This felt old, outdated, and stereotypically. Which is confusing considering it’s being published in 2024. It wasn’t fun for me. The MC is flat and I can’t see anyone actually caring for her. Just not fun.

Orbit Books provided an early galley for review.

As a comic reader, I've been familiar with Simone's writing for several decades and with the character of Red Sonja since the late 1970's. The combination of these two women in a single project was, therefore, worth my checking out.

The novel starts off as standard sword and sorcery fare. The places and a few names are what tie it to the classic heroine and her world. Yet this tale of love spurned, and vengeance sought could easily have featured any characters, either new or known. The fact that Red Sonja's name is on the title will likely pull in more readers.

And, for me, that was part of the problem. During much of the first half when we get chapters with Sonja's part of the story, it is often just her traveling alone or encountering those who want to take advantage of her (which she is more than able to put an end to). But because she was without an ally (besides her horse) to converse, I felt like it was missing out on some of that great character interplay that I enjoy from Simone. Sure, we see some of that in scenes here and there with other characters, but those are not who I am reading a Red Sonja novel for.

I did find that things picked up a bit, especially for what I was looking for, just before the second part of the book kicked off. Once all the players were on the board and moving into place, the story felt a bit more interesting and satisfying.

I could not finish this book. The FMC had no depth other than a sexy woman who fights and has sex a lot. I was very disappointed in this because I wanted to love this story and this character. But I couldn't even finish it.

I used to watch the Red Sonja movies with my dad when I was younger and absolutely loved how fierce and strong Red Sonja was. I was thrown back into that nostalgic world again, and absolutely loved every minute of it. Of course I pictured her as the actress in the movie. Also, I loved that Gail Simone explained Red Sonja's backstory in this novel!

Not bad, I appreciate Simone doing a good job with Sonja as in the comics. But for sword and sorcery, this is too long and a little too distracted with other POVs. I think the label of heroic fantasy would fit fine though.

Book Review: Red Sonja
⭐️⭐️

Red Sonja sadly falls into the trap of portraying its protagonist as a clichéd "sexy strong woman" without much substance. Sonja is presented as a powerful warrior, but her character lacks depth and feels over-sexualized, catering more to the male gaze than offering a genuine depiction of female strength. Despite her supposed combat skills, she frequently finds herself overpowered and vulnerable, which diminishes her credibility as a formidable warrior.

The story is further weakened by inconsistent character behavior. Abrupt shifts in motivations and actions—sometimes within the same paragraph—make the narrative feel disjointed and confusing, often pulling the reader out of the flow and forcing them to backtrack to make sense of things. This lack of cohesion detracts from the overall enjoyment of the story.

In a genre where many fantasy novels are breaking stereotypes and creating complex, multi-layered female characters, Red Sonja misses the opportunity to do the same. The author, known for critiquing shallow portrayals of women, seems to have strayed from that strength in this book, leaving behind a disappointing portrayal of what could have been a dynamic heroine.

It’s tricky writing about a pop culture icon like Red Sonja, known for her her sword, flaming red hair and silver bikini. She has slaughtered foes alongside Conan and has a reputation almost as large. For fans of the comic, this book … might not work. Instead of cheesy, pulpy fun it’s a dour slog through the wilderness. The fight scenes are fine, but I found the book to be tedious. It just didn’t have the pop of fun and chaos I wanted. It’s neither grim enough to be grimdark, nor fantastical enough to be fantasy; it takes the world for granted and does precious little world building.

If you didn’t know who Red Sonja was, and this was your first introduction, I don’t think you’d be drawn into looking for more stories. If this hadn’t been about Sonja, if this had just been a nameless warrior woman reluctantly heading home to fight demons while drinking a lot, fighting a lot, and fucking now and then, I think I would have liked it more.

It’s an adequate adventure, decently written, well paced, and with some good moments of violence. I was just a little bored by it. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC.

