The Empty Throne

Xena: Warrior Princess

by Ru Emerson

Passing through a remote village, Xena and Gabrielle discover that all of its men have disappeared without a trace, and the pair must uncover the truth about the mysterious armed bands that are running rampant through the streets. Original. TV tie-in.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Mythology, Adventure, Science Fiction Fantasy

232 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1996

About the author

aka Roberta Cray

Ru Emerson was born on December 15th, 1944 in Montana. She and her husband, Doug, live in Oregon with their only child, a silver mackerel tabby cat named Roberta. She likes to lift weights, run, bike, skate in-line, ski, play basketball, tennis, racquetball, garden, play guitar, scuba dive, and fly stunt kites. Her favorite reading material includes Megan Lindholm, science fiction by Larry Niven, murder mysteries by Patricia Cornwell, plus any other good historical non-fiction.

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Let me first preface this rating with the fact that, I do understand that it must be hard to write a tie-in-novel while a brand new TV show is currently being aired. The publishing date of 1996 had given me a bit of hope that maybe this was written deeper into Season 1 of Xena, but that doesn't seem to be the case. On the up side, this isn't the same debacle of the Star Trek: TNG novels where the author had never been able to see a single episode while being commissioned to write a book about it! To be perfectly honest, I do not think an author is to blame for the lack of quality, I blame the TV producers who commission authors to write books about material that clearly hasn't been fully developed or don't give authors enough information to make it work with the show in tandem.

This story takes place right after episode 13 when Gabrielle visited the Athens school of Performing Bards. So, I'm going to assume Emerson didn't have too much information beyond that episode when she was actually writing this book. The style of the story is firmly rooted in Season 1, which I thought was only okay. Back in the 80's/90's I feel like the first season of shows tended to only be okay and it took a little bit of time for a show to really gain its legs, as it were, for setting the tone and feel of the characters. I think Xena suffered from this a bit, don't get me wrong, there were some good episodes, but not all of them were excellent. At some point I remember the show getting much better over time, but that being the case The Empty Throne rather suffers from the woes of being a first season tie-in.

The Empty Throne is kind of a bizarre book, it has two completely different stories in it and the two don't feel all that related. In the first portion of the book Xena and Gabrielle find themselves in a small town that is being harassed by someone turning the men into pigs. So, you imagine it's some evil sorceress that they will need to outsmart or fight or something. But no, the conclusion is entirely anti-climatic and pretty boring. Turns out, Gabrielle is here to save the day and thwart Xena's plan to fight... by simply talking to the sorceress and convincing her she can make friends with people. That's it, that's the story. Gabrielle fully involved in this story and by far the most annoying character to read about. She talks incessantly, lies constantly and just gets incredibly annoying from the moment she opened her mouth. For some reason, the on screen performance of this isn't as bad, but in written form, I don't know... it just hits very differently. I think Emerson actually did a good job writing Gabrielle based on the actresses performance, but that fast talking confidence women role wasn't as well done on paper. To her credit Renee O'Connor does a good job, but it was amusing seeing the episode where Bruce Campbell shows up who has years of experience playing that type of character to see the difference. I think Gabrielle got more awesome as the seasons went on though, because it's hard to do without also seeming annoying, if you know what I mean.

Okay, so once that conflict is resolved, they hear rumors that Draco's army has besieged the island where Odysseus is from. (For the record, I did like how Emerson tried to continue the them of show where she ties in all these Greek legends into her story.) As soon as Xena and Gabrielle make it to the palace and sneak in, Xena just leaves Gabrielle with the queen. What feels like the first half of the story, Gabrielle pretty much just spends asleep. I wasn't about to complain because by this point I had already had enough of Gabrielle's fast talking antics. Even when she wakes up and interacts it feels like a very different Gabrielle. She's way less annoying and feels more in line with how Gabrielle is in the show. The sad part is, she almost feels like an after thought in this branch of the story, which really isn't the case in the show.

So now the conflict transitions to Xena needing to outsmart Draco and his large army. Luckily, Xena's character is written pretty on point. One of the weird errors I found was that on one page it is stated that there are 22 ships and then on the next Draco has 27 ships... Anyway, I don't know why, but I feel like Draco wasn't written how he was in the show. Some of the conversations he has with Xena are kind of weird as if he wasn't working with Xena's old army or they didn't used to be lovers. Draco also spends almost all of his time in the palace sitting around eating. In any event Xena comes up with an elaborate plan to fool Draco into thinking Odysseus has returned with his army. All of four pages is devoted to this and it's probably the best part of the entire book.

Everything else is extremely tedious descriptions that just make the book feel extra dense for no reason. There is one part where Xena walks around the island and we get a blow by blow description of all the things. This happens quite a few times and just makes the novel feel a bit bloated. I feel like this novel is a hundred pages too long in that regard.

In the end, this story doesn't really add anything in the Xena universe for me. Hopefully the other books Emerson wrote were commissioned during season 2, at least, and the stories feel less haphazard. Emerson had some decent concept ideas, but their execution felt more thrown together than it should have been. For such a short novel, it took me way too long to read this. I kept putting it down to take breaks and read other books I found more interesting.

[Shannon Deep · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable and well written with good attention to framing action scenes, Xena's militaristic cunning, and the 2nd language underneath social interactions. I enjoyed the play on the Odysseus myth on what happened to his land while he was gone. Bringing back Draco was a nice tie in to the show as well.

