by
Kara Dalkey
ISBN: 0-451-45639-4 Order from: Amazon.com
Reviewed by David on May 11, 1998
Genre: Fantasy (Urban Fantasy, Elfpunk)
Synopsis: A young performance art student in Pittsburgh accidentally conjures up a couple of kobolds. They prove eager to provide magical help for her failing acting career. The price proves higher than anticipated—a part in the ancient struggle with the Seelie Court.
Full Review: T.J. Kaminsky is a student in Pittsburgh, trying to start a career in the performance art. The art is very important to her, but she cannot quite articulate her message to anyone else (including the reader). After another miserable performance, she is desperately searching for inspiration when a couple of gnome-like creatures (knockers) show up offering help.
Naturally, the help is magical, and the price is higher than immediately apparent. T.J. ends up being dragged into a war between the Seelie and Unseelie courts. The Seelies, the high Sidhe, seek a return to the pristine beauty of nature unspoiled by human beings. The Unseelie, friends of the mankind and T.J., seek a return to coal and steel glories, when the sky was dark with smoke and the hills torn with mines.
The struggle proves to be more ambiguous than the typical Good against Evil, but just as painful. Add to this a romantic interest (actually two: one human, one Sidhe), a single anthropologist mother (knows all ebout European folklore), and a witch-like grandmother, and the classical elfpunk novel is ready to roll—just add water.
I found the novel somewhat flat, the supporting cast, including the human love interest, cartoonish; and even the main character rather shallow. The beauty and passion of her art did not come through the pages, not even the point of the struggle between the light and the dark fairy. The ending left things unresolved as well—perhaps just like real life.
Kara Dalkey can write better. Her Euryale, for instance, is a charming little fantasy set in ancient Rome. Steel Rose is by turns comical, serious and silly, almost like the author could not make up her mind about the tone of the novel. The plot reminds me very much of Bull's War for the Oaks. Perhaps I am imagining things, having recently read that fine book, but there are so many common elements that I suspect Dalkey of either an in-joke, or a parody of Bull's much better novel.
Short Review: This is a novel featuring some familiar themes—elfs in an urban setting, a mortal unwittngly involved in ancient fairy wars; a bit of Tam Lin. There is little originality in execution, and the characters are a bit flat.
Overall: 5; Plot: 5; Characters: 4; Style: 5; World-building: 5; Originality: 4;
ROC, December 1997, Mass-market, 315 pages
ISBN: 0-451-45639-4 Order from: Amazon.com