Gail Simone revitalized Red Sonja in the comics and helped move her out of the weird hypersexualized “I can only lie with a man who has defeated me in battle” and gave her agency. Simone’s Sonja had a clearer backstory, a battle worn but ready to fight attitude, and a healthy appreciation for lovers of any gender. She was still a swordswoman but on her own terms.

She’s also a bit of a jerk, but she doesn’t pretend otherwise.

In this, Simone’s first novel, the Sonja is fleeing from a queen she made her lover and then stole from and from an assassin sent by the man who hired her to do it. She’s also headed back to her homeland, which is being threatened by monstrous creatures who yank their prey down into the ground with merciless force.

Also, the circlet she stole won’t come off her arm, and now she’s seeing nightmares of the recently dead.

“Consumed” is a fun romp for Red Sonja fans. It’s funny at times and emotional at times and moves from fight scene to fight scene. Although for a fabled hunter, Sonja gets snuck up on a lot…

If I had a complaint, it’s that the assassin character seems stuck on at times and his story doesn’t flow as well with the rest. Like the B story of a show or movie that’s a bit off. But he’s definitely different and an interesting addition.

For a first novel, this rocked. More, please.

I try not to read books I’m intending to review when I’m under the weather so it doesn’t skew my opinion, but its been a rough summer and I’ve got deadlines if I’m going to tell you about these books in time for release day.

Red Sonja: Consumed got me through two anaphylactic ER visits and the exhausted, furious prednisone recovery phase. It’s easy enough to follow when buzzing on epinephrine while still engaging your interest and empathy enough to distract from the terror that your throat is still swelling shut, maybe.

Red Sonja is a feral horse girl, a hopeless bisexual, and one of the most relatable fuck-ups out there. Her comics, as written by Simone, are fun and intense. This novel follows that trend but, being a work of prose, gives the author a chance to stretch her legs and dig deeper into Sonja’s interior life. The plot was allowed to make use of the space, and we got to dive into Sonja’s worst memories and how that trauma ultimately shaped her — but with lots of action and humor and Sonja’s characteristic lust for life and… other things. It is explicitly queer, with a fairly major lovers-to-enemies arc with one of Sonja’s exes. While the sex isn’t graphic, there’s no glossing over Sonja’s bisexuality.

"Red Sonja" promises an epic fantasy adventure, but ultimately delivers a disappointing experience that falls short of the genre's potential. The story is riddled with clichés and lacks the depth needed to engage readers meaningfully.

Sonja, is portrayed as a caricature of the "sexy strong woman," yet her character is disappointingly one-dimensional. She embodies the very tropes that the author has criticized in other works, showcasing an over-sexualized, shallow representation that feels more designed for male readers than a genuine exploration of female strength. Despite her supposed combat skills, she frequently finds herself outmatched and vulnerable, which raises questions about her credibility as a warrior.

The narrative is marred by inconsistent character behavior, with shifts occurring within the same paragraph that leave readers bewildered. This lack of cohesion necessitates constant rereading, detracting from the overall enjoyment of the story.

In a landscape filled with fantasy novels that successfully challenge stereotypes and explore complex characters, "Red Sonja" feels like a missed opportunity. The author, known for her critique of over-sexualization and shallow portrayals of women, seems to have strayed far from her strengths in this work.

Overall, while there may be elements of intrigue, "Red Sonja" ultimately fails to deliver a compelling fantasy narrative, leaving readers longing for richer, more nuanced storytelling.

Possible Triggers:
Death | Gore

This was such a poor example of a fantasy novel. I want to come up with nice things to say about it but everything about the story was disappointing.

At every chapter I turned the page wondering how the story could possibly get any worse, and somehow it managed. The main character was a caricature of a “sexy strong woman” which is to say she was nothing but a sex thing wrapped up in scanty clothing and praised for her combat and sexual prowess - to which she didn't really show any. The amount of times that she was snuck up on by teenagers, children, soldiers, random town folks and slapped around begs the question “amazing martial prowess how?”. Imagine my surprise, as when I was about half way through and flipped to the author details online to see WHO wrote this, to find out it was a female author with a bunch of acclaim for calling people out on their shallow 2 dimensional portrayal of female characters in comics; What? How? Red Sonja in this book EPITOMIZES the shallow two dimensional character. I despised her character in the book. I have read some of her other writing from her work in the Batgirl comic books, and loved these, what happened?

