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I'm reading Rhapsody, by Elizabeth Haydon--the first fiction book I've read in a while. There are some very interesting ideas, a quite well-developed world and backstory, and the prose style is polished--a *big* plus. I'd be enjoying it thoroughly except for one thing: I want to throttle the main character. She's perhaps the most blatant example of Mary Sue that I've seen in profic except for Ayla of Earth's Children, and at least Ayla has some depth born out of real, actual suffering. Here, no such luck. Rhapsody (the title character) was provided by the author with a horrific backstory including prostitution and awful sexual abuse, but she shows zero psychological evidence of this *ever* on screen. She's so beautiful she literally causes a riot every time she goes out on the street (this happens more than once, btw), but yet so humble she doesn't realize it; she trusts everyone she meets implicitly and that trust is always reciprocated (the trust thing is *particularly* ludicrous given said horrific backstory), is kind and loving to everyone, and yet so sanctimonious and self-righteous I want to beat her over the head with a shovel. Oh, and did I mention that despite the fact she's a prostitute, halfway through the story her virginity is magically restored? I kid you not.

It's a shame, because the author has some very interesting ideas, a great prose style, and has clearly gone to some lengths to develop the backstory of her world...but unfortunately I just can't get past Rhapsody Sue as the title character. I'm really reminded very strongly of an exchange from An Interview With Mary Sue:

Let's say you're getting ready to make someone a nice omelette. You've got your 3 eggs, your splash of milk, your block of cheddar cheese, your clove of garlic. Now, if you do what you need to do to all of these ingredients, you come out with a great omelette. If, on the other hand, you just throw it all into a bowl and stir once, what you have is a really nasty mess. If, on yet a third hand, you do everything else right but instead of pressing the garlic you throw it in there whole, you've got an omelette which is mostly all right if slightly bland - until you bite into the whole not-very-cooked clove of garlic, which makes you want to hurl.

Q: So we've now moved from highballs to omelettes.

A: The point is, you can have the same set of ingredients turn into many different products depending on the skill with which you prepare them - and part of that skill is knowing how to combine things. You have to be able to take what's in your head and synthesize it into something that's more than the raw material you started with. A good writer ends up with an omelette. A bad writer ends up with a nauseating sludgepile of raw egg and vegetable chunks. And a good writer who has a Mary Sue problem ends up with a pretty good omelette at the heart of which is concealed a giant lump of stink.

You said it. This is the first book in a series, and there are some very good and interesting features about it; however, despite that, I probably won't be picking up the future installments.