A competent if mostly forgettable spy story, From Netheril With Love was noteworthy only for the location of its initial production—the Silverstrings Theater in Selgaunt. Sembian authorities shut the play down after its opening weekend—generous bribes seem to have helped it last that long—and Marlowe’s legend as the great “right play, wrong venue” dramatist of her era was born.
The plot of From Netheril With Love is fairly simple by the standards of the genre: a Cormyrean agent is dispatched to Sembia to prevent the murder of an important ally by a mysterious assassin in Netherese pay. The spies alternately seduce and attempt to kill each other, a cycle broken only by the climactic spectacle of the aforementioned assassination attempt. The dialogue is witty, the pacing is breakneck, and the ending leaps high over the roadblocks of plausibility.
No comments:
Post a Comment