Subject: Prograde Reviews--Pauline Gedge:The Covenant

From: [email-masked] (Humphrey Aaron V)
Date: 12 Mar 94 02:25:52 GMT

Pauline Gedge:The Covenant  [some spoilers]

This isn't your average SF, fantasy, or even horror book.  Pauline Gedge
isn't your average such author, though, so that's only to be expected. 
Gedge's _Stargate_ was a wonderful book, but her only science fiction so
far; the bulk of her output has been historical fiction.  This is her first
real horror work.

It starts slowly--grieving widow Jessica goes to visit her parents' former
employers, the Rensbys, in England.  Everything, however, is Not As It
Seems.  Lady Eleanor Rensby looks _much_ younger than her age would seem to
warrant.  And they never did explain the disappearance of Jessica's sister
Jane so many years ago(though we know, from the Prologue, that the Rensbys
were responsible).

Jessica, who is being employed to sort out data on the Rensby family
history, unearths startling facts about periodic disappearances in the
area, mysterious revivals of the family fortune at the brink of disaster,
etc.  And then she begins to remember how Sir Matthew Rensby had molested
her as a child.  So she leaves; but for some reason(plot necessity?)she
can't get a flight home from Heathrow for a few days.  (I wasn't sure about
this, myself...)

Then she ends up falling in love with Sir Matthew's son, Peter, and agrees
to stay for a "ceremony" the day before his 21st birthday, just a few days
away.  She has, apparently, ignored the clues that scream(to the reader, at
least), "Demon!  Demon!  Don't go!"

For some odd reason, the author shifts to the point of view of Caroline,
Peter's sister, for the last two chapters, as she goes to try to save
Jessica; she has apparently grown disgusted of her life, or some such
thing.  Jessica, however, is too smart to be rescued.  The book ends on a
slightly ambiguous note, but not a particularly optimistic one.

What bothers me most about the book is not the ending, though, per se. 
It's that Jessica seems to be too stupid to live; or perhaps Gedge has used
the trick(didn't David Eddings use it in _The Diamond Throne_?)of having an
enemy that saps the protagonist's intelligence, thus making her do stupid
things.  After setting us up to like the character in the first half of the
book, the author abandons her in the second half and seems to become
gratuitously mean to her.  And to forestall the protests that this is
typical for horror--Jessica is abandoned to the extent that one loses all
sympathy for her.  By the end, I cared not a whit for her, and there was no
one else to feel sympathy for.

Gedge has done better.  And I hope she will stay away from horror in the
future.

%A Gedge, Pauline
%T The Covenant
%I Penguin
%C Toronto
%D Copyright 1992
%G ISBN 0-14-016895-8
%P 269 pp.
%O Paperback, Can$6.99

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