The Dark Lady [Paperback]

Very few people, even those who are somewhat familiar with science fiction, will know the name Mike Resnick, but I was still surprised to find myself the first reviewer of this book. Resnick holds the record for Hugo award nominations and is arguably the most consistently brilliant writer of short speculative fiction at work today. In fact, before reading this novel, I had only come across him through his stories that made the last three consecutive Hugo shortlists. So perhaps the fact that no Resnick fan has spoken up for "The Dark Lady" means that it simply isn't his best work? Should I not have chosen this as my introduction to his books?

Well, it certainly has some flaws. Halfway through, I began to wonder why this adventure mystery needed to be set in outer space at all. While I love SF, I'm often disappointed by the space opera format that is nothing more than a colourful setting, which can make it harder to care about the characters or suspend disbelief about the silliness of the action. In this story, an art expert must traverse the galaxy, collecting diverse paintings that feature the same woman. In service of the plot, there is no reason why the hero must be an alien, live in the far, far future, or even leave the same continent let alone hop from planet to planet. This story could easily have been a fantasy about a modern human, set in a dark and supernatural version of the modern world. Also, this is a mystery with very little mystery to it; we very quickly guess the nature of the Dark Lady's secrets, but the characters seem very slow to catch on, which is more than a little annoying.

But despite all these apparent negatives, I really rather enjoyed the book. Resnick is a fun writer and this story has a real sense of tongue-in-cheek fun. The anti-heroic narrator might grate on some people's nerves -- he is cowardly, melodramatic and bumbling -- but I really enjoyed watching his inept progress, in particular Resnick is very clever in making us feel sympathy for the alien who encounters nothing but prejudice and xenophobia along his journey. The book is mainly about this character study, in which events are thrust upon a polite and neurotic hero who is amusingly ill-equipped to deal with the cut-throat worlds he travels through. The overall feel of the piece is quite a classic one, a golden-era caper somewhat following the campy style of Heinlein's Double Star, with all the playful colour of Larry Niven's Ringworld (S.F. Masterworks) and, thankfully, without Niven's stumbling attempts at erotica.

This is a light SF read aimed at classic SF and fantasy readers and a hard book to recommend to fans of idiotic military space-sagas or to those looking for more profound or dystopian themes in their SF. That is not to say that this is not a very fun and charming read that will provide those of us in the middle ground with a few hours of highly enjoyable diversion.