Free Advice: When you buy this book, don't read the blurbs on the back. It's a 1200 page book, so be assured that the folks who write the copy on the back of paperbacks have not read the book. Ergo, everything on the back of the book may be totally wrong, not to mention prejudicial. I've owned two copies of this book—and the first 30 pages fall out, guaranteed. So if you acquire a pristine paperback copy, protect it with book tape or a second homemade paper cover. If you find Maia in hardcover, let me know, I'd love a hardback copy.

Fantasy: Maia is not fantasy per se, but it does have fantasy elements you'd find in classic novels (like Jane Eyre): bigass coincidences, prophetic dreams, sleight of hand, and "evil" places. For fantasy readers: the world of Maia is very much like ours; a few extra animals are added (you may notice that one animal is conspicuously absent: horses), and the constellations are different. For everyone else: it seems a little far-fetched that the tropical rainforest climate of the Beklan Empire can exist bordered by deserts on every side.

Setting: By and large, the "world building" that Richard Adams does is cultural. Maia is set in a semi-barbaric land, in an era roughly corresponding to Ancient Rome. Bekla has an official pagan fertility-religion, as well as a pantheon of home-grown gods from its provinces. Richard Adams takes his portrait of slavery primarily from documented Classical Roman customs, but adds a few elements of his own. The life of harem slave concubines in Maia bears a sensationalized resemblance to the life of odalisques in royal Ottoman harems, though unmarred by opium addiction, the strictures of total seclusion within walls, and the risk of being stuffed into a sack and drowned at the ruler's whim. The bed-slave-girls in Maia have a cushy life by comparison.

Narrative: The world of Maia is very richly imagined, and the descriptive passages transport the reader to a world of sensory delights. I have read this book aloud to a companion, and I must add that Adams' sentence is far too long to be spoken in one breath. Remember not to turn blue! Maia is a bit of a racy book, but Adams makes adept use of euphemism to cloak the raunchier episodes. In fact, he coins new words to replace most four-letter words, in the same way as he names the "new" animals and plants in his imagined world. A caution to non-fantasy fans: you will have to remember a lot of "weird" names (the List of Characters at the beginning helps) and learn a lot of Beklan words during your reading .

Using genteel language to describe X-rated action is a feat in itself, and Adams seeds the narrative with his own ideas about sexuality. The book is anti-SM, but it deals with some SM feelings in a natural manner. Also, Maia is at least superficially gay-positive. Though the word "girl" applies to women of up to 24 years of age (as in "men and girls"), feel assured that this ain't no John Norman space slave yarn. In terms of "love interest," I felt that the true love affair in the book lacked the punch of some of its more trivial dalliances. The reader is left in doubt as to why they fell in love in the first place. A little "willing suspension of disbelief" may be required.

Character: Maia's heroism can be very ambivalent. As in Shardik, Adams uses happenstance and accident to mold his rustic protagonists into heroes and heroines. The "meta-heroine" of Maia is Occula, a cunning and resourceful black woman, whose exploits form a "subplot" that acts as a background to the main narrative. However, where Maia is mainly caught up and swept away by momentous events, Occula seizes opportunites and grapples with Fate more directly. By contrast, the villain seems implausible as a strong female character. The fear of her evinced by other characters, as well as her power over them, seem both to be out of proportion with the mental and physical strengths she is portrayed to possess. As in Shardik, evil characters succeed because of their evil, rather than because they are stronger or smarter than the good characters.

Maia remains one of my favourite books, and I've read it several times over in the past twelve years. There are some characters shared with Shardik, so it's interesting to read that book as well, to see how everyone ends up. Enjoy! Once you've read Maia, email me and I'd love to talk about it!