cover image EMPRESS OF CLOUDS

EMPRESS OF CLOUDS

Diana Hignutt, . . Behler, $16.95 (293pp) ISBN 978-0-9748962-4-3

In Hignutt's commendably brisk if modest second fantasy novel (after 2002's Moonsword ), 27-year-old Prince Kelvis of Lorm is plotting to be named heir to the Lorm throne, because the current heir is actually an heiress, Princess Talion, who was changed into a woman in order to fight "the Demon." Kelvis allies himself with an evil Elven lord, Dowbreth, who conspires to bring the whole realm under the rule of the Sidhe (or fairy folk). But Princess Talion is no fool in either gender, and with the steadfast help of her wife, the Druidess Brythia, and another identity-challenged gentleman, Kiliordes, she resists valiantly. The author, herself a transsexual, sensitively handles the book's transsexual theme, but the abundance of superior fantasy fiction in the marketplace, some of it more effectively gender-bending than this workmanlike effort, presents a challenge. (Dec. 31)