Subject: Lackey and Lisle: When the Bough Breaks

From: [email-masked] (Dani Zweig)
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 23:07:08 GMT

I suppose I keep trying, long past the point where I should know better,
because I so enjoy Lackey's solo efforts.  (Like the efforts of her
latest coauthor, Piers Anthony, they're a guilty pleasure.)  Past
experience, however, shows that Lackey+junior_coauthor = coauthor -- 
and she doesn't have very good taste in junior coauthors.

The first "Serrated Edge" novel wasn't bad, actually.  (I guess you
have to do a bit more when launching a series -- particularly if you
have to live with the coauthor.)  The second was trash.  "When the
Bough Breaks" is third -- and not quite as good as the second.

"Serrated Edge" isn't really about Elves; it's about child abuse.
The mix is approximately half a pot of plot to a quarter of a pot
of characterization to one pot of message.  The characters, Elf and
Human alike, are caricatures.  The reading list (of course there's
a reading list) includes the SE books.  It's not so much that the
message gets in the way of the story, as that the importance of
the message seems to have made the authors forget that they were
also supposed to be writing a novel.

Someone please let me know if Holly Lisles single-author books are
any good.  This book hasn't inspired me to find out the hard way.

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

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