Khaled (Wildside Fantasy)

Rating:
Summary: A very enjoyable fantasy, set in "classical" Arabia.
Review: This book is a delightful member of the broad category of Fantasy (of which Tolkien's _Lord_of_the_Rings_ may be the most famous work). But this is not a story of elves and orcs. It is, as you might guess, a story of camels, genies, noble Bedouin warriors, a beautiful (and clever) Arab princess, and the vast desert.

The central plot device is a genie who is turned into a man, and given the task of winning the love of a woman. Genies, we learn, have no souls, and so will cease to exist on Judgement Day, whereas men (and women, of course) will be judged, and earn eternal reward or punishment. And so Khaled, the central character, can reach Paradise if he can earn the love of the most un-sentimental woman in the Kingdom. The twists and turns of their evolving relationship sometimes have a distinctly Shakespearean feel.

One enjoyable element in the book is the serious attitude toward Islam, and the completely automatic assumption in the story that all the good guys are Muslims (and the bad guys are not).