The friend who gave me a copy of Scott Oden’s The Lion of Cairo told me, “I’ve never read an author who reminded me so much of Robert E. Howard.”

And he was right. In terms of setting and atmosphere, this is a very Howardian book. Gilded palaces inhabited by scheming courtiers contrast with dark, fetid alleyways infested by thieves, beggars, and cutthroats. The setting is very exotic, very romantic (in the sense of adventure in faraway lands). Author Oden makes no secret of his indebtedness to Robert E. Howard and of his intention to produce a story in that Weird Tales tradition.

And yet, it didn’t work for me.

Our antihero is Assad, a member of the Assassins cult. He is a skilled and remorseless murderer, armed with a long Afghani knife forged by a magician, possessed by an angry, vengeful spirit.

He is assigned to go to Cairo to protect Rashid, the caliph, who is dominated and manipulated by his ambitious vizier, Jalal. Jalal has made a treacherous pact with the Syrians and the “Nazarenes” (Christians) to deliver the city into their hands, in return for his own political advancement.

The only friend Rashid has in the palace is unknown to him – a minor member of the harem named Parysatis. She has discovered secret passages in the walls that allow her to eavesdrop on conversations. She knows what Jalal is planning, but to whom can she turn for help?

It all sounds pretty gripping, but it didn’t work for me. No doubt much of the problem is my sheer, provincial inability to sympathize with Islamic aspirations. In spite of the way the story was set up, I was still rooting for the Christians. (The author assumes the widely-held contemporary trope that the Crusaders were barbarians who ran around massacring everybody, while the Muslims were sophisticated and compassionate. We are often reminded that the Christians massacred the citizens of Jerusalem when they captured it, while Saladin spared them when he did the same. This is historical cherry-picking. There were rules of warfare, recognized by both sides, which governed when a city could be put to the sword or not. Saladin massacred cities on other occasions.)

But the book was also a little light on sympathetic characters. Assad is a stone-cold killer. The caliph is (at least at first) disengaged and addicted to drugs. Parysatis is a good character, but she shares the stage with a lot of other people, and has limited opportunities for taking initiative.

Also, author Oden is frequently weak in his word choices. Often he fails to say precisely what he’s trying to say. For instance, he tends to use “a sense of” when he means “an impression of.”

I’m afraid I found The Lion of Cairo something of a chore to read. The epilogue seems to suggest that a sequel will be coming, but I won’t be looking for it.