betty reviewed Sword-Dancer by Jennifer Roberson (Tiger and Del #2)
Review of 'Sword-Dancer' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I grabbed this book because everywhere I go, there is book two, three, and four of this series, but never book one. I take that as a personal insult. When I am queen of the world, libraries will be required to have the first book in every series the stock; in fact, twice as many of the first as of the rest.
I'm glancingly familiar with [a:Roberson|8659|Jennifer Roberson|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1223871478p2/8659.jpg] from her Cheysuli books, but they're not my sort of thing; any series where I have to consult the genealogical graph in the frontmatter is operating at a severe handicap with me. This one, however, is perfectly good eighties sword and sorcery, or in this case, sword and sword and sorcery. It takes itself a little more seriously than it strictly needs to, and deals with rape and slavery and being below the bottom rung of the social hierarchy, but it isn't …
I grabbed this book because everywhere I go, there is book two, three, and four of this series, but never book one. I take that as a personal insult. When I am queen of the world, libraries will be required to have the first book in every series the stock; in fact, twice as many of the first as of the rest.
I'm glancingly familiar with [a:Roberson|8659|Jennifer Roberson|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1223871478p2/8659.jpg] from her Cheysuli books, but they're not my sort of thing; any series where I have to consult the genealogical graph in the frontmatter is operating at a severe handicap with me. This one, however, is perfectly good eighties sword and sorcery, or in this case, sword and sword and sorcery. It takes itself a little more seriously than it strictly needs to, and deals with rape and slavery and being below the bottom rung of the social hierarchy, but it isn't interested in wallowing in its heroes' degradation so much as their overcoming of it.
Tiger, the narrator, is rather fun. He spends most of the book deriding Del's skills in a manner which tells the reader, so long as she has read a book or two in her life, that he will eventually be proven thumpingly wrong. The book's take on gender dynamics is actually anachronistically progressive, and in a chapter near the end, the word 'equality' actually caused me to wince. (Not my normal reaction.)
Also, Tiger swears using "Hoolies," which is apparently the local hell, but just looked a bit too much like "Boobies" to me, on the page.
The geopolitics deserve a mention: the southern folk seem to have a whiff of 1001 Arabian Nights, although beyond a mention or two of Efreets, the resemblance is mostly cosmetic, and the northern folk seem vaguely Celtic, although again, mostly confined to a bit of polytheism. Which reminds me: would it kill more books to write from below the equator? The south could be your cold land, and the north is nice and warm, and voila, you've turned the world on its head! (No comments from the Antipodeans in the peanut gallery.)
