McMahon, Donna. Dance of knives.Tor. 416p. c2001. 0-312-87536-3. $15.95. SA Klale escapes her Guild and flees to a post-apocalyptic Vancouver, run by gangs called tongs tongs long-handled, about 3 feet, shaped like pincers with knobs on the ends of the grasping blades. Applied by standing behind the subject in a confined space and closing the jaws to grasp the animal's head just below the ears. and full of nameless dangers. Here she quickly finds a job and friends--and makes one deadly enemy. As a dancer and waitress at the KlonDyke, she rubs shoulders uncomfortably with tong bigwigs and comes into contact with Blade, a cyborg assassin whose damaged brain makes him completely inhuman in·hu·man adj. 1. a. Lacking kindness, pity, or compassion; cruel. See Synonyms at cruel. b. Deficient in emotional warmth; cold. 2. , according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. everyone around him. But Klale sees the humanity deep inside him, and when the city is engulfed in a tong war Tong war was any of several feuds carried on in U.S. cities (e.g., San Francisco and Los Angeles) between gangs of Chinese immigrants or their descendants. These gang wars spanned a 70-year period beginning in the 1850s and continuing until the 1920s. and her enemy strikes, Blade is the only one who can help her. If only Klale could find a way to help him as well.... This book is so well written it's hard to believe it is a first novel. The characters are compelling and the setting well thought out and frighteningly plausible. This post-apocalyptic Beauty and the Beast Beauty and the Beast is a traditional fairy tale (type 425C -- search for a lost husband -- in the Aarne-Thompson classification). The first published version of the fairy tale was a meandering rendition by Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in tale is a good choice for all SF collections. Deirdre B. Root, Ref. Libn., Middletown P.L., Middletown, OH |
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