An Elegy of Fate

An ancient embodiment of fate concocts a scheme to return to power over the planet Dyjian in a meager story shoehorned into an excruciatingly detailed SF setting. Debut novelist Laubrea spends more time on appendices about the setting, races, and calendar of Dyjian than on creating meaningful characters. Following the protagonists is wearying. Arlen, a human ruler with a strong streak of pettiness, is doomed at the hands of Mokallai (aka “fate”), who hides within the skin of an alien, Yonathael, who’s important to the backer of mopey Prince Rollond; and the plot only gets more confusing from there. Poor word choices (such as referring to coitus as “ingress”) and the profusion of names do the muddled story no favors. [em](BookLife) [/em]