ISBN: 0-345-42430-1 Order from: Amazon.com
A funny, ribald tale of coming of age filled with feminism, romance and struggle of natural magic against murderous technology.
Reviewed by David on June 23, 1998 (rev. 2)
Genre: Fantasy (Coming of Age, Romance)
Synopsis: Lisane, a dispossessed sort-of-princess from a planet filled with magic power, escapes from her captors' spaceship in a lifeboat. Her new home has a male-dominated magical hierarchy, where she fits like a square peg in a round hole. However, despite her attempts to fade into the background, Lusane's magic skills, along with her painfully gained knowledge of the universe turn out to be vital to the misogynistic society of magicians.
Full Review: Lisane's enemies, the mysterious Enforcers are rather vague villains, who destroy civilizations, enslave peaceful natives, and use magic-destroying technology. The flatness of the villains, along with the improbability of a star-traveling civilization desiring slaves, does not add much to the solidity of the plot. In fact, this reminds me of some of the pseudo-luddite motifs in Andre Norton's and Ardath Mayhar's books.
Nevertheless, what steals the story is the heroine, the teenage Lisane, whose name literally means "nameless". She is inexperienced, yet highly educated in subjects as varied as religious ceremonies, theoretical sex, reverent magic-usage, and creative vituperation. When she is forcibly inducted into a heretofore male-only school of magic, she makes a troublesome student. Combining mild self-pity, lust, curiosity, compassion, precocious maturity in use of power, and romantic dreams, Lisane serves as a fresh and funny viewpoint. Her exasperating relationships with her fellow students and magician-teachers serve mostly to complicate her life. Despite this, Lisane gradually becomes a part of this new world, and becomes a hero when her fellow mages face a threat with which they could not deal.
On the way, she gets into fights, makes reluctant friends, a number of enemies, and learns the practical applications of the erotic education she received.
In addition to the two-dimensional menace of the Enforcers, the apparent ubiquity of sadomasochism in the male homosexual relationships, including that of her nemesis/ally Detter, detracts somewhat from the book.
However, the characters are drawn with fine detail, and the pace and humor of the plot make this a refreshingly good fantasy romance. I also liked the negative chapter titles—it reflects Lisane's sardonic view of her own not inconsiderable abilities as well as the sorry state of the rest of the world. The style is reminiscent of Mage Heart, another excellent novel.
I am eager to see more books from Ms. Turner.
Universe: Web
Overall: 6.5; Plot: 5; Characters: 7; Style: 7; World-building: 6; Originality: 6.5;
Copyright date 1998, Ballantine Publishing Group (Del Rey), July 1998, Mass-market, 231 pages
ISBN: 0-345-42430-1 Order from: Amazon.com