A Wind in Cairo

This is a very enjoyable book if you can overlook the fact that the protagonist is a rapist.

I trust the 'oh dear' is implied.

This book takes place in medieval Egypt and the middle-east, slightly before the third crusade, if I have my figures right. Salah ad-Din Yusuf (Saladin) appears as a character in this novel. The main characters are almost all Muslims within an Islamic society. My knowledge of Islam is cursory at best, but Tarr has a PhD. in Medieval studies, and includes notes in the back matter about the historical facts she has altered in the novel for the sake of her story, and which in absence of better authority does incline me to trust her.

[Author:Tarr] is perhaps better known for her [b:Avaryan Chronicles], which are fantasy, but this is one is not, particularly, aside from the magic that transforms the (rapist) protagonist into a horse in the first chapter, and that magic seems to me more or less "historically accurate," in that it would have fit within the worldview of that age's inhabitants.

Right, now on to an explanation for my inability to leave the rapist bit alone: Hasan, our protagonist, if not quite hero, is transformed into a horse after he rapes a magus' daughter. Hasan manages to be contemptible, but does not quite inspire hatred since he is basically so self-centred that it never occurs to him any woman might not want to have sex with him. When he realizes he has had sex not with the mage's servant, but with his daughter, Hasan makes the (historically) honourable offer to marry her, and the mage says he'd rather wed his daughter to a sheep, which made me like him.

But then we get this entire story about Hasan's growth. As a horse, he slowly learns that sometimes, he can't have what he wants, and sometimes, one chooses to not have what one wants because it might hurt someone else. He also learns, in a somewhat dim way, the enormity of his crime.

And of course, he falls in love with his owner, Zamaniyah. Zamaniyah is much more the story's hero than Hasan is. Her father's only daughter, Zamaniyah has been raised to fill the role of his son. She struggles with the demands this makes of her, both as a Muslim, and within her society, and is an appealing character. Her only female friends come from her father's harem, and she cannot really have any male friends, although her eunuch slave, Jaffar, is in an almost maternal role. Zamaniyah rides to war, navigates politics, makes friends, and eventually decides who she is.

The problem with the book is, Zamaniyah deserves much better than Hasan, despite the fact that Hasan does eventually grow up.