Subject: Dexter: The Prince of Ill Luck

From: [email-masked]
Date: 20 Jul 1994 00:52:11 -0400

"The Prince of Ill Luck", by Susan Dexter, isn't as actively bad as most
of the books I've been reading lately, but neither did I particularly
enjoy it.  It's a spin-off from the "Ring of Allaire" trilogy -- the first
in a series titled "The Warhorse of Estragon", and following the demon horse
of the title.  Apparently, the warhorse will be the linking plot-device in
the series, rather than the central character.

This first book follows Leith, a prince who really *is* unlucky.  His bad
luck has mostly resulted in only minor injuries to himself, so far, but
those around him tend to experience plague and famine and earthquake and
inconvenience.  When he is shipwrecked on his way to be married off (his
family hoping to fob his bad luck off on someone else), he finds Valadan
-- the warhorse -- and, with his help, promptly wins a competition and,
with it, the hand of a beautiful princess.  In the fairy tale, this is where
the story is supposed to end, but here the princess has no intention of
marrying, and she runs off in search of her missing father, and he follows
her.  They are pursued by an assortment of people who would rather see the
heir to the kingdom dead -- and by Leith's luck.

Did I say that the book isn't actively bad?  It isn't.  But it's hard to
enjoy a novel much when the characters are either uninteresting or unlikable.
Leith, who gets most of the air time, tends towards the former:  He's
noble and he's persistent and he's forgiving and he's understanding and
he's stoic and it didn't take me long to start wishing he'd been successfully
killed at birth.  As for Kess, the princess, she's shallow and obnoxious
until the plot requires her to realize that she's in love with Leith, by
which point the book is almost over, and it's hard to care.  <Shrug>

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

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