Suzy McKee Charnas has completed her incomparable epic tale of men and women, slavery and freedom, power and human frailty.

It started with Walk to the End of the World, where Alldera the Messenger is a slave among the Fems, in thrall to men whose own power is waning.

In continued with Motherlines, where Alldera the Runner is a fugitive among the Riding Women, who live a tribal life of horse-thieving and storytelling, killing the few men who approach their boundaries.

The books that finish Alldera's story, The Furies and The Conqueror's Child, are now available. Once you start here, you won't want to stop until you've read the last word of the last book.

What people are saying

Review: The Slave and The Free: Books 1 and 2 of 'The Holdfast Chronicles': 'Walk to the End of the World' and 'Motherlines' (Holdfast Chronicles Omnibus, 1-2)

User Review  - Stephanie - Goodreads

The Slave and the Free... where do I begin? So much intensity going on in this collection of the first two novels of Charnas' Holdfast Chronicles: Walk to the End of the World (1974) and Motherlines ...

Review: The Slave and The Free: Books 1 and 2 of 'The Holdfast Chronicles': 'Walk to the End of the World' and 'Motherlines' (Holdfast Chronicles Omnibus, 1-2)

User Review - Goodreads

Loved it. I blew through these books. A bit violent though.

About the author

Suzy McKee Charnas is the author of over a dozen works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, including the Holdfast series from Tor Books and the Sorcery Hall series of books for young adults. She is the winner of the Hugo Award (for her short story "Boobs") and has won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award twice, once retrospectively for the first two Holdfast books and then for The Conqueror's Child, final volume of the Holdfast series. Her most recent book is My Father's Ghost, a narrative nonfiction work about her father's old age. She adapted her novel, The Vampire Tapestry, for the stage in the late 1990s.

She was born and brought up in New York City, the setting for the Sorcery Hall books, and she currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Slave and The Free: Books 1 and 2 of 'The Holdfast Chronicles': 'Walk to the End of the World' and 'Motherlines'; Holdfast Chronicles, Suzy McKee Charnas
• Author: Suzy McKee Charnas
• Edition: reprint, revised
• Publisher: Macmillan, 1999
• ISBN: 0312869126, 9780312869120
• Length: 448 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Dystopian; Fiction / Science Fiction / General