altheaann

For the first few chapters, I thought this was shaping up to be really funny, as a sci-fi parody of a gothic novel. (Not a classic gothic novel, a 1960s-1970s gothic romance). Then the satire bit kind of went away, and it just turned into a rather poorly-written C-rate sci-fi novel. It’s still clearly meant to be humorous (although the cover gives no indication of that) but it falls quite flat.

Although it’s nice (and unusual!) to have a lusty, bisexual heroine portrayed in a sex-positive way (although there are no explicit scenes), the events of the book (I hesitate to describe them as a plot) are rather random, to the extent that I think the reader is supposed to find it funny. Characters themselves even say things like “Why did I do this? What is my motivation? I don’t know!” I kinda just went: Hmm. It does go in unexpected directions, I’ll give it that.

I picked this up after reading Arnason’s excellent and decidedly overlooked ‘Woman of the Iron People’ – after reading that, this one was quite a let-down.