An Offering of Diedra Drake's epic tale The Cursed Elves Series
June 22, 2021
By Alex Ness
I interviewed Diedra Drake here. She is someone who has been a great twitter friend, a colleague in the world of writing. She is a person so kind as to not only buy my books, but send me free ebooks for my time in recovery from surgery. She also a constant supportive force in the Twitter writer community. So this isn't written without appreciation of her for many reasons, but I am being honest about the words here. As book six of her book series the Cursed Elves is coming out soon and before I have surgery and take 10 days off writing, I thought I'd give a brief overview of the work to perhaps entice readers to consider the work. As ever, if you need to know the bias of the reviewer, this isn't a review, it is an offering, suggesting that you consider it. I do indeed appreciate that the difference of a review or an offering is that one comes into the work neutral or informed of bias open to a fair judgment of the work.
This story plays in numerous genres, and does so without limits found in most works of what the reader understands coming here. The various Elf Houses nearly destroyed themselves in war a millennia ago. As a result of that they've been cursed. Everything that a curse is, is explored but the reader cannot assume a damn thing. The main character is Priscilla Forester, an elf who is 500 plus years old, and is possessed of abilities far in excess of others of her kind, and that is the reason we follow the story and her development. Drake's writing flows well, it has surprises, and she refuses to obey the "limits" of genre, and for those reasons alone I think it is a series well worth reading. As a person who wrote a number of early prose works that either were meant for comics that never happened, or books I gave up and cannibalized to turn into poems, I always had main characters dying left and right, before any reader could have developed a love for that character. Diedra Drake does not do that at all. She makes her characters complex, interesting, even dangerous. I like that a lot. She does not follow rules others create. This will confuse those who require labels and stereotyped characters and genres. But for the intelligent, I think you'll appreciate the ways she does not obey the standard.
For instance, this is truly a different take on what an elf is. Elfquest's Wendy and Richard Pini created a world where elves are small in stature, live magical and mythic, adventurous lives, and are moved to love of each other, including that of romance. They conform to some prior understandings of elves, but not all. Tolkien's elves were the first to make them equal to or greater than humans, perhaps taller, far more beautiful, and living immortal existences, unless they chose to stay in the human lands, versus the Gray Havens. They also used magic and would rightly be seen as fulfilling the fantasy expectations of such characters. Almost all books in the fantasy follow the Tolkien template. However, and note well, not Diedra Drake's. The strength of her interpretation is also an area which might confuse readers. I am not going to directly get into and compare, but the key to understand them is found in the area of immortality, and how that affects their outlook, their love, their powers, their form and how it affects how they deal with the rest of the world. For instance, they find it easy to enter into romantic love, and passionate sex, due to the fact that they've seen absolutely everything in the arena of love and sexual experience. Their physical forms are both refined and bestial at the same time. They have fangs, but they are lithe, agile, and dangerous. This is the key to knowing what changes exist, they are beings that are powerful, ancient, and intelligent.
The timeline and geographical basis for the work is that of a story that reaches across the planet Earth, from antiquity, to modernity. This changes the fantasy genre's usual presence in the earth's medieval past, whether this Earth or another similar or alternate version of one. The lives thus lived, are worldly, wealthy in knowledge and understanding of humanity, and with a use of their immortal to build their Houses, that is, power structures based upon lineage and ancient connections. These houses are essentially a gathering of power based upon kinship as well as marriage and cross family alliances. They have specific specialties, and work based upon the transaction at hand, and the reputation of the house in power transactions of the past. That is, not only are the elves immortal and are considerable as people, they have houses that serve as to concentrate their power and to assemble a power base, as a group.
Over the course of this work, alliances and friendships are made and broken, characters are developed in unexpected ways, and the background and foreground are filled with elaborate information of mythological importance. The gods of the past might not like being replaced by the gods of the present. The reader should not assume anything in this series, and for God's sake, be prepared for sharp dialogue, sexual interludes, and different combinations of gender, orientation, and expectations.
This work might not move you if you require certain things, like obedience to genre, characters who behave in ways expected, without complex minds and motives. But for those who appreciate new ways of thinking, motives that are different, and characters who follow their own set of reasons of being and outlook, I'd tell you to go for it, read these books. This is an adult work, with steamy scenes, but it is also rather unique. I do recommend it, and think if you do not mind swearing, sex and some limited violence, you'll be captivated by the use of mythology, fantasy, and adult, intelligent situations.
To order click on the title:
CURSED BY FURIES
FORGED OF RUIN
STORM OF WRATH
FATES IN SHADOWS
SEIZED BY POWER
I get asked all the time if I'm using marijuana for pain or what pain relief from chemicals I get. We're in an age when people no longer hint about using MJ, both for medicinal and recreational uses. I'm really fine with that, even as it is like alcohol in that one must not drive or do various things while under the use of it. But for the record, while I've had some pain meds, the US society has issues with overuse of opiates for recreational, illegal use, and so my access is limited. That's fine. I fight the pain every night with repeated visits from Pain Killer Cat, Katya.
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