Silver Princess, Golden Knight
Sharon Green
342 pages
published in 1993
When I saw Silver Princess, Golden Knight in a second hand bookshop, it looked like a fun fantasy adventure romp, spiced up with a bit of romance to make it interesting. A quick scan of the first few pages seemed to confirm that impression. I’d never heard of Sharon Green, but it was on the strenght of this that I decided to buy this novel. It was only after I started reading it in earnest that I discovered what a piece of sexist crap it was. I can’t think of any other novel I’ve ever read which spends so much time undermining its own heroine, all but calling her a bitch at times for being so unreasonable as wanting to decide how to live her own life.
Princess Alexia (Alex for friends) has always been a disappointment to her parents. Strongwilled and disdainful of traditional womanly virtues, she instead has spent most of years out on the streets, having been taught how to fight by her father’s royal guard. After one ill thought out attempt to help those less fortunate than her, has landed herself in prison for horse theft, her exasperated father decides enough is enough and decides that she needs a man to keep her on the straight and narrow. What she thinks about this is immaterial, there’s going to be a contest for all unmarried individuals in the kingdom and she is going the prize for the winner. Alex however discovers a loophole in the competition rules and enters herself, to make sure she remains a free womam. Now had Sharon Green chosen to tell the story of how Alex out fought and out smarted her would be suitors that would’ve been awesome. But this isn’t that story.
Instead this is a far more conventional “romance” story, where the heroine has to be forced into the love of a strong man, to realise afterwards that this was what she needed all along. The man chosen for that role is one Tiran d’Iste, a big, black haired, green eyed mercenary from another world, who is the only man who could defeat Alex on her own terms as like her, he’s a full range shape shifter. He wants her from the first moment he sees her, but like everybody else in the story gets frustrated and aggressive by her refusal to realise this is what she needs as well. Though he’s just sensitive enough to realise that somebody like Alex will never like being given away as a prize, this is not enough to stop him from entering the competition; it just worries him that he could win her, but not win her over.
To be honest, from the start Tiran comes across as a douchebag; otherwise he woldn’t have joined this contest. He’s also a bit rapey. When Alex invites him to sleep with her as a lark, then has second thoughts, for a while it looks as if he wants to keep her to her earlier promise. There’s also his internal monologue, in which he’s often angry at Alex, when she doesn’t do what he wants her to do. In this he’s not alone, her father is also angry a lot with her, talking about wanting to kill her, or later lamenting she’s too old to spank. It doesn’t do wonders for Alex’s agency, when every other character wants to hit her for doing things they dislike.
The contest starts, but somebody’s been tampering with it and of course Alex and Rapey macRapeson have to team up to survive the suddenly quite deadly challenges. This would be exciting if the challenges were actually, well, challenging. Instead everything they encounter is fairly easily defeated. At the end Alex disqualified due to a technicallity, the big bad behind the tampering gets revealed and is distinctly unimpressive and Alex and Tiran get to hear the real reason behind the contest and why Alex never had a chance. Turns out that there’s an ancient prophecy that if you have a feisty, independent daughter she needs to get an equally strong willed husband to roam the multiverse righting wrongs yadda yadda. Everybody lives happily ever after, bar the reader.
So yeah, not a good book, mostly because its sexism undermines what could’ve been a fun story. This was never going to be more than light entertainment, but the sexism made it something to hurl away with great force.
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