Wastrel’s Reviews > Elfshadow > Status Update

This is partly because, freed from the need to set tone and establish foreshadowing slowly and gently (when it felt she was treading water a bit), the author does a much better job of pulling us through the actual action.

But it's mostly because somehow Danilo, who should be the most infuriating character ever written - he's an incredibly clichéd stock character, approximately 75% Oscar Wilde, 10% Noel Coward, 10% Xander, and 5% James Bond (the Roger Moore version) - he actually mostly works dramatically and emotionally, and is frequently genuinely funny.

And the mismatched buddy-cop banter between the wisecracking apparent fool, Danilo, and the long-suffering straightman, Arilyn (who spends most of the novel being annoyed and glaring), which should rapidly become insufferable, is actually entertaining (if certainly not innovative).

[the character of Elaith, who at first seems like another stock character - the suave but ruthless Bond villain - also greatly improves the novel, as we discover more sides to him and some genuinely interesting mixed motivations]

[[note to self and other authors: see how much more interesting things immediately become once characters have realistically complex feelings and motivations!]]

I'm seeing why I read a lot of her novels. Not that this is actually a good book exactly, but it's not bad, it's entertaining, and it's engaging (my having dropped it for four months is an indictment of me more than of it).

Unfortunately, there's a strong feeling of the author being held back, because the things which are worst - mostly the clunky language and the cartoonish simplifications in the background - are the things which feel most like obligations to the genre and/or franchise.