Review of Elf Slave

Elf Slave: The Complete Collection by Sarah Hawke

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Sexy, Kinky Game of Thrones Meets Word of Warcraft

I totally understand if you think the title of this review is BS, because every fantasy novel that has nobles plotting against one another during a war/over a throne is getting called "another Games of Thrones" nowadays, so much so that it means next to nothing.

What I meant when I used the phrase was that almost all the major characters were scheming and double--dealing, not always for bad reasons, but sometimes for bad reasons. And even the characters who were scheming for bad reasons sincerely felt that their often black-hearted skullduggery was for the long-term good of the Empire and the people in it (well mostly the humans in it) even though their reasons for thinking so were often transparently self-serving.

And when I say that it's like World of Warcraft I mean that Hawke has done a great job of world-building based on the same fantasy types as World of Warcraft, with humans, orcs, mages, dark elves and light elves and other fantasy creatures I don't remember offhand.

And Hawke also does a great job of providing plenty of kinky elf slave sex throughout the story without bogging it down at all.

But I don't expect you to take my word for it. Let me give you a description of the setup to this story: no spoilers here, just what is going on as the first book in the five book series that comprises Elf Slave begins:

War has begun in the Empire of the Covenant, in which humans have conquered most of a continent formerly dominated by elves. A thousand years ago three powerful human mages discovered how to give others magical powers by binding them to a powerful crystal. They also had the ability to take their followers' powers away. It gave them an army of powerful mages who were utterly beholden to them for their powers, which proved enough to defeat the elves who are naturally more gifted with magic. The humans enslave the light elves, the orcs and other nonhuman species, and drive the dark elves to the northern edge of the continent where they maintain a precarious independence against the humans whose armies outnumber theirs ten to one.

Then the emperor of the Covenant invades the dark elf kingdom after a thousand years of peace and it does not go well for the humans. The invaders are driven off, and the dark elves invade the Covenant Empire, taking a portion of the human province of Glorinfel, including its chief castle, Balagarde.

Elf Slave begins with the elf slave Elara and her Master the Grand Duke Kristof of Glorinfel as refugees in the Imperial capital city of Sanctum after the fall of Balagarde. Kristof is planning to rebuild his fortunes and get the Imperials to retake his lands. He brought Elara with him because he sees her as the key to success for his plans.

Elara is one of the Unbound, one of the very rare natural mages who have magical powers without being bound to the crystal. She is also an avenari, i.e. personal love slave of Duke Kristof, whom she happily serves, because she adores and admires him for teaching her to harness her powers and also she likes being made love to very much, even if it involves being bound and gagged and whipped, which is a common experience for avenari like Elara. (Though we don't know how other avenari feel about it because Elara has not had much contact with them back in Castle Balagarde.)

Sanctum is full of other scheming Grand Dukes who are looking for ways to capitalize on the war with the elves, and more specifically on Duke Kristof's misfortune. Kristof's plan involves whoring Elara out to various nobles and having her use her magical powers to plumb their minds for useful secrets and also to actually alter their minds in favor of doing things Kristof's way -- which is made much easier when she is in physical contact with someone. And as an avenari, she gets a lot of very deep physical contact with the nobles she is given to as a plaything. Since the nobles of the Empire routinely send their favored avenari to one another for a weekend or a week as tokens of their esteem for one another, Grand Duke Kristof's plan arouses no suspicions.

OK, that's the setup for the first book. I hope my description gave some idea of what a beautiful and complex job of world-building, plotting and character development Hawke has done in creating Elf Slave. As the novel continues, naive and ignorant young Elara grows in power and awareness, mostly awareness that all is not as it seems to be in the Covenant and that the people around her are playing many games involving factions, betrayal and who knows what else.

And of course, Elara, naive as she is, is an unreliable narrator. We see the world through her eyes, and her understanding is incomplete, so our knowledge of what's really going on in the Covenant Empire and with the people around her grows with her knowledge. And so we are drawn into the story as we learn about the dangerous and exciting world of the likable slave Elara.

I highly recommend this book. Why did I give it four stars and not five? Mostly because it is not a complete story. It was clearly conceived as the first book in a series, most likely a trilogy. But there are no other books out that follow up Elf Slave (that I know of) and I thought it was a complete. When I figured out it was not, I was disappointed.

I also had some problems with Elara's development as a character. She starts out as a likable young magic whore, who really likes sex, even when she's hogtied and being used an ally (yes, that happens to her, though it's not explicitly described as many other scenes are, perhaps because it might be difficult to do).

Elara's also a physical coward, largely because of her slave upbringing (though her life as a slave prior to being bought by Duke Kristof isn't developed at all). Elara grows as a person as she become a more and more capable mage, but she never really becomes a player in her own right. I would have liked to see a lot more growth in her as a person over the course of the novel. Elara's a tool that others see has tremendous potential, and she does make choices eventually, unfortunately, many of them are really stupid choices that grow increasingly annoying as the story continues. Toward the end, I got the impression that Hawke was giving Elara the Idiot Ball to move the plot forward and get the novel finished already.

The sex was also a problem, though not in the usual way, i.e., badly done and not enough of it. The sex was frequent, explicit and full of kinky bondage. Clearly with all the plotting and scheming and so forth, Elf Slave isn't nonstop erotica … it's more of a straight-up fantasy story with a strong kinky bondage element that includes well written expicit sex scenes, many of which involve sexual bondage. And that was FINE with me. Like I said, best erotic fantasy novel I've EVER read.

Elara enjoyed the slave sex thoroughly, anticipated it eagerly and participated fully even when she was providing oral pleasure with her hands tied behind her back (a common experience for her). She really didn't like being collared and cuffed and shackled when traveling in public in the Empire, but she didn't mind it either -- she accepted it as the norm for elves.

The problem is, the sex wasn't really linked to her character development except in one way, which is that as she grew more powerful and increasingly had self-respect, she hated to see other slaves used sexually (as she had so often been), so much so that on a couple of occasions it was all she could do to keep from fricasseeing a noble human who was having his or her way with an avenari like herself.

I understand what's going on there. Elara is projecting. She has no problem with being sexually used herself, but when she sees others so used, it arouses all her protective instincts, since she has an awareness of herself as a person who can protect others. She sees other slaves as proxies of her old self and she wants to protect them.

Still, I just didn't buy it. There were many explicitly described kinky bondage sessions that Elara engaged in as a helpless slave, as well as a much greater number implied, that it just doesn't make sense she'd get all upset over bound lovemaking or a mild whipping. I would have liked her to earn those feelings a little more in some way. The anger coming from someone who has been a happy participant in bondage as a submissive to human Masters and Mistresses throughout the novel just didn't ring true, especially since Elara doesn't stop enjoying being used as a submissive by various characters until very late in the novel.

But let's be clear: what makes these flaws a problem for me is that Hawke is such a good writer in so many respects. They stand out among all the really excellent work she does. In terms of most erotic fantasy writing, which is WAAAAAAAAAY lower than the level Hawke is working on, they're almost unnoticeable quibbles. Not worth mentioning for lesser writers.

In fact, I feel I have been overly critical here, except for one thing: the book retails for $9.99, which is what a lot of traditional publishers charge for their books. If you want to charge the big girl prices, you get the big girl reviews. That said, buy the book. It's worth it.



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