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Red Sonja #4
Endithor's Daughter
Unheimliches geht in der Stadt Shadizar Lord Endithor, der Ausübung Schwarzer Magie angeklagt, wird ohne ordentliches Gerichtsverfahren hingerichtet; doch seine Tochter Areel schwört den Blutrichtern grausame Rache. Und dazu ist ihr jegliches Mittel recht – selbst Hexerei. Als Sonja auf der Suche nach einem neuen Herrn die Stadt erreicht, ahnt sie nichts von der Bedrohung durch unheimliche, übersinnliche Kräfte, die sie erwartet. Bald jedoch wird sie in den Strudel teuflischer Ereignisse hineingezogen und muss sich entscheiden, auf wessen Seite sie steht... David C. Smith und Richard L. Tierney erwecken in sechs RED SONJA-Romanen das prähistorische hyborische Zeitalter (das Zeitalter von CONAN, dem Barbaren) sowie die legendäre Figur der Schwertkämpferin Red Sonja zum Leben - farbenprächtig, exotisch und erfüllt von Magie. Der Apex-Verlag veröffentlicht die erstmals von 1981 bis 1983 in den USA (und 1985 schließlich in Deutschland) erschienenen Romane als durchgesehene Neuausgaben.
217 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 1, 1982
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David C. Smith
110 books44 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 25, 2022
I didn’t vibe with this one as much as the other books. The plot was pretty good but the writing felt different and Sonja wasn’t a big a part of it as she should be..again. Will I bother reading book 5 and 6? Yes! Yes I will ⚔️
February 20, 2022
So, if I bought this book when it was published like I did with the third book in the series, When Hell Laughs, it would have been about $2.50. But now they are extremely rare and collectors' items so it took me a while to find this book, and they are about $20 each! Is it worth it? Well, it arrived from Doug Sulipa's Comic World in Manitoba in a plastic bag in pristine condition, so that is amazing in itself.
At this point I should also point out the very nice cover by Boris Vallejo at the height of his work as a fantasy artist and one of the most popular cover artists of the time. You can always spot a painting by Boris. He is one of a kind. I am not saying he is the greatest artist of all time because there are all kinds of art and he fits in a very particular niche. But as much as I hate most book covers today, this is when I thought paperback books were just all around beautiful packages from cover to cover.
So why only 3 stars? Let me explain.
I was actually looking forward to reading this because of all the trouble I had finding it, but it did not start out with such great marks. The opening scene seemed an awful lot like that bit in Game of Thrones where Sean Bean's character Ned Stark is executed before all his family and everyone to watch. It has to be a coincidence, right? But from the vantage point of reading it now, I couldn't get that image out of my head to the point that I kept thinking of Endithor being played by a wistful Sean Bean.
Some reviews have said that this book meanders around and that Red Sonja seems pretty passively involved relative to the other characters. And that is true, I will grant. Though, she does get there in the end. But its fair to say that maybe, as the main character, she needed to have more of a stake earlier on. There were certainly other issues that really dragged this book down at the beginning.
At the start, there are recurring instances of the male gaze. Enough that it was distracting and made me wonder why the fructose I should care to read those descriptions of the female characters' bodies, but it seemed to keep happening repeatedly. At least, early on. Some of it is just purple fantasy prose I guess, but some of it definitely seemed to be the authors' testosterone getting out.
It is just that, after reading other books with fantasy heroines written by women authors, like CL Moore, Tanith Lee, Joanna Russ, CJ Cherryh, etc. it can be a bit jarring to see a character that is famously noteworthy for breaking through certain gender limits in the genre to be reduced to an atmosphere of such a sexualised interpretation. Even the Red Sonja comics of this book's era were produced by a mostly female bullpen: Louise Simonson, Mary Wilshire, Marie Severin, Janice Chiang, Julianna Ferriter, etc. Reading Red Sonja in the early 1980s, it seemed to me as a teenager to be reading comics with a notably female perspective on the material. It seems a bit of a betrayal, though maybe I am being unfair. In this series of books, Sonja is still shown in Esteban Moroto's mail bikini on Boris Vallejo's cover painting, though in the actual text she is described more as wearing a mail shirt, as she appeared in Barry Windsor-Smith's earlier 1970s comics. This bit of artistic license has been hard to shake. But this book was published in 1982. (Perhaps the whole series, I cannot be sure of that). On second glance, the Mary Wilshire era comics (and Sonja's more sensible costume designed by Tony de Zuniga) did not actually begin until 1983. So I guess I can give them the benefit of hindsight. But still, the male gaze is definitely evident in the text. And I find that problematic.
