Red Sonja 03/When Hel

The good old prison island plot. A bunch of Aquilonian nasties get dumped to 'The Isle'. Without the benefit of Scarlet Johansson, either. Red Sonja has bought passage on a ship of Aquilonian nobles that happens to be passing. A wizard, banished to the island, finally succeeds in contacting a demon god and summoning a storm. Sonja's ship is caught in the storm. Isle inmates attack. Battle ensues. The Hyrkanian's side, loses, and so does her outfit during the shipboard battle 'N*ked but for her sword-belt, knives and Nemedian boots, she looked like the primitive goddess of war, some legendary queen of slaughter brandishing her red-stained blade.' I am sure Messrs Smith & Tierney are quite proud of that sentence. Anyway, they lose, barbarian leader on island wins. Wizard is rogue element, given his sorcery wants the blood of dead bodies. Many of these are provided in fights, ambushes etc. The other element is that one of the ship travellers was a judge. Yes, you guessed it, he banished his evil brother Itchy.... err, Betos to the island. He used to be a military man, and can't fight anymore. A bit of a handicap, when trapped on an island of convicts with a demon sorcerer. Luckily, he has a red-tressed cheerleader in scale mail to assist. Bizarrely, he wants all this to build a GIANT CLAY GOLEM. He is, of course, a Shemite wizard. Not the scariest monster for a demonic sorcerer to summon, but anyway. Sonja and the military reinforcements that have arrived after the nobles go missing try various means to destroy it, and finally push it over a cliff into water. All in all, a fun story.

The story deals with Red Sonja getting mixed up with a prison break. The prisoners are made up of a band of thugs and a wizard who has sold his soul to an ancient and very powerful Hell spawned demon. Needless to say, Sonja joins forces with a military expedition set out to bring the convicts back in line. This story has it all, adventure on the high seas, acts of piracy, loads of action, character development(a rarity for this series), and an overgrown mud monster. Also in this story, we finally learn the origin of Sonja's famous, or rather infamous, metal bikini battle armor. But bummer of all bummers, as soon as we learn it's origin, it's destroyed in battle, and Sonja replaces it with more practical armor:( To date, this is the best Red Sonja novel I have read. I was strongly tempted to give it 5 stars, but it just falls short of this lofty rank. As with all Red Sonja novels this item is long out of print. But if you are diligent in your search, you will be well rewarded. As with all books in the series, renowned fantasy artist Boris provides a truly gorgeous cover painting. Fortunately, Boris chose to depict Sonja in her more famous metal bikini on the cover rather than in her knew practical armor:)