Dance of Knives by Donna McMahon

Dance of Knives by Donna McMahon

A Tor Book, 2001.

Overview: In 2108, Klale, which she tells us rhymes with "daily," is a young woman who has run away from the Fisher's Guild to start a new life in Vancouver's Downtown, an island full of "Guildless" people who have neither the duties or protection of citizenship. She finds the KlonDyke, a strip club/bar whose name raised my hopes way too high, and proceeds to be a glowing beacon of naïveté to her newfound friend Toni, the "'Dyke's" bartender with a secret past. She also takes the risk of trusting Blade, a "tool": he was sold as a child to be neurologically twisted into a  blackmailer's slave. Since he is strong enough to kill anyone easily, and also, due to his "training," liable to go berserk under certain circumstances, this is a greater risk than most people would take! While a gang war is in the offing (spoiler--there seem to be more gangsters/corrupt police in the bar than lesbians), most of the book revolves around learning more about the mysterious pasts of Blade and Toni.

My reaction:

I have to say this upfront: one lesbian sex scene, with no real lesbian romance, with one participant  described as “lean[ing] het” by her partner afterwards PLUS more page-time devoted to (disturbing, in my opinion) hetero sex, and the only front-and-center (i.e., plot-driving) weird-but-probably-qualifies-as-romance romance being hetero, does not "lesbian" novel make. (To be fair to whoever tagged it as such on NoveList, there was a lesbian relationship in the backstory, and a supporting character was nominally in a lesbian relationship, but her partner is such a minor character I forgot it for a minute.) Additional disclaimer: I was really rubbed the wrong way by the description of Klale's introduction to Bracken, who self-identifies herself as a "hermy." While Klale initially reads her as a young woman, when she catches a glimpse of what's underneath some sequined panties, she immediately thinks, "She was a he. Well...maybe," and then launches into an analysis of Bracken's body, and "she/he" and "his or her"s for a couple of pages despite a pretty femme presentation. Ultimately, Bracken says either she or he is fine, but then Klale settles on she because Bracken has larger breasts than her! Ugh, moving on.

All that said, as you might have surmised from the overview, I found Klale really too stupid to be interesting. Thankfully, Toni's story is much more compelling, and is delved into over the course of many blissfully Klale-free pages. 

I have to admit that some of Klale's stupidity paid off in a few situations, but it was hard for me to root for her regardless. 

I idly wondered more than once if a lot of my annoyance with Klale had to do with her name; while her legal name is Margaret, she chose Klale because it apparently means "blue" in Chinook, and was a joke about her hair. I still think my original, pre-pronunciation guide pronunciation is more apt: Klale rhymes with "flail." 

Besides these quarrels, I have to say that McMahon is a better writer technically speaking than many of my "meh" books. I just had a hard time with the inconsistent level of world-building (lots of vocabulary didn't entirely distract me from wanting a few more details about what Klale had run from), some creepy sex (let's just say I'm not into seeing anyone get it on with someone who is a mental age of 12), and Klale.