Then mixed with that there were some really sadistic descriptions of torture that seemed way too detailed. Combined with the sexual fetishism of the female characters, I couldn't help thinking of the Gor novels by John Norman, which I never actually read, but were notorious for just that sort of sexual fetishism of sadism and were very popular on fantasy bookshelves around the time this came out. I sure hoped this wasn't going to turn into one of those.
Then there was one particularly homophobic scene with a minor character dripping with stereotypes that would, at the least, seem to be in poor taste today, and while I was ready to shrug it off as the sort of thing that Xena did in the name of social parody, the writers then chose to circle back around and underline the point by having one of the characters mock the person in question for his lisp in a real juvenile and immature way, so that after I read that I was really annoyed that the authors made me endure their middle school antics.
So much of this dead weight is at the start of the book, but after those earlier chapters, the story gets going, and it's all behind you. A better editor might have asked for a rewrite, but then again, I am reading this some decades later, so maybe I can give them that, as it doesn't seem to linger throughout the book, though it was enough that it seemed worth commenting on.
On the other hand, there is the titular character, Endithor's daughter, who I feel was really wasted. I gave them the whole book, so she could work through her issues and it just never happened. At the start, she seemed genuinely sympathetic, a bit of a Mary Sue, maybe.. but nevertheless, her plight seemed legitimate, but she just, descended into the most awful deplorable person so that my only regret is that what was all that really for? Her ends do not justify the means. She doesn't see her mistakes, she just loses herself to the events and never comes back from it. There were alot of chapters in the middle where I honestly thought: Good Lord, woman, if you and Sonja could just get on the same page you could fix everything. And well, that almost happens, but no, not really. I just felt cheated on that front. What was she even there for in the end? Wasted.
If this was supposed to take place in Robert E Howard's geography, I do not think it is really written in a way that Howard ever wrote. Places seem kind of vague and unspecific. Even if the names were all ones I had heard before in other Howard or Howard-inspired works, But, they just seemed like filler in this context. What was the point? If the story takes place in Shadizar, let me feel where that is. There was not even a map. The Conan books and comics always had a map, at least. But it just felt like name dropping. I didn't feel a part of Howard's world, in the way I did in Howard's own stories.
Spun off from that, was the whole Bram Stoker element of this book. After a while, I took it for what it was. It seemed to be the point of the story and it was too late to ask for it to aspire to be anything more. Granted, in the era of Twilight and Underworld and whatnot, there really is not much you can do with the vampire mythos that does not feel trite and done to death. But it just seemed out of place in Howard's Hyborean Age . Maybe there is a way to blend the two. (In fact, I can be sure someone has tried that somewhere in the many comics along the line) But it seemed like it was not done well here and just felt like they were mixing oil with water. But as I said, you just have to take that for what it is.
I will say that if all that does not put you off, it does wrap up rather nicely. All the bits and pieces do seem to fit together finally, and there is a nice sensational finish to it all. It is not a terrible book. It just has certain issues as I have pointed out. Sonja rides off at the end toward her next adventure in the next book, dwelling philosophically on her past and the burden her sword carries in a way reminiscent of the Marvel comics. It then, really gets to the heart that makes Red Sonja.
At this point I should also point out the very nice cover by Boris Vallejo at the height of his work as a fantasy artist and one of the most popular cover artists of the time. You can always spot a painting by Boris. He is one of a kind. I am not saying he is the greatest artist of all time because there are all kinds of art and he fits in a very particular niche. But as much as I hate most book covers today, this is when I thought paperback books were just all around beautiful packages from cover to cover.
So why only 3 stars? Let me explain.
I was actually looking forward to reading this because of all the trouble I had finding it, but it did not start out with such great marks. The opening scene seemed an awful lot like that bit in Game of Thrones where Sean Bean's character Ned Stark is executed before all his family and everyone to watch. It has to be a coincidence, right? But from the vantage point of reading it now, I couldn't get that image out of my head to the point that I kept thinking of Endithor being played by a wistful Sean Bean.
Some reviews have said that this book meanders around and that Red Sonja seems pretty passively involved relative to the other characters. And that is true, I will grant. Though, she does get there in the end. But its fair to say that maybe, as the main character, she needed to have more of a stake earlier on. There were certainly other issues that really dragged this book down at the beginning.
