Review (partial): Rayne Dance, by Mlyn Hurn

[elfs]

Mlyn Hurn's novella Rayne Dance is the thematic sequel to that horrible rape fantasy novel I blogged about earlier, Wynd Temptress. The set-up is more of the same-- daughter of an evil world-conquering telepath hiding out 20 years after the war that brought him down-- although this story has less infodump than the previous.

This book isn't quite so bad. Rayne is lucky that Sean isn't the crazed rapist like Adam, the man her sister, Wynd, got. Sean's a retired soldier of the Psychic Wars trying to live a quiet life in a parched corner of post-war California, when he stumbles upon Rayne and her own little dustbowl farm.

The arc of this story so far (I'm about 2/3rds of the way through it) is completely predictable. Rayne develops an uncontrollable desire for Sean, and vice versa. After some rather hackneyed dialogue about how neither has ever done anything like this before, they fall madly in bed.

Mlyn Hurn has a writing style that resembles trying to ballet in ski boots:

Even in the dim light Sean could see the bright flush staining her cheeks. Perhaps it was too soon to explore some avenues. Kissing her parted lips, his tongue caressed its way inside and explored the softness within. His hands began caressing her body, from her breast to her thighs and back up. As far as he was concerned, he was ready and about as hard as he'd ever been. But he wanted to arouse Rayne once again. Often he'd satisfy a woman first, and then enter her cunt, to come inside her tight, wet body. With Rayne, though, he wanted her to climax with him inside of her. He also wanted her to come as hard as she had earlier.

From the casual use of the word 'cunt' (I dunno; Scott Westerfeld used it too, in Evolution's Daughter, so maybe it's becoming passe') to the obsession with Sean's pleasure over Rayne's, to the close examination of his reactions I conclude that Mlyn Hurn is a man, and either a virgin or a cad. He doesn't spend too much time on Rayne's examination of Sean's body, though; that would be gay.

It's the thudding, antipoetic language that really kills this story. You couldn't read this aloud without a wince now and then. I might finish it. It might be like watching a train wreck.

Comments

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Wow. I've never read much fantasy/sci-fi romance beyond LMB's Sharing Knife books (read 'em, they're good), but that paragraph just sits there like a lump of lead, doesn't it?

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Wow. It's like the erotic equivalent of refrigerated poi--cold, lumpy, and tasteless.

[threnodym.livejournal.com]

'Began caressing her body'.

Exquisitely, gently wooden.

[nbarnes.livejournal.com]

It's my perception that you use 'cunt' a lot in your writing. Then again, I haven't read this piece of 'writing' or others like it. Is there a subtlety that I'm missing?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Good point, and I had a feeling someone would bring that up. I think, if there's a subtlety, it's that this book is marketed as a romance, and its intended audience is mostly middle-class women. That's a different audience from the one I'm usually after-- I do write my characters in a way I hope appeals to women readers, but I don't go after the "I like my Harlequins racy" crowd.

[nbarnes.livejournal.com]

I can see that. The distinction between 'racy SF romance' and 'Elf's literate SF porn' is perhaps finer to me than it is to the intended audience of the former. I think I'm biased by the, as you've put it in the past, 'domestic fantasy' aspects of the JE in particular. Even with all the SM, buttfucking, and use of 'cunt', they just don't seem that racy to me, what with all the raising of happy, healthy children, healthy negotiation between partners, etc, etc.