Subject: Lackey and Dixon: Chrome Circle

From: [email-masked]
Date: 20 Jul 1994 00:50:22 -0400

I don't know why I do this to myself.  The SERRAted Edge is something
between a shared world and a coauthored series, consisting of novels
written by Mercedes Lackey and assorted third-stringers, in a setting
roughly consistent with the milieu/assumptions of Lackey's Tregarde
novels.  The quality of the writing has varied greatly with the skill of
the coauthor, so it's doubtful that Lackey has been putting much time into
these books.  (Doubly doubtful, given her other writing commitments.)  But
Mercedes Lacky, on a good day, produces some of the best self-indulgence in
the genre, and her previous work with Larry Dixon has shown more care and
skill than her work with other junior coauthors, so I got "Chrome Circle".

I think the series has well and truly run out of steam.  The premise has
promise:  Tannim, whom we've met before, finally meets his destined love,
about whom he's been dreaming for years, only she turns out to be a half-
dragon-half-kitsune (fox-spirit) who is trying to kill him.  The authors
then proceed to make the most pedestrian use of their raw materials.

The first half of the book is the setup:  Boy meets girl, girl kidnaps
boy, girl goes "oops" and gets him loose, boy and girl run for their
lives.  This isn't so bad, though it suffers from Lackey's usual tendency
to push the plot where she wants it to go, no matter how improbably her
characters have to behave to make it work.  It's also somewhat weakened by
an excessive and unnecessary reliance on earlier books in the series for
background and atmosphere.  The second half of the book is largely a
sequence of small adventures as the two flee from one mythology's pocket
world to the next, while their friends and enemies look for them.  The
sequence of adventures ends with everyone being in on the final climactic
battle, which is resolved by the obligatory rabbit-out-of-a-hat.

The book is cute in places -- but boring.

-----
Dani Zweig
[email-masked]  [email-masked]

   'T is with our judgements as our watches, none
   Go alike, yet each believes his own
		--Alexander Pope