Perhaps not quite second in line for the bin, but pretty close (A Heroine of the World - Tanith Lee)

Member Name: jdkane

Product:	A Heroine of the World - Tanith Lee
Date:	19/03/01 (68 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Characterisation; the best part but wasted; C-

Disadvantages: Scene- setting; Dire, futile. E-

As most people probably do, I have a filing system of sorts in operation on my shelves. As most people probably are, it's something of a chaotic mess. There are principles I adhere to- at the expense of letting the rest go hang. The main top shelf is textbooks and cartoons (and which has the higher information content I doubt I could give an instant judgement), as are most of the sideboard- cupboard stacks and piles on top of them and the small bookcases. Among the floor stacks, there are three 'pending' piles, for things to be read next- as soon as I finish what I'm currently on; one of things that I'll almost certainly not get around to reading in the foreseeable future (including an irresistibly cheap second hand copy of the Tale of Genji and Moorcock's Jerusalem Commands - not because I don't want to, but becuse it's the third of four and although immense fun it looks, I want to start in proper order), one of things to be read on a very rainy day indeed (David Zindell- complex, brilliant, highly recomendable, but you may want to read something lighter like Daniel Dennett to warm up for making sense of the mathematics and brain theory therein; which I think are dubious in many particulars, but the sheer brilliance of the ifness makes it all worthwhile), and a small ready-reference stack, including the "Writers and Artists' Handbook" and a copy of the Koran. Considering the amount of praying that the manuscript will be accepted this time that I usually do, it seemed only advisable to put the two together.

On the darker reaches, behind things and tucked into corners, are the evidence of an immature literary taste, and some of the things that after reading I decided I shouldn't have bought after all. Give to charity, maybe, but I've only ever binned one book, and it was On Wings of Song, by I think either Delany or Zelazny. It was touted as one of the hundred best SF novels. Hundred sickest, perhaps. To
p ten, probably.

Perhaps not quite second in line for the bin, but pretty close, has to be Tanith Lee's A Heroine of The World. I actually quite like some of her work; because some of it is far better than this, Nightshades for instance. This...it was either Benford or Baxter who said in one TV interview that their purpose for writing SF was to warn us against technology; you can certainly disagree if you want to, and I do, but they have their reasons, and the least we can do is read and enjoy what comes out of that. My first considered reaction on finishing the book and thinking about what I thought of it, was that it was unnecessary; no purpose behind it at all.

If fantasy can be said to be about anything, it is about the human condition- when you change all the external circumstances that we operate under, what remains? What is nature, once you have done away with nurture? Providing alternate circumstances by feeding to our least ordered, most sheltered and irresponsible dreams seems a damned strange- and cripplingly impausible- way to do it, as well as that the mythology invariably gets in the way. This is why good fantasy is so impossibly hard to write. I'll say this much; it's better that way. The setting of the stories, the technology and attitudes, is not so much Dark Ages or Early Middle as Low Napoleonic; cannon and musketry predominate on the battlefield, there's a fairly formalised diplomatic structure (only arraged in 1750, incidentally), something of the same muddled mix of commercial and chivalrous.

Granted this is a new departure; not a worthwhile one. This was the Age of Rationality, remember? What of that has anything to do with fantasy? Also, I am no fan of girl power- immature, self- obsessed, arrogant, shouty, imperceptive, charityless viragos are among the very last people who should be given any authority whatsoever- but the central, female character is irritatingly passive. Nothing she does works
properly- her inadvertent saving of her early lover is a case in point- and it takes an attempted rape to get her to do anything much. Lee writes like a woman who accepts the viewpoint of unreconstructed neanderthal male chauvinism. Granted all consideration to the way things were- but why should it be that way at all? (Especially when there is some doubt as to whether or not it was.) When you can do anything, why do this? In a way it has the feel of a genre work, a victorian bodice ripper gone very badly awry- to the detriment of the literary quality of it. As far as female central characters go, you would be much better off making the acquaintance of Angel Archer or Amelia Underwood, or Tohalla in Anne Gay's Mindsail - which I mention in particular because if anyone else out there managed to make complete and coherent sense out of the plot arc, can you write and let me know?

As a love story, even, this makes little or no sense. There is no real romantic attachment at any point. Much of the characters desperately trying to talk themselves into believing that there is, a fair dose of hanging on to the shreds of thre past- well done, but none of the characters are greatly inspiring; some of them fit well, but into what? The whole seems to be less than the sum of it's parts somehow.

I do not see why it had to be this way. It is a book about nothing- or at least what it is supposed to be about could be done far better somewhere and by someone else, and certainly has.

Imagination; undeployed; E
Wierdness; Insufficient; D
Characterisation; the best part but wasted; C-
Scene- setting; Dire, futile. E-
Overall; E

Summary: