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nevtelen's review against another edition
2.0
Objectively, this is a bad book. There world-building is poor, the plot is contrived with tons of plot-holes big enough throw an army of Ma Gongi through, and the character-building is pretty much non-existent. And there are whiffs of racism (the positive characters are described as 'white' and the evil Ma Gongi are 'yellow'). The sexism is off the charts (every female character is referred to a 'little,' even Thaine, who is a total badass with a sword through most of the book; just one example.)
Part of me wants to say that, well, it's pulp and I should expect some of that. But I feel like experts at writing pulp science fantasy (Friz Leiber, Vance, Moorcock) don't fall prey to as many issues and have more postives than Kline did.
Still, I guess I won't say that I disliked it, exactly. It is fast-paced, never lacking for action, and has some imaginative ideas (though nothing that stood out to me over other sword-and-planet works).
Part of me wants to say that, well, it's pulp and I should expect some of that. But I feel like experts at writing pulp science fantasy (Friz Leiber, Vance, Moorcock) don't fall prey to as many issues and have more postives than Kline did.
Still, I guess I won't say that I disliked it, exactly. It is fast-paced, never lacking for action, and has some imaginative ideas (though nothing that stood out to me over other sword-and-planet works).
ogrezed's review
4.0
Not as good as ERB, and I probably should only give it a 3 rating, but I just enjoyed it too much. Call it a guilty pleasure. I liked it in spite of itself. I wish Amazon had a separate category for the genre of "planetary romance" or "sword and planet", as they are my favorite type of story. Even more than zombies. :)
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