Hoo, boy. Jirel of Joiry. I haven’t read something this bad since The Black Company.
This book got a lot of hype a while back on Twitter, so I ordered it.
Luckily I was able to get an inexpensive copy on a used bookstore site.
Luckily, that is, because it’s not good.
The first story (yes, it’s an anthology of shorts), Black God’s Kiss, is overlong and overwrought, like the Vampire books by Anne Rice. It would have benefited from being more concise. And less dumb. Which is too bad, because it had some interesting elements: an underground realm of evil that can’t be seen by anyone wearing a crucifix, misshapen mutants, a cool temple of evil.
The second story, Jirel Mopes & Cries like a Lovesick Teenage Girl, er Black God’s Shadow, is unreadable.
The first four pages are all Jirel crying and rending her garments about killing Guillaume, the man who invaded her country, defeated her armies, and captured her castle, then threw Jirel into the dungeon. Because now she loves him.
Good grief. This belongs in the Kindle store.
I was going to throw it in the trash, so some other poor, unsuspecting soul doesn’t get exposed to this slop, but I’ll put it on the shelf on the off chance someone has a compelling argument for me to try to read one of the other stories.
