Red Sonja Consumed: A mini no-spoiler review

Can a more mature Red Sonja cope with her fame?

Well, not entirely.

There are so many versions of Sonja it’s hard to know where to start.

Sonya or Sonja?

Red Sonya of Rogatino first appeared as the O.G in Robert E. Howard’s The Shadow of the Vulture back in 1934. And what a story it is.

She was a no-nonsense, gun-wielding warrior from the 16th century, fighting against the Ottoman Empire with sheer grit and skill.

Fast forward to the 1970s, and writer Roy Thomas, along with artist Barry Windsor-Smith, took inspiration from her (and a few other Howard heroines) to create Red Sonja—but this time, as a sword-swinging warrior in Conan’s Hyborian Age.

Unlike the original, this Sonja had a mystical backstory involving a goddess and a famous vow, plus her now-iconic chain mail bikini. Over the years, she’s become a legendary figure in comics in her own right, standing alongside Conan as one of fantasy’s most badass warriors.

I bought the Red Sonja humble bundle a couple of years ago and there are a LOT of comics about her. Nearly every writer seems to have a different version of Sonja in mind, and her backstory has changed multiple times, too.

So where does she go next?

As always, this review will strive to be spoiler-free and leave the (hopefully) best moments for you to uncover yourself. Any plot points mentioned will be very generalised or happen early in the book.

For this particular book I am reviewing the audio version.

Introduction

Red Sonja: Consumed is the latest Red Sonja novel to be released. In fact, it’s the only Red Sonja novel since the 1980s series from David C. Smith and Richard L. Tierney. It’s published by Orbit Books and is Gail Simone’s debut novel.

The audio book is narrated by Felicia Day.

Overview

The book follows a guilt-ridden Red Sonja dealing with recent actions while fighting her own inner demons and the weight of her legendary status.

It’s very much the Gail Simone comic version of Red Sonja. Hard-drinking, bisexual, indecisive. How you feel about her will make a huge difference.

The Good

• The backstory was well-paced and well-done
• The chapter introductions with historical-style points of view added interesting layers
• Some of the ‘horror elements’ were solid and pretty grim
• Call me naive but I didn’t see the twist coming

The Bad

• The character development was somewhat shallow
• Character motivations were incredibly inconsistent for the most part
• Some sections seemed forced and quick, others were too slow to build up
• Most characters were surprisingly annoying, and by the end I didn’t care for any of them
• Sonja is a legendary fighter but she’s constantly caught unawares by just about everyone, including kids/teenagers

The Middling

• Not the original backstory, so a lot will depend on how you feel about that

Overall Impression

The book probably falls into the ‘romantasy’ genre, or ‘swords and soulmates’ as I’ve reliably heard it called, rather than straight up ‘sword and sorcery’.

While the action scenes are decent, they’re too short and far between. A gladiator bout takes place halfway through and shows what the She-devil with a sword can do when her back is against the wall (literally). If there were more scenes like this, the book would be better for it.

The sex scenes start well but but don’t go very deep and end too quickly (make your own puns up from that). The love-stories are ok-ish, but again, with annoying, inconsistent characters who I didn’t care about.

Overall, the book was semi-entertaining, but also forgettable, mostly because I didn’t care about a single character.

rating: 5/10.

Audio Notes

Felicia Day’s audio book narration gets a solid 7/10, though her pronunciation of Sonja hurt my poor British ears.

Hearing a constantly drawn-out ‘Sown-yuh’ really grated on me, but I realise that’s a personal pet peeve and I can’t hold too much against her for that.

Otherwise, she read well, though struggled with some of the male voices (as most narrators do when voicing the opposite sex). Stephen Pacey is just about the only narrator I’ve found who’s truly mastered this.

I think a lot of the enjoyment of this will come down to which version of Sonja you want to read about.

Worth reading?

If you can’t get enough of Red Sonja and have exhausted all other flame-haired media then the book will probably worth your time. If you’re looking for more action-oriented sword and sorcery there is far better out there.