Unnatural Issue: An Elemental Masters Novel by Mercedes Lackey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Another lightweight entry in the Elemental Masters series. This one tries to follow the "Donkeyskin" story by Charles Perrault. As the book opens, it would seem that Lackey does a good job of staying close to the tale, but by the end of the book, it's very much another one in her series. That's not necessarily a bad thing--the final confrontation is as good as anything that Lackey has written. However, despite her willingness to include extreme violence, Lackey's books are never all that horrifying. As readers, we know precisely what Susanne's father wants to do to her (heck, even the cover copy gives that away!), but Lackey's writing lacks the necessary punch for it to really sink in and disturb. I don't want to say that Lackey dodges the hard questions or fails to explore the darker side of this tale. That's simply not true. The sad fact is that Lackey is just not a good enough writer to make readers invest in the characters in such a way as to be horrified. She used to be able to that; her Last Herald-Mage series is one of the most disturbing litanies of character torture that I've ever read. But this book doesn't have that emotional force.
For a very dark, very emotional version of this tale, I recommend Robin McKinley's Deerskin. Be warned: it is dark, and if you read Lackey for her lightweight nature, you might not like Deerskin. But more than anything else, Deerskin is a novel about healing, and it is good.
Perhaps that's part of my problem with this book. Despite the horrific events Lackey writes about, only one character is deeply wounded mentally and still in recovery at the end of the book. If our protagonists can walk away from such things without psychic bruises, is it any wonder when I, as a reader, feel next to nothing of their pain?
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