If I Pay Thee Not in Gold

I chose this book because I am a fan of Mercedes Lackey - I had never read Piers Anthony before. What a shame this is out of print, because it had a great twist on the cliche Amazon warrior story, with a surprisingly tongue-in-cheek tone. Mazonia is a matriarchy and men are slaves. Only women can command magic, and the most powerful of them rules. Xylina lives in poverty and also fear of her upcoming Rite of Passage wherein she must battle a gladiator in the arena. Despite the overwhelming odds, she is victorious and wins the the slave as her own. She also makes a powerful and unknown enemy. When Xylina takes the unusual step of befriending her slave, it sets in motion a chain of events that will change the fabric of Mazonia forever.

A show more good story, with an interesting concept and fun. well-developed characters. It can be a little cheesy at time, but not every book needs to be "deep!" Highly Recommended. show less

I have read several books by both authors, and have enjoyed their fare. I love Ms. Lackey's Elemental Masters series and Mr. Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, and this book is a decent collaborative effort between the two. It's not the best that either of them have written, but is still a fun and decent read, I rate it at 3.5/5 stars (too bad you can't give half-stars when you're asked to choose how many stars)

The premise is entertaining, and this society certainly is interesting, but I found the idea of other societies with different rules to be a bit out of place here, due to the magical rules, which just felt conflicting and contrived to me. If the rules of this world had been tweaked a bit and more better thought out, show more the story would have been more believable. If you like Piers Anthony or Mercedes Lackey, you may enjoy this book - just don't have *grand* expectations. show less

One hopes that the main characters manage to create a better society than those they are escaping. That hope (and knowing that they want to try) is the only thing that redeems this book.

My favorite part was the author's note, in which Piers Anthony says he tried to honor a suicidal fan by naming a character in her honor . . . the character being a half-animalized sex slave who is casually discarded toward the end of the book.

I also enjoyed the totally lazy and haphazard magic and world building, the implied homophobia and the anticlimax of an ending.

This was a good book and I really enjoyed it. Enough to recommend it to a very good friend of mine. The characters are engaging and the world in which they live is very intriguing. I just haven't seen very many books set in a world that belongs almost exclusively, if not truly exclusively, to women.

I would definitely recommend this book, especially to young women. I'd caution that there is gender-specific slavery, discrimination, reversed gender roles, nudity and sex in the book. The book also heavily considers themes such as outcasts, working to better your situation in life, forbidden love, and the corruption of power.

Another thing that I'd caution in this book is that it's by two authors. Usually, I don't find it a problem when an show more author decides to collaborate with another and co-author a book. However, in this case I think it seems a detriment to the book. I've never read a co-authored book that made it so strikingly glaring that it was co-authored. About halfway through the book there's a very, very noticeable change. All of the characters change, their personalities are different, the way they interact with and view each other is different, their goals seem to even change. It's as if one of the authors wrote the first half of the book by themselves and then had the second author write the second half of the book nearly blind so that the characters are in the right situations and have the right names and backgrounds, but are still somehow transformed into completely different characters.

It was so striking, in fact, that it completely broke my suspension of disbelief, confused me quite a bit, and then made it difficult for me to get that suspension of disbelief back. I don't think I ever really quite managed to. This is the main reason I've given the book three stars instead of five.

There are demons and other non-human creatures in this book, in case that's something that may make or break the book for you. I will also say that one specific demon that we meet early on plays a significant role in the book and to the heroine as well as to the villain.

It's a good and intriguing book, but definitely not without its faults. I still think it's worth a read and it remains one of my favorite books (especially the first half). show less

The premise of the book is that women are in charge and men are their slaves. This state of events has come about because women have magical power. The story follows a group questing for a crystal shard that when retrieved will change the balance of power in the city as the magic will go to a different unknown group. This is a great set-up but has little follow through in the novel. Instead the story becomes bogged down in a rather ridiculous subplot involving a sex-changing demon and the original quest is abandoned.

I received this book for a Christmas gift when I was in junior high and have read it multiple times. It is a fun book that gives women the power and makes the men subservient. Most of the book takes place of over a quest for a crystal shard that has a will of its own. As you read you fall in love with the characters and wish you had the same ability at magic as the main character. I would recommend it for the reader who likes some adventure with a bit of romance thrown in.