At the start, there are recurring instances of the male gaze. Enough that it was distracting and made me wonder why the fructose I should care to read those descriptions of the female characters' bodies, but it seemed to keep happening repeatedly. At least, early on. Some of it is just purple fantasy prose I guess, but some of it definitely seemed to be the authors' testosterone getting out.
It is just that, after reading other books with fantasy heroines written by women authors, like CL Moore, Tanith Lee, Joanna Russ, CJ Cherryh, etc. it can be a bit jarring to see a character that is famously noteworthy for breaking through certain gender limits in the genre to be reduced to an atmosphere of such a sexualised interpretation. Even the Red Sonja comics of this book's era were produced by a mostly female bullpen: Louise Simonson, Mary Wilshire, Marie Severin, Janice Chiang, Julianna Ferriter, etc. Reading Red Sonja in the early 1980s, it seemed to me as a teenager to be reading comics with a notably female perspective on the material. It seems a bit of a betrayal, though maybe I am being unfair. In this series of books, Sonja is still shown in Esteban Moroto's mail bikini on Boris Vallejo's cover painting, though in the actual text she is described more as wearing a mail shirt, as she appeared in Barry Windsor-Smith's earlier 1970s comics. This bit of artistic license has been hard to shake. But this book was published in 1982. (Perhaps the whole series, I cannot be sure of that). On second glance, the Mary Wilshire era comics (and Sonja's more sensible costume designed by Tony de Zuniga) did not actually begin until 1983. So I guess I can give them the benefit of hindsight. But still, the male gaze is definitely evident in the text. And I find that problematic.
Then mixed with that there were some really sadistic descriptions of torture that seemed way too detailed. Combined with the sexual fetishism of the female characters, I couldn't help thinking of the Gor novels by John Norman, which I never actually read, but were notorious for just that sort of sexual fetishism of sadism and were very popular on fantasy bookshelves around the time this came out. I sure hoped this wasn't going to turn into one of those.
Then there was one particularly homophobic scene with a minor character dripping with stereotypes that would, at the least, seem to be in poor taste today, and while I was ready to shrug it off as the sort of thing that Xena did in the name of social parody, the writers then chose to circle back around and underline the point by having one of the characters mock the person in question for his lisp in a real juvenile and immature way, so that after I read that I was really annoyed that the authors made me endure their middle school antics.
So much of this dead weight is at the start of the book, but after those earlier chapters, the story gets going, and it's all behind you. A better editor might have asked for a rewrite, but then again, I am reading this some decades later, so maybe I can give them that, as it doesn't seem to linger throughout the book, though it was enough that it seemed worth commenting on.
On the other hand, there is the titular character, Endithor's daughter, who I feel was really wasted. I gave them the whole book, so she could work through her issues and it just never happened. At the start, she seemed genuinely sympathetic, a bit of a Mary Sue, maybe.. but nevertheless, her plight seemed legitimate, but she just, descended into the most awful deplorable person so that my only regret is that what was all that really for? Her ends do not justify the means. She doesn't see her mistakes, she just loses herself to the events and never comes back from it. There were alot of chapters in the middle where I honestly thought: Good Lord, woman, if you and Sonja could just get on the same page you could fix everything. And well, that almost happens, but no, not really. I just felt cheated on that front. What was she even there for in the end? Wasted.
If this was supposed to take place in Robert E Howard's geography, I do not think it is really written in a way that Howard ever wrote. Places seem kind of vague and unspecific. Even if the names were all ones I had heard before in other Howard or Howard-inspired works, But, they just seemed like filler in this context. What was the point? If the story takes place in Shadizar, let me feel where that is. There was not even a map. The Conan books and comics always had a map, at least. But it just felt like name dropping. I didn't feel a part of Howard's world, in the way I did in Howard's own stories.
Spun off from that, was the whole Bram Stoker element of this book. After a while, I took it for what it was. It seemed to be the point of the story and it was too late to ask for it to aspire to be anything more. Granted, in the era of Twilight and Underworld and whatnot, there really is not much you can do with the vampire mythos that does not feel trite and done to death. But it just seemed out of place in Howard's Hyborean Age . Maybe there is a way to blend the two. (In fact, I can be sure someone has tried that somewhere in the many comics along the line) But it seemed like it was not done well here and just felt like they were mixing oil with water. But as I said, you just have to take that for what it is.
