title: The Forest of Peldain
text: # The Forest of Peldain
  
  The Forest of Peldain is the twelfth science fiction novel by Barrington J. Bayley. Set on the water world of the Hundred Islands, the Arelian empire attempts to seize control of the last island, Peldain, which within its dense forests contains an independent kingdom and an ancient secret.
  
  ## Literary significance and reception
  
  Rhys Hughes regarded Bayley as having "slackened off" after The Zen Gun, concluding that Vancean stylings of The Forest of Peldain were "not a sustainable effort."
  
  Andy Robertson, reviewing the novel in Interzone, dismissed the book as "[a] fairly minor potboiler."
  
  