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lost me in a lot of parts and didn't have enough substance to bring me back 😔

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Xena and Gabrielle help a village who's men have disappeared and then set out to send Draco and his army packing when they discover that the warlord has taken control of Ithica. Fun for fans of the show. 3 stars.

[Danie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Go read a Fanfic or two if you'd like Xena Fiction. They're better, and a lot of them stick so much better to canon.

I mean, shakra?? Really? It's not a shakra, it's her chakram...

[Scott Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was obviously written fairly early in the series run. Emerson refers to Xena's horse as a "he" and the characterization of Gabrielle is that of a teenaged chatterbox. Emerson also refers to Xena's chakram as a "shakra".

This story cannot be canon. It would have to take place after "Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts" and before "Ulysses" but some of the events in this novel contradict those in "Ulysses". The plot is creative and I liked it in concept. The idea that Draco and his army took over Ithaca in Odysseus' absence is kind of clever. The scenes with Draco were fairly strong. Emerson works hard to nail Xena's physicality. She describes her body movements and facial expressions well but doesn't get her voice quite right.

Emerson has clearly watched all of the episodes up to a point. She name drops characters and describes events well enough to blend this novel into the universe at the time it was published. She clearly didn't have access to scripts or any of the show's staff or they would have corrected the small continuity errors here.

[James Crawford · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is basically divided into two stories with only a very minor link between the two. The first story deals with a village where the men have gone missing. Xena is able to find out what has happened to them and we are introduced to another mythological figure. Gabrielle plays a very important role in trying to solve that crisis.

The second story has the two going to an island and meeting the wife of Odysseus who has not yet returned from his voyages. Draco and his men have taken over and so it's up to Xena to try to figure out how to get all of them off the island while Gabrielle tries to help the wife.

There is one odd thing, though. The book refers to a 'razor sharp circle of steel.' Now we know that this object is Xena's chakram, but the book uses a different word.

Both stories are pretty good but it seems to me that the decision was made not to flush them out but just to combine them as they were.

[Ethan · Rating 2 out of 5]

At best it was fine and worse it was just confusingly paced and plotted.

[Maria do Socorro Baptista · Rating 5 out of 5]

Como fã de mitologia, eu simplesmente adorei este livro, e com certeza vou ler todos os oito livros desta série. Nunca a vi na TV, por simples questão de tempo, mas um mulher guerreira em tempo repletos de heróis masculino, como Hércules, Ulisses, Aquiles, etc., é um bom respiro. Sei que nem sempre a narrativa segue a trajetória que lemos nos livros de Homero, mas não vejo isso como problema. Afinal, mitologias podem ser reescritas. Amei!!

[Courtnie Pollard]

Review forthcoming.

[Terry Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Xena and Draco conflict. The timing seems to be after Gabrielle had been to the Bard’s Academy, but still early on in their travels. Always a twist to Xena’s battle plans. Good characters.

[Niina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Xena the Warrior Princess continues her adventures in The Empty Throne when she happens by a village that has an odd problem: all the men have disappeared without a trace. With the king and his men gone too, no one's there to protect the villagers... until Xena and Gabrielle arrive.

The reason I read this book was simply that I'm a huge fan of the Xena TV show and figured I'd give this novel a chance. Unfortunately the book fell short in quite a few areas.

First was the actual story. There's mystery in the beginning with the missing men but unlike I thought from the book's description, that's not the main focus of the book. The rest of the story deals with another problem and that section (the largest section) was the weakest. Perhaps it would've worked if these plots had been worked into separate short stories, but as a book it didn't hold my interest. There was no mystery, no suspense, nothing really to drive the plot forward.

Another disappointment was the way the book handled Xena canon. There were at least a couple of errors, which is always bad when basing your work on something that already exists. Someone not so familiar with Xena might not notice, but I'm having a hard time imagining anyone who doesn't like Xena reading this book.

The thing this book did fairly well was how it depicted Xena and Gabrielle, especially together. There was that sense of friendship and their main traits were recognizable, but the book brought very little new into the table.

All in all this book was a very short, quick and easy read. It was kind of like those silly dramas and reality shows that run on TV during the day; perhaps not something you deliberately want to watch but since there's nothing else on...

If you're an absolute hardcore Xena fan, maybe you'll want to pick this up. Otherwise I would recommend you spend your time with another book. I have three other books in this Warrior Princess series but they'll probably be sitting in the shelf for a long while, waiting for a time when all I'm looking for is a way to null my brain and for whatever reason the TV doesn't offer anything that'd work.

[Aioria · Rating 2 out of 5]

its a nice try, with two big mistakes.
1- gabrielle does not have visions, she is not a seer, ok, once, when she was poisoned and almost dead she had a vision of the future, but that does not make her a seer.
2- its chakram, not shacram, to be honest the only parragraf where its mentoned, in page 222 its desepointing.
I DID NOT HATE THIS BOOK

[Troy Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

At least xena is the hero, and the theme of redemption is found throughout. Really, the first part, involving a rescue of villagers turned into pigs was the most interesting. Maybe te fan base would have been better served by collections of short stories rather than a series of novels.

[Irina · Rating 2 out of 5]

just for fans

[Marina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. Very early series Xena and Gab.