Switching gears, let's talk about the purely baffling number of inconsistent behaviors and actions throughout the story. There are many times that within the same paragraph the characters all change their minds from one sentence to the next. This had me constantly rereading passages to make sure I hadn't skipped something or misread. This was almost as frustrating as the bland characters.

I have never read any of the Red Sonja comic books, I can not speak to the accuracy of the depiction of the character or their story in any way.

I can not recommend this book.

I'll update my review and say more on social media closer to the release date, but I'm super impressed with how Simone fleshes out secondary characters in such swift, deep strokes and then brings the different character storylines together to such an incredible end. And Sonja herself, is such a complex and unexpected character. I loved Simone's Red Sonja comic run but this digs deep (and often painfully) into her makeup, and by the end I just love Sonja even more. Also her horse deserves a full bushel of carrots and maybe his own book for all the crap he went through.

Anyway, I've enjoyed Simone's comic stuff for a long time (along with the animated episodes that I've seen) but now I'm certain I'd follow her to pretty much any medium.

Having been a reader and follower of Gail Simone, I am clearly the intended audience for this book. Though I haven't read her Red Sonja comics, I was aware of the love she has for the character and thought this would be a good way to get introduced. The book had everything you'd expect from a Gail Simone story: Action, graphic violence, humor, monsters, sex, and, above all, heart. She truly does love this character and really wants the reader to love her too. And the horse. She really wants you to love the horse.

an epic fantasy novel that reinvents the iconic character Red Sonja for a new generation. The story follows Red Sonja, the unapologetic female warrior/barbarian of Hyrkania, known for her wild spirit and fierce independence, doing what she wants, when she wants and not worrying about consequences. The past, as always, catches up with its owner and in Sonja's case - comes in the form bad news from her homeland, as well as, unresolved issues. As fearless as she is, even Sonja has to face what most frightens her - the wreckage, detritus, demons of her past.

Fans of the original Conan and Red Sonja stories and books and comic books and graphic novels will probably like this novel about Red Sonja, based on Simone's reimagining of the character for comics in the early 2000s. But it wasn't for me. Too repetitive--SO REPETITIVE--and dry; maybe Simone was trying to channel Robert E. Howard and Roy Thomas.

Thank you to NetGalley and orbit for the arc. Wow, I hated this! After halfway in, I just couldn’t do it anymore, and I DNFd.

To make the long fucking story short:

This book contains a stereotypical, nearly naked, bad mannered, objectively attractive, brash, lustful, violent, and selfish fmc that I’m sure gets some shallow character arc. I would be much more receptive to this type of character had they any depth or some type of nuance to them. Unfortunately, there was absolutely nothing of the sort here; Sonja is as dimensional as a straight line. She just comes off as another stereotypical, female character written for men -at least in my opinion. When they say they brought this “red devil” to a new generation of readers, they clearly didn’t mean women! For an author who has coined the term “fridging women” and has criticized over-sexualization, the portrayal we get of this “she devil” very much goes against her own word.

This is a stereotypical fantasy that doesn’t do anything new, and is mediocre at best. There are many books that do what this book is trying to do so much better.

There are way too many useless POVs and interludes that I just never gave a shit about. I don’t care about all these characters. I don’t even care about the main one.

There are some things that don’t make sense. Take some overblown emotions that seem out of place, for example. There’s a guy going after a woman’s ex to hurt said woman in some fucked way because she simply stole something that belonged to this boss, and NOT him.

Some shallow concepts that have been covered before by stronger and better authors. Yes, humanity is two sided. The way it’s depicted here is shallow at best.

Anyways, if I were to equate this book to anything, it would be mud. Dont ask me why, I don’t like mud, and I don’t like this book (clearly). What a waste of my precious time. 1 star