I will say that if all that does not put you off, it does wrap up rather nicely. All the bits and pieces do seem to fit together finally, and there is a nice sensational finish to it all. It is not a terrible book. It just has certain issues as I have pointed out. Sonja rides off at the end toward her next adventure in the next book, dwelling philosophically on her past and the burden her sword carries in a way reminiscent of the Marvel comics. It then, really gets to the heart that makes Red Sonja.
July 26, 2010
Solid work.
June 21, 2020
Compared to the previous three entries it the series, this novel was rather atypical. I think it was well written, in some ways the best of the series, but it also doesn’t feel like the other three books at all. Some of the tropes from the previous three are absent or much subdued.
The book takes places entirely inside the city of Shadizar (or just outside the city walls but essentially still in the city). The opening section has nothing to do with Red Sonja at all, which is typical for the series, but instead with politics in the city of Shadizar, of a rivalry between two nobles, the ruler Lord Count Nalor and his hated rival Lord Endithor. Very early on in the book Nalor and his soldiers basically force their way into Endithor’s home and discover him about to sacrifice his slave girl Lera in order to summon demons to destroy another noble in Shadizar, Lord Kus. Endithor is arrested, tried, and within 24 hours horribly executed in a both painful and barbaric manner, though it seems that quite possibly Endithor was framed by Nalor. Left behind are Endithor’s daughter, the title character (her name is Areel) and Lera, still her slave (along with other slaves on Areel’s staff). Areel wants revenges on both Nalor and Kus, while Kus and Nalor want to dispose of Areel at some point, though not with a public execution because there are limits to what they can get away with.
Simple enough I suppose, but we get more people involved (I have noticed as the series goes on the supporting cast gets larger and larger). We meet Red Sonja playing darts (if by darts one means throwing knives, so I guess knives) with Sendes, a man who was a former lover of Areel (and still on good terms) and also currently works for Nalor (yeah that’s not awkward). Also a street urchin, I am gathering a young teen, by the name of Chost, who Sonja befriends (along with his friends, people who prove surprisingly helpful but also strangely perhaps show a motherly side to Sonja).
Somehow all this connects with an almost film noirish series of double crosses and shifting alliances, people using other people, and oh by the way Kus is an ilorku, a vampire, and also a sorcerer because why not?
The novel could have almost removed Red Sonja entirely and worked. It isn’t that Red Sonja had no part to play, she very much did, but for large sections of the book she isn’t the character driving the plot and many things Sonja did another character could have done. At times it is Sendes, or Areel, or Nalor or Lera, though as in the other books in the series Sonja is a catalyst, propelling other characters on and assisting them. Though it isn’t till later in the book, Sonja does take a character under her proverbial wing and help him grow (in this case Chost, though to a lesser extent she did so with Lera as well).
There are two villains, as is the norm in this series, with Kus the major one. Also as in the other series, at least one of these is not killed by Sonja herself. No monsters or dangerous wildlife this time as secondary or tertiary obstacles but Kus himself is a monster. I don’t think Kus was really interesting until the end but he was a formidable opponent.
The behavior and actions of the characters in the book seemed more nuanced than in the previous three books. Points for Areel, Endithor’s daughter, proving surprisingly complex and having a character arc. I think it moved a little fast and could have used some fleshing out but it was there. Also points for Nalor being a somewhat sympathetic villain too. Overall the tertiary characters were pretty well fleshed out I thought.
Not as violent or as gory in terms of graphic description as the last book but a bit more sexual, with the opening scene with Lera being sacrificed she is nude, in passing at least one reference to nude slave girls (just that, that they were nude in a public setting), and Sonja apparently sleeps undressed and when confronted with unexpected visitors only puts on a sword (to be fair, if one suspects vampires that might be a good call). No sex or romance scenes though a bit more gawking at Sonja than is usual for the series (and not just when nude). No romantic subplot either for Sonja though for a time it looked like it might be with Sendes, sorry if that is spoiler territory. Not as much swordplay but a lot more sorcery this time around. Also a higher death count for characters too.
Not bad, I can see finishing out the series though I might take a break, having just recently finished the third novel in the series before reading _Endithor's Daughter_.
The book takes places entirely inside the city of Shadizar (or just outside the city walls but essentially still in the city). The opening section has nothing to do with Red Sonja at all, which is typical for the series, but instead with politics in the city of Shadizar, of a rivalry between two nobles, the ruler Lord Count Nalor and his hated rival Lord Endithor. Very early on in the book Nalor and his soldiers basically force their way into Endithor’s home and discover him about to sacrifice his slave girl Lera in order to summon demons to destroy another noble in Shadizar, Lord Kus. Endithor is arrested, tried, and within 24 hours horribly executed in a both painful and barbaric manner, though it seems that quite possibly Endithor was framed by Nalor. Left behind are Endithor’s daughter, the title character (her name is Areel) and Lera, still her slave (along with other slaves on Areel’s staff). Areel wants revenges on both Nalor and Kus, while Kus and Nalor want to dispose of Areel at some point, though not with a public execution because there are limits to what they can get away with.
