Review of Venom of Luxur
The third book was disappointing on so many levels - I will try to cover most of these since a request was made for specificity.
Jumped the Shark
One of the worst parts of the third Anok novel had to be when Teferi explains to the guards that Fallon is a barbarian whore
with a sword and that they missed her on the first inspection because she had been enchanted to look like a brick. This is where the novel completely
jumped the shark. Here is part of the exchange:
Venom of Luxur said:
“She was--” Again he looked at Barid, who again just shrugged. He continued. “She was enchanted! Yes! Enchanted into the form of a brick! You looked right at her, and did not know!”
The Guardian looked at him eyes narrow with suspicion. “A barbarian brick woman?”
“Yes! Why, it’s the latest thing for smuggling slaves, all the rage in Black Kingdoms! Turn them into a brick, take them where you will, say the magic incantation and return them to living human form!”
“A brick?”
“Ingenious, is it not?”
That is from page 100. After that, Teferi explains to the guard that he made the whole thing up about the brick/whore and that the guard should not report anything because it would make the guard look incompetent to be a guard. The guard buys it and lets them leave because guards are uniformly stupid in fantasy novels. I am not even sure why Fallon needed to be there, so this entire exchange could have been excised from the book. Why would the guard let Teferi go? It seems to me the guard would have run Teferi through and claimed the guy was trouble; the author missed a chance for a combat scene by making the guard act stupidly. Why would he let someone go who could actually get him in trouble at will? After killing Teferi, he could then search for Fallon and possibly get some sort of payoff for rooting out spies. Instead he lets Teferi go and ignores the fact that somewhere a barbarian woman
with a sword is around. I hope the author makes his guards more realistic in future novels.
Chapter 16 has another shark-jumping moment (if that is possible): Anok runs across upraised shields like a frog on lily-pads (this novel has gone from bad to just down-right silly), then Ramsa casts a spell to end the fight - long after he should have cast it - yet the remaining men swear undying loyalty anyway.
Chapter Structure
The book over-relies on recaps of prior events. Basically the structure is thus: Anok does something. Anok's friends worry about what Anok has done (recapping in the process). Anok's enemies ruminate about what Anok has done (giving yet another recap). Anok worries about what he has done in the past (any guesses what this provides? Yes, another recap), then Anok does something else, and the cycle goes on - recap after recap.
Chapter 1: Nothing happens in chapter 1. It is a recap of the prior material. The supporting cast spends most of the book whining about how useless they are (and, indeed, they
are utterly irrelevant to the book).
Chapter 3 recaps chapter 2.
Chapter 6 recaps the prior chapters and prior books again.
Chapter 7 was a waste of time. The characters discuss things they've already discussed.
Chapter 8 recaps Anok's previous experiences - again.
Chapter 10 recaps chapter 9.
Chapter 11 recaps prior books.
And so on...
The structure of the trilogy, being so filled with constant recaps and reminders of what was read in the last chapter, gave the entire series the feeling of being "padded" in order to achieve a certain length.
Is Corruption a Measurable Goal?
Throughout the whole, the concept of corruption is discussed like it is a real and measurable goal - and, to me, sounds just as plausible as characters in a Forgotten Realms novel discussing Hit Points as though they were a real, measurable concept. It is like Darth Vader discussing how many Dark Side Points he has accumulated. At one point in the second novel, Anok is expressly told to choose between corruption, madness or death. Certain rituals are designed expressly to increase corruption in another.
Strange Character Choices
In Chapter 4, Teferi suddenly has a blow-gun and a sack full of poisoned knock-out darts so he doesn't have to actually kill anyone. Despite a string of successful uses of the blow-gun
without a single mistake or miss, Teferi inexplicably decides to stop using it because of his non-proficiency (as if the author would have allowed him to miss! C'mon Teferi! You should know better!). Luckily he was done poisoning people and his decision to stop using the weapon coincided perfectly with the lack of people to use it on. (This seemed almost like a plot coupon - a new weapon from nowhere that fit the need perfectly and never used again. It gave me the feeling the author was helping the characters along instead of letting them resolve the situations with established abilities and weapons.)
After that, Teferi is discovered by Ramsa - who lets Teferi live and clues him in on his magical heritage! Ramsa should have killed him right then and there.
