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buildingtaste's review
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
4.0
Mistaken identities! Sword fights! Wicked dukes! Tearful maidens! Convoluted plots and counter-plots! The Prisoner of Zenda is relentlessly tropey, but benefits (as so many older works do) from the earnest efforts of someone doing this sort of story for the first-ish time. The rules are newer, so following them doesn't come with the painful self-awareness later works have, nor is there much interest in thwarting cliche for the sake of it. Just as Dracula proves fresh to readers who are familiar with the Count's cultural legacy and not the novel itself, I think Zenda offers a lot of little pleasures for people who might be familiar with swashbuckling, lighthearted adventures in theory, but haven't seen it done with absolute sincerity.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Blood, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Incest, Sexism, and Sexual assault
Many characters die in skirmishes and fights, though details are limited. Characters use both guns and swords to fight, and blood and bleeding wounds are frequent. Characters describe hearing/feeling bullets pass them. Kidnapping and confinement are a major part of the plot, and the titular prisoner is mistreated by their captors. There is cousin marriage. There is a romance without real consent as one party does not know who the other one is. There is a scene where a woman is cornered in her room and forcibly kissed and held. The main female characters are mostly passive and beautiful, not much else.