by J.F. Rivkin
1986 Ace
Mercenary Corson is hired by sorceress Lady Nyctasia to guard her through her travels. There is an interesting magic system, and I appreciate the approach to gender and sexuality. Woman have roles as soldier or pirate captain without mention or qualification - says a lot about my assumptions as a reader when I had to go back a couple of times because the pronouns confused me. Characters are casually bisexual (at least the women) and polyamorist and society excepts it, to the point of making assumptions that if two women are sitting next to each other they must be banging.
All of this would go well with a fantasy story in which ANYTHING AT ALL happened. The plot is like the beginning of a D&D campaign with adventurers meeting in a tavern, but the DM lost his module and dice and hex sheets and his religious mom keeps coming in the room so no fights or monsters. There's one brief section in a magical forest that shows there could have been some decent fantasy, but it's mostly hanging out in taverns, hanging out in inns, traveling between taverns, etc.
The single instance of swordplay is played out in less than a sentence, and I'm just assuming there's sex off page because people wake up in the same bed. There's some development with the relationship of the two leads, but you really couldn't call it romance. It's all written enough, but it never gets going.
No comments:
Post a Comment