In Chapter 16, Ramsa finally casts a spell that kills all the attackers after most of his own forces are slaughtered, earning him the undying loyalty of those left alive, even though Ramsa waited until now to do it and… whatever. The author of this book abandoned plausible plot tricks a long time ago. Not to mention the time earlier when Ramsa let Teferi live for no particular reason.
Boring Characters
In book two, of course, Anok meets a priest who may as well have stepped out of an episode of
Xena: Warrior Princess. It is Kaman Awi Urshé, the high priest of Set who somehow lacks arrogance, but comes across as an old, bumbling, cordial, tinkering busybody intent on learning modern science - like the old guy in
The Scorpion King or the old teacher in
Young Sherlock Holmes, the guys who can create anachronistic gun powder or airplanes. I have seen this type of character in so many movies/TV shows that he bored me from the get-go.
The constant betrayals by Dejal were tiresome; he was set up from the beginning to be a betrayer. Those betrayals would have had more impact if someone like Teferi had betrayed Anok.
The reasoning behind the "plots" are more appropriate for Cobra Commander than the great Thoth-amon (who was so powerful that the king of Stygia threw down all the magicians from their places of power in REH's writing - a fact this trilogy ignores entirely).
Saying One Thing, Demonstrating Another
The book constantly refers to the "Walk of Shadows" spell as being a great expense of magical energy for little result, yet Anok uses it constantly as an Invisibility spell for great results. The author claims one thing, but demonstrates the opposite as true, over and over again.
Real Gods?
I also do not like how the plot requires a "real" Set. Real gods means anyone who does not believe in them are idiots (there can be no atheists if the gods can be confirmed as real).
The Uselessness of Friends
The plot hinges on the power of "friendship", but, in truth, the friends really did nothing throughout the series. Fallon was just there to have sex with Anok and have to explain to Teferi why she would not have sex with him (I think it was because he whines too much). In book 2, the only reason Chapter 8 seems to exist is so Fallon can strip off her clothes in public. Back to book 3, Teferi only becomes useful after he is handed a heritage and sorcery skills (more on that later). Up until that point, both characters' friendship is useless to Anok and helps him not a whit.
I mentioned the structure of recap after recap earlier. This structure was evident in the prior books as well, but it seemed this one added another twist to the structure: In the midst of the recaps, the side characters all pondered their relative uselessness - as if the author suddenly realized his characters had no point and that he needed to get on the ball and give them something to do! Teferi actually is given magical powers from out of nowhere in order to make sure he could contribute in some way.
(You know, if one of my friends developed RL magic powers, I am sure they could be more important to me too! LOL! It took magic for Teferi's friendship to be useful. Magic solves everything in this trilogy.)
Magic Resolves All Things
Magic does underly and solve
everything in this series. Magic weapons, magic spells, magic items, magic gods and so on, good and evil. There are anti-magic serums and locations, "simple" spells (why are deflection spells always referred to as a "simple" spell in fantasy novels?), magic swords and magic dream-sticks. Even Fallon asks for a magic weapon at one point, realising she is useless to Anok (other than for sex) if she doesn't have magic.
The only time I felt any concern about Anok was when he faced the Fingers of Set in Book 1. After he gained the super-Mark that made him invincible, it was obvious he would forever be able to pull some magic out to get him out of any situation. I was almost concerned when he was about to face Thoth-amon in the second book, but I figured he'd use the Mark of Set somehow to protect himself - and he did. He rarely used his intellect or anything other than magic to get out of any given situation - magic worked as a minor
deus ex machina to work out any given situation. I wish the author had given the character harder choices and more situations that were not resolved with the perfect spell.
Superman III?
Then there is the
Superman III scene where Good Anok fights Evil Anok. I think it is kind of funny that Anok III has a
Superman III scene in it. I don't know if this was intentional or not.
Dialogue
One other irritation with the whole Anok trilogy is the stilted dialogue (which is common these days with a lot of fantasy novels and movies, including the recent Star Wars movies).
Here is an example from the third Anok book:
"I will make Fenola ready to travel then, and I will take up your spare bow and wait. I am not the half bowman you are, but perhaps I can shoot well enough to cover your escape if I must." (page 49)
I think this bit of dialgue would have been better written as:
"I'll get Fenola ready, then I'll wait here. Give me your extra bow. I'm not as good as you, but I can cover your escape."