Simple enough I suppose, but we get more people involved (I have noticed as the series goes on the supporting cast gets larger and larger). We meet Red Sonja playing darts (if by darts one means throwing knives, so I guess knives) with Sendes, a man who was a former lover of Areel (and still on good terms) and also currently works for Nalor (yeah that’s not awkward). Also a street urchin, I am gathering a young teen, by the name of Chost, who Sonja befriends (along with his friends, people who prove surprisingly helpful but also strangely perhaps show a motherly side to Sonja).
Somehow all this connects with an almost film noirish series of double crosses and shifting alliances, people using other people, and oh by the way Kus is an ilorku, a vampire, and also a sorcerer because why not?
The novel could have almost removed Red Sonja entirely and worked. It isn’t that Red Sonja had no part to play, she very much did, but for large sections of the book she isn’t the character driving the plot and many things Sonja did another character could have done. At times it is Sendes, or Areel, or Nalor or Lera, though as in the other books in the series Sonja is a catalyst, propelling other characters on and assisting them. Though it isn’t till later in the book, Sonja does take a character under her proverbial wing and help him grow (in this case Chost, though to a lesser extent she did so with Lera as well).
There are two villains, as is the norm in this series, with Kus the major one. Also as in the other series, at least one of these is not killed by Sonja herself. No monsters or dangerous wildlife this time as secondary or tertiary obstacles but Kus himself is a monster. I don’t think Kus was really interesting until the end but he was a formidable opponent.
The behavior and actions of the characters in the book seemed more nuanced than in the previous three books. Points for Areel, Endithor’s daughter, proving surprisingly complex and having a character arc. I think it moved a little fast and could have used some fleshing out but it was there. Also points for Nalor being a somewhat sympathetic villain too. Overall the tertiary characters were pretty well fleshed out I thought.
Not as violent or as gory in terms of graphic description as the last book but a bit more sexual, with the opening scene with Lera being sacrificed she is nude, in passing at least one reference to nude slave girls (just that, that they were nude in a public setting), and Sonja apparently sleeps undressed and when confronted with unexpected visitors only puts on a sword (to be fair, if one suspects vampires that might be a good call). No sex or romance scenes though a bit more gawking at Sonja than is usual for the series (and not just when nude). No romantic subplot either for Sonja though for a time it looked like it might be with Sendes, sorry if that is spoiler territory. Not as much swordplay but a lot more sorcery this time around. Also a higher death count for characters too.
Not bad, I can see finishing out the series though I might take a break, having just recently finished the third novel in the series before reading _Endithor's Daughter_.
June 27, 2022
Pretty solid story but needed more Red Sonja. She pops in and out with other characters playing first person so it feels more like she's just the (scantily clad) muscle. I enjoyed the story but needed more Red Sonja, and not just the last page where she has thoughts that are uncharacteristically sappy.
September 20, 2021
This is the best out of the first four books in this series of six.
April 6, 2015
I definitely didn't like this one as much as the previous installment... everything seemed a bit off. I don't love vampires mixed with my Conan, for one... and this one was both too powerful and too easy to kill at the same time. The titular character, Areel, daughter of Lord Endithor, came into massive sorcerous powers far too easily, and far too quickly, or the usual Hyborian fare. Sonja was even a bit off... too nice to the kids (which I guess you can attribute to a mid-life crisis), and just kinda mellow in general... different even from the last book.
There were a couple of nice nods to the previous book, which was nice, and it was a pretty decent (if predictable) story, just not as good as the last one... I think perhaps this is more the level of quality I was expecting, and the previous one raised my standards ;)
Still a good read, I'll probably track down the others at some point :)
There were a couple of nice nods to the previous book, which was nice, and it was a pretty decent (if predictable) story, just not as good as the last one... I think perhaps this is more the level of quality I was expecting, and the previous one raised my standards ;)
Still a good read, I'll probably track down the others at some point :)
September 3, 2016
I think I bought these book because I liked the Boris covers :)
June 11, 2020
This has to be the most well written of the Red Sonja series (so far).
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews