Gather Xena: The Huntress And The Sphinx (Xena: Warrior Princess) Constructed By Ru Emerson Textbook

thing I really liked about this book was that it stayed true to the characters, For the most part, Xena stayed Xena and Gabrielle stayed Gabrielle, At times the dialog got a little awkward overuse of "I mean" or lengthy explanations, but I think a lot of that had to do with crossing from TV to print.
Xena's tone of voice and Gabrielle's timing from the show do not translate to print, so I think that accounts for some of the clunky dialog.
Furthermore, the fight scenes feel a little dry and vague, but again, this is probably due to the barrier of turning TV into a book.
So while watching Xena's chakram bounce from to tree to tree to henchman in the TV show is thrilling, it's a little dull to read about.
The book was a little slow to start and heavy of the descriptions, but overall I enjoyed it, Emerson did well despite the challenge of turning TV show characters into book characters, The story, once it got going, was interesting and stayed true to the kind of Xena story that would take place in the show.
Being a fan of the old Xena, Warrior Princess TV series, when I stumbled on it on BookMooch, I snagged a copy of this original spinoff novel based on the series.
Published in, it reflects the first couple of seasons, Wanting a light, short book to fit in between other reads, I recently started it without ultrahigh expectations I expected it to be passable entertainment that I'd rate at three.
If I could give halfstars, I'd probably give it three and a half but I rounded up due to some unexpected positives,

Though lifted from the back cover copy, the Goodreads description oversimplifies the premise here, but it's basically accurate, Xena and sidekick Gabrielle who here actually comes into her own as pretty much an equal partner in the adventure do get drawn into a rescue mission for some kidnapped preteen girls, and the Sphinx from Greek mythology is involved.
But Emerson has worked other strands of classical mythology into her tale as well: the titular "huntress" is the legendary Atalanta, and both Nausicaa and skilled weaver Arachne play roles in the story.
The author's use of these elements is deft, staying faithful to the characterizations and backstories of these figures, while at the same time fleshing them out and giving them believable personalities.
She's also faithful to the portrayals of Xena and Gabrielle and another series regular who makes a cameo, Mannius their character, and the qualities of their relationship, are brought to life faultlessly.
Some mention is made, here and there, of incidents that happened in series episodes but while series fans are the primary intended audience, prior knowledge of it isn't really necessary.
Readers who never watched it, or who like me! can't remember all of the first two season's episodes, can still enjoy the book easily.


A weakness of the series was that the writers never anchored it at any point in ancient history persons and events from across two millenia and more were just thrown together in an anachronistic jumble.
We have a bit of that here, too, In this novel, soldiers who fought in the recent Trojan War waged a bit beforeB, C. are still drifting back home but the poet Homer, who actually lived a few centuries later, appears here as a young student bard, You can't take this as historicallygrounded fiction it's better to view the setting as a fantasy world that happens to have jumbled parallels to history.
If the reader can do that, the book has a number of pluses, Emerson approaches her tale seriously there's a touch of dry humor in places, but not the often juvenile humor and double entendres that series fans will recall perhaps with rolled eyes.
Although the Sphinx is an obviously fabulous monster as is a cyclops who makes a cameo appearance, magic and the doings of gods and goddesses don't play a role here otherwise we're mostly in the realm of natural human behavior.
The emotionallyevocative situation and the interactions of the characters have some genuine depth, with serious moral/psychological life lessons in view, Our characters and the reader will be surprised by a couple of plot twists, and the whole is woven into a fabric that would do Arachne credit.
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There's no sex in this novel, and bad language is minor and rare any religious profanity is confined to pagan deities, Xena, of course, is her toughasnails self with a gentler side that she likes to conceal, and with Atalanta along we have another combatcapable lady in the mix but the violence here is mostly nonlethal, and the rescue of the girls will require as much brains as brawn to pull off.
CAN our heroines pull it off, . . Well, you have to read the book to find out! : One quibble I'd express is that anorexia, which in our terminology is clearly what one character has, doesn't yield as readily to commonsense persuasion as Emerson imagines it would.
The term wasn't used in antiquity, although it's Greek, and it's not used here the characters' speaking styles are rendered into a colloquial modern English that we understand as translating an equally colloquial Greek or Mycenaean dialect, but obvious anachronisms are avoided.
But that wasn't a big problem for me, In the main, I thought this was a pretty wellcrafted read of its type,

Emerson is a professional writer who's authored or contributed to at leastbooks, mostly of the fantasy adventure sort, going back to thes.
This is one of a number of Xena spinoffs that she wrote and based on this one, I'd be willing to try out some of the others! Emerson is clearly a Xenite but not someone who was given any special access or insight into the

writers room.
This book, again, has a number of anachronisms with the TV series, Characters like Atalanta, Meleager, and Arachne are presented here quite differently than they were on TV, This was a bit like reading early fan fiction, Emerson connects this in detail to her last novel, creating her own continuity, Maybe one could imagine the novels taking place in an alternate universe or something,

The story actually focuses more on Gabrielle than Xena, The only parts where I thought Emerson really got Gabbys voice correct were the scenes when she and the Sphinx were talking, Otherwise, all the dialogue was a bit off for me,

I enjoyed seeing Xena and Gabrielle against a mythical creature, We didnt get that very often in the series, I also enjoyed what happens in the epilogue between Gabrielle and Homer, That did a nice job of tying up something that the show left open, I should know better than to read a book based on a TV show somehow the TV show is always done better than the book.
Xena is no different. Years ago I really enjoyed Xena and watched darn near every episode, However, I found both Xena and Gabrielle to be rather annoying which wasn't in the show, All in all, I wouldn't read another book in this series as it would just be torturous, I think this story is the best representation of a Xena story yet from the series, and probably a better indication of Ru Emerson's strength as a writer when given time to produce a branded novel.


That said, the story does not have a strong opening, The book devotespages of setup, introducing us to characters like such as legendary Huntress, Atalanta, the poet Homer and some young footracers that Gabrielle takes an interest in.
It's a preamble to the novel's main plot that's too chatty and too long to accomplish what it needs to do,

This is also a story that puts Gabrielle forward as the main protagonist, a test of her skills as a bard, And it is interesting. But for those who read Xena novels looking for a story in which Xena displays flashes of furious, inventive fighting skills every other chapter, this book isn't it.
There is precious little for Xena to do, except prove a counterweight to Atalanta, When Xena and Gabrielle are asked to rescue a group of kidnapped children, the legendary huntress Atalanta, is the first to volunteer, After all, she believes herself to be the only one with the strength to succeed, But when they find the kidnapper, Xena realizes that no one is strong enough to defeat it, For who can challenge the deadly riddles of the legendary sphinx My favorite of the series, aka sitelink Roberta CrayRu Emerson was born on Decemberth,in Montana, She and her husband, Doug, live in Oregon with their only child, a silver mackerel tabby cat named Roberta, She likes to lift weights, run, bike, skate in line, ski, play basketball, tennis, racquetball, garden, play guitar, scuba dive, and fly stunt kites.
Her favorite reading material includes sitelink Megan Lindholm, science fiction by sitelink Larry Niven, murder mysteries by sitelink Patricia Cornwell, plus any other good historical non fiction.
aka sitelink Roberta CrayRu Emerson was born on Decemberth,in Montana, She and her husband, Doug, live in Oregon with their only child, a silver mackerel tabby cat named Roberta, She likes to lift weights, run, bike, skate in line, ski, play basketball, tennis, racquetball, garden, play guitar, scuba dive, and fly stunt kites.
Her favorite reading material includes sitelink Megan Lindholm, science fiction by sitelink Larry Niven, murder mysteries by sitelink Patricia Cornwell, plus any other good historical non fiction.
sitelink.