| $@%&! level: Medium “Bedroom” level: Medium-High Violence level: High Back Cover: “There are elves out there. And more of them are coming. But even elves need money to survive in the 'real' world. The good elves, intrigued by the thrills of stock car racing, are manufacturing new, light-weight engines (with, incidentally, very little 'cold' iron); the bad elves run a kiddie-porn and snuff-film ring, with occasional forays into drugs. Ranged on the other side of all that's good-- Keighvin: elf lord with a problem, and the victim of a vendetta. Tannim: a human mage with a taste for fast cars and loud music. Sam Kelly: mild-mannered retired engineer with an Irish temper. Ross Canfield: a good old Southern boy who just happens to be dead. The people trapped in between: three runaways. Good kids already in serious trouble and about to get into more. Unwitting pawns in a deadly game, they will either be saved—or led into a fate worse than death.” |
That's why I like this novel, and also why it ended up with an unfortunately high Bad Stuff rating—because Mercedes Lackey is addressing some real life bad stuff. In this case, it's the problem of teenage runaways and prostitution. And I think she's probably vastly understating the case, especially since the main teenage hooker isn't exactly running away from a totally intolerable home-life, no matter what she thinks. Tania's parents are control freaks with a trophy child, but it's hardly a life or death situation, as it may be for many. That does allow the eventual happy ending to be a bit easier all around.
Okay, so that takes care of the social commentary. And it's useful that the happy ending is simpler than it might have been, because that leaves a lot more time for the adventure. Yes, the fantasy is wrapped up in a real-world problem, but the real story is a straightforward, good versus evil, knock-down, drag-out fight. In my opinion, one of the best parts is the way the good guys invent new styles of fighting (both defensive and offensive) by combining new things with old, and science with magic. I guess that comes from the fact that most of them are engineers one way or another, and also magic users. Since there's inevitably going to be fighting, I always like to see them being clever with it. And it seems somehow poetic that the three main antagonists are all defeated in sort of spur of the moment confrontations rather than grand, climactic one-on-one battles. Some people might not like that in their fantasy, but to me it feels appropriate. It's like the protagonists have to defeat the bad guys, but their goal is more tied to rescuing the victims. The antagonists are just in the way (in one case literally).
The good guys are also an excellent source of humor for the story. In fact, it could probably even be described as geeky humor, and they're awfully good at friendly banter and at laughing in tense situations. I sometimes think this is something many authors never quite manage, either because they don't notice it, or they just can't write it, but real people actually spend a lot of time just making each other laugh, and it's always nice to see that in fictional characters. Oddly enough, you almost never see the bad guys behaving that way, leading me to the theory that people join the dark side because they take themselves too seriously. What do you think? Does a healthy sense of humor help keep people on the straight and narrow?
Speaking of which, I should point out that Born to Run was written in the late 80s-early 90s. CDs hadn't been invented yet. Cell phones were practically unheard of. And Tannim has a mullet. Try not to think less of him for that; they were cool once.