Book Review: The Tears of Ishtar, by Michael Ehart

The Tears of Ishtar, by Michael Ehart
Reviewed by Mary Rosenblum

Publisher:Ancient Tomes Press
Year Published: 2010

I am a long time fan of classic sword and sorcery fantasy, having first met it by way of Robert Howard and Conan, then moved on to Marion Zimmer Bradley?s sorcerer-warriors and Fritz Leiber?s Lankhmar tales of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. All too often, however, I find the plots predictable, and the characters no more than cardboard puppets dancing to the tune of that pretentious plot.

Good versus evil, the lost talisman, the clash of swords. We have the warrior hero, who only seems to exist in order to Battle Evil and has no other dimension. We have the Evil One who only seems to exist in order to destroy all that is good and has no other dimension...you get the picture.

So I opened Michael Ehart?s The Tears of Ishtar a bit gingerly. Here we have a sword and sorcery universe set in historical Middle East, the world of Nineveh and Babylon. And it?s done well. That?s a plus, right there.

And then we have Ninshi. Beautiful, scarred, and nearly immortal, she is an unbeatable opponent. Uh oh...another clich?? But wait! This is no paper puppet, a brass-bra Amazon who never loses a battle and only exists to lop limbs. Oh no. This is someone trapped in an endless loop of her own creating, brought to the trap by love and one who saw the bars of the cage close around her. She is a warrior who is hopeless without abandoning hope, and hardly a saint. She?s too powerful and too immortal to be completely engaging. She is losing her humanity and is tragically aware of it and that tragedy is moving although she asks for no-one?s pity.

But then we have Miri, the slave girl she acquired, and who becomes her daughter in all but blood. And Miri?s humanity and her love for this woman allows us to connect with Ninshi?s rich dimensionality.

In the hands of a lesser writer, we would have yet another clich? - the invincible swords-woman on her quest, the naive sidekick, the demons, and enemies she overcomes.

But Ehart creates such a rich character in Ninshi and makes her tragedy so accessible and so real, setting it in a vivid world that should make an historian happy, that the story moves easily beyond the clich? to become a real story about real love and loss, guilt and redemption that also happens to be a dynamite sword and sorcery fantasy.

Read it. You?ll be glad you did and you?ll miss a darn good book if you don?t.

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