Heir to the Shadows / Anne Bishop

 

Heir to the Shadows by Anne Bishop
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There are so many things about this series that are just over-the-top faux horror, problematic, and cheesy. And yet, during this pandemic time as I'm languishing at home, I couldn't quit reading it. I mean there are still the issues that I had with book one, namely men named Saetan and Daemon who live in Hell. What's with the Old English diphthongs? I still find them distracting at the end of the second novel. They still make me roll my eyes.

And although women are supposed to have supremacy in this world, it is still the men (Saetan, Daemon, and Lucivar) that the author builds the narrative around. Despite the fact that Jaenelle is depicted as the ever-so-powerful Witch who seems to be destined to rule the world, she remains a rather secondary character. We don't get to share her viewpoint so she ends up being merely the motivation for the men to do things. She's like Helen of Troy, the face that launched one thousand ships, but at least she gets a little more attention than Helen did in The Iliad. (And her name has another one of those annoying ae combinations). Saetan is the Lord of Hell, but is also a big soft teddy bear for Jaenelle? He wants to be a supportive parent and good feudal lord, which just doesn't square in my head with how he got to his position. Cognitive dissonance for me for sure.

Bishop tries too hard with her world building, too. There's so much blood drinking, poisoning, sexual violence (or threat of it), torture, you name the vice. Saetan snarls and growls on virtually every page throws an awful lot of glassware. (You can tell he doesn't do the cleaning and his butler must have an impressive collection of brandy snifters.) In my opinion, George R.R. Martin portrays evil in a much more chilling fashion, simply by letting the foibles of realistic people shine through, the casual brutality and calculated cruelty. Ordinary humans can horrify much more than demons and witches, because I know I'll be in contact with them. (Stephen King knows this too, as demonstrated in The Shining.)

I'm having big problems with both concentration and maintaining interest in my reading material these days. So I have no idea why this book seemed to call my name right now and kept me going when I can't stick with many objectively better novels, but I stayed up far too late last night to see how things would shake out. Go figure! It gets three stars because I'm just so damn glad to find some flow in my reading life again without revisiting an old favourite. I've almost worn those favourites out over the past year. Oh, and book three is sitting on my shelves and may see action sooner than anticipated.

Book number 402 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.



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