Conference noted::sf

188.0. "Windrider: Hoppe" by VAXWRK::MAXSON () Mon Apr 01 1985 01:51

Title:	The Windrider  by Stephanie T. Hoppe

	(C) 1985 by DAW Collector's Series, ISBN: 0-88677-020-3  $2.95

	Plot:  Oa is an adolescent Dancer, the near-heir to the Throne of
	the Dynasty which rules the Empire. The current Dynast decides to
	test Oa's suitability to rule by asking her to choreograph and
	dance the Grand Dance, a martial-art form in which someone invariably
	dies at the hands of the Dancer. In the role of victim, the Dynast
	has cast Jily, Oa's cunning lesbian lover. Thus, to pass the test
	Oa must kill Jily, a thing she will not do despite Jily's infidelity.
	Oa flees from the Empire, joins a group of nomadic tribesmen who
	live far from the Empire, and becomes a Windrider and chief. But
	the Dynast isn't quite through with her yet...
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	Opinion: This is a silly and pointless fantasy. It has no point to
	make, and in fact ends abruptly without resolution. Nowhere is there
	mention of future books to conclude the story, but I have a bad
	feeling that there will be more (probably two more) of these things.
	The style is lurid, as is the cover art; and this reads like a cross
	between the Letters to Penthouse and Conan the Librarian. Apart from
	the setting of an Empire, somewhere, there isn't much fantasy in
	the book - no sorcery, no suspense, no wonder. It's the saga of a
	spoiled bisexual runaway teenager, as told by a lawyer for the State
	of California. Who cares?

	no stars