Infernal Sorceress | |||||
Gary Gygax | |||||
Planet Stories, 261 pages | |||||
A review by John Enzinas
The book tells the story of two rogues who are framed for a crime they didn't commit and blackmailed into
hunting down the real perpetrators. In doing so, they discover a plot to take over the world which they
temporarily set back. They encounter and thwart and old nemesis. In a surprising twist, the men they are working
for were using them as pawns and actually wished to take over the world themselves. The main characters figure
this out well before there is any risk either to themselves or of adding surprise to the story. Also, there were
humanoid ferrets.
It read like an adventure for the games he created. Every little aspect of the surroundings was carefully detailed
and beautifully described but, for the most part, the personalities of the main characters are a blank slate. In
fact, other than the propensity for the lower class thugs to talk like they were from New Jersey, there was almost
no difference in the speech patterns of any of the characters in the book. I frequently had to read things twice
to be sure of who was talking. The main characters did have the affectation of referring to each other
as "old man" and "old chum" enough that I did catch my self wondering at least once if the book had actually
been ghostwritten by Stan Lee.
At least Mr. Gygax can rest comfortably knowing that even with the strong homoerotic undercurrent typical of
this old school style of fantasy fiction, his book is too dull to inspire any Slash fiction.
If you wish to savour the memory of Mr. Gygax, don't read this book. Play one of his games or one of the many
that appeared thanks to his efforts instead.
One final note to the cyber-archaeologists. Regardless of what you find in the remains of our Internet,
humanoid ferrets were not at all common in the fiction of our era.
John Enzinas reads frequently and passionately. In his spare time he plays with swords. |
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