Is it just standard form these days not to allow contractions in fantasy dialogue or use realistic speech patterns? The whole trilogy is filled with over-long dialogue such as the above example. This seems to be true with a lot of modern fantasy, though. I haven't figured out why.
Storyline Resolutions
The storylines are concluded by contrivance instead of by natural consequence of the characters' actions (For example, Teferi is handed his magic powers and Anok is practically handed his Mark of Set, which made him all-powerful - neither of them fought to attain either of those as a goal).
Even the plotline with the sister is handed to Anok. He doesn't have to piece together clues - he is taken straight to her and practically presented with her. That plotline then goes nowhere.
Anok did not even have to go looking for his father's killer - even that was handed to him!
Anok didn't even have to search for a way to kill the "god made flesh" - he was handed a magic sword out of nowhere (including a matching back harness like he used to wear)!
Every plot line was tied up very neatly and without much effort on Anok's part. Instead of plots resoved by natural consequence of a charater's actions, the plots are resolved by the author in strings of nifty coincidences and revelations.
Did Anok Really Fall?
The novel would have been MUCH better if Anok had truly fallen into corruption. Sure he killed some cannibals and was guilty of arrogance, but he still was pretty nice to his friends.
What if Ramsa had not been distracted by some silly plot about usurping a god's power, but had been focused on corrupting Anok? Let's say Ramsa puts Anok into a situation where he must either kill a friend as a sacrifice or die himself.
If he had
really fallen and killed Fallon in a ritual sacrifice, would Teferi have saved him? Would the "power of friendship" been strong enough to redeem Anok? Would Teferi want to redeem his friend after that? Would Anok be redeemable after such an atrocity? What if Ramsa had forced Anok to kill Teferi? Would Fallon have tried to save Anok afterwards? Would her feelings for Anok really have been strong enough to redeem him?
Would Anok have been redeemed? Or would the trilogy have ended with Anok's death when Teferi or Fallon kills him for being irredeemably corrupt? Or would one of them have shattered his neck, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down so that he would have the rest of his life to wail at what he did to deserve it?
Those would have been some hard questions
that could not have been solved with magic. Those questions would have had me on the edge of my seat. Those questions would have given the trilogy a hard edge and some serious emotional impact.
As it was, Anok was still a pretty decent guy, obviously "savable" and the ending did not have one bit of emotional impact. Oh, they killed a god-snake. World saved from ridiculous Cobra Commander plot. Anok saved. Hurrah. Next book please, nothing more to think about here.
Research Errors
One part, and correct me if I am wrong, seems to indicate a lack of research. The Zamboulan district of Kheshatta... Shouldn't that have been the Darfari district? The Zamboulans were not cannibals - the Darfari slaves of Zamboula were, yet the Zamboulans here file their teeth. It seems he combined Zamboulans, Hanuman worshippers and Darfari cannibals into one people.
I also noticed the author seems to confuse Kush and Kush-ite, using them both to refer to the people. He would say a Kush-ite warrior was a "Kush warrior," which sounds as strange to me as calling an Egyptian warrior an "Egypt warrior." (Forgive the dash, for some reason I cannot get Ku****e to come out on this board.)
For example, on page 59, 60 & 61 of book 3, Ramsa calls Teferi a "Kush" or a "barbaric Kush" instead of a barbaric Kush-ite. Again, this is like calling someone a barbaric Egypt.
Also, on page 103, what is a Shemite Kush? Is he referring to the Aphaki?
What I Did Like
His descriptions of the setting, however, are excellent. He excels at description. It is easy to visualize what he writes, and that holds true for the third book as well as the other two. I do like the character of Ramsa, even though in this book he did a lot of stupid things - ultimately he was not brought low by Anok's greatness - he was brought down because he made a lot of blunders that allowed Anok to win.
Conclusion
If the book had actually followed through on what the first two seemed to hint at, this would have been a great novel. Unfortunately, it gave way to hackneyed plots, silly resolutions and other problems. I hope with his next book, York does not shy away from the hard questions his books have the potential to ask. This one took the easy way out, where magic resolved the whole of the matter.
Next time, leave out the silly world-in-danger plot and concentrate on what was interesting: The fall and redemption of Anok. If the book had focused on that, it would have been a rousing success.
