Mickey Zucker Reichert, Godslayer

[beccaelizabeth]

I have a two book version of the whole Bifrost Guardians set, but I've so far only read the Godslayer book.
I finished it this morning, and it has been bugging me ever since.
It's mostly from the point of view of the hero, a dude who died in the Vietnam war and woke up an elf working for Freyr. as you do. ... actually it's an interesting setup, and there's lots about PTSD full of flashbacks and the difference in what war meant and the similarities.

What is bugging me is the relationships. This dude, Al, he falls in love at first sight. And he actually says that after so long in Vietnam any white woman would look awesome, but this one looks most epic awesome, so hey, love! :eyeroll: And I can see why he would love her. She's introduced saving him from a dragon, she kicks major magical arse, everybody likes her. But I can't at all see why she would fall for him. The whole book takes place over about two weeks, and his 'heroic' achievements involve a lot of running away, or running towards if that's the most unhelpful thing to do right then, and also rather a lot of screaming, having full on reliving it flashbacks, and talking to gods nobody else can hear. PTSD might make an interesting heroic flaw to explore, but I can't quite see how it makes an attractive love interest. At least not in any good way.

The only thing I could figure is that when he's helping look after the kid they rescue it's like auditions for co-parent and he somehow passes. Except, two weeks of knowing each other. And she has presumably met other people in her life. And he at one point tries to kill her. For killing zombie kid, but still. It's really hard to read it as a love story. It makes sense from his side, she's his obsession and his road to redemption and suchlike, but why she'd put up with it I cannot see.

So now the setup for book two is they're going to Hel to rescue the lady, so the book is acting like it's all this grand love that will cross worlds, and I'm just kind of hoping she'll take the help and then suggest the dude gets some serious therapy and maybe waits to meet someone he can get along with for more than a week without attempted murder. Or actual murder. I feel the accidentally killing her ought to be an issue. I fear it won't be.

So there's that, and there's the thing where there's three heroes, the kid sidekick, two gods, and the evil dude, and out of all of them there's only one woman. Oh, and someone who gets killed early on because she doesn't want to marry the evil dude. She's basically there to demonstrate he is evil.

I guess this is why I hadn't re-read these more. They're hovering somewhere between not my cup of tea and blah.

Comments

[philippos42]

Ah, the old problem of identifying with one's protagonist and writing wish-fulfillment. Or expecting your readers to identify with the protagonist and thus offering wish-fulfillment.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I think my wife has a copy of the first book. She loved it to death for some reason, though the more she told me about it the attracted I was to the concept.