Free Kindle Ebook: Born to Run by Mercedes Lackey

If you have an ebook reader such as a Kindle or even if you just download some ebook reader software to your home computer, there are a lot of books you can download free from the Baen Free Library or ManyBooks.net.

Mercedes Lackey's Born to Run is available at the Baen Free Library. Mrs. Lackey likes to write about unhappy if not abused children and those who make it their mission to help them, and Born to Run has its unhappy children in the form of three runaways and underage prostitutes, Tania, Jamie and Laura. Tania ran away from a wealthy home because her wicked parents forbade her to read fantasy fiction--- the ultimate sin to a fantasy writer. But she is now trapped in an unpleasant life, and in danger from an evil elf-woman, Aurilia, who has a business making kiddie porn and snuff films for a select and perverted clientele.

But there are also good elves-- who race cars for a living--- and a mage, Tannim, who sees Tania and decides to help her out. Tannim has a thing for helping people--- and ex-people. We first see Tannim rescuing an 'earth-bound spirit'--- the ghost of a man who does not realize he is dead. The ghost, Ross Canfield, has been standing for a couple of years on the side of the road near the place where he died in a car wreck, unaware of time passing until Tannim performed a magical ritual to make contact with him. Ross begins to learn the ropes of being a ghost and later in the story is able to help Tannim out.

Tannim's elf friend Keighvin has a mortal enemy in the evil elf Aurilia and her allies, and a small elf-war ensues. The war convinces Tannim to delay helping Tania and her friends, which gives Aurilia time to kidnap them. And so the elf-folk must ride to the rescue--- an exciting ride all the way to the book's end.

For concerned persons I would like to point out that even though the villain of the piece may be in the porn business, Mercedes Lackey isn't, and we are thankfully not expected to read any explicit accounts of sex acts in spite of three of the characters being prostitutes.

This book is part of Mrs. Lackey's urban fantasy series involving racecar driving elves, and meshes up with one of her other series involving the good witch Diana Tregarde. The Tregarde series was very popular with Neopagan kids, and many of them became convinced that some of the things in the book were real and that Mrs. Lackey could hook them up with REAL magick and REAL witchcraft that worked the way it does in books. This forced Mrs. Lackey to discontinue the Tregarde series.

There are also a couple of instances of anti-Christianism in the book, and one is rather troubling. Young runaway Tania is discussing with Tannim the different shelters she might use to get off the street, and she dismisses the Christian shelters out of hand because she doesn't want to hear the Christian message. The impression is given that Christian charity is all but useless to street kids. In the real world, the majority of charities available to the down-and-out are Christian charities, and these charities help all regardless of their faith. One hopes that no kids at risk, reading this book, decided to pass up help from a Christian charity in the hope that they'd find some Neopagan charities opening up any day now....

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