I have a soft spot for Tanith Lee. When I was about 10, I was given a book token for my birthday and I remember standing in Smith's, eyes wide, unable to choose between the rich treasures before me (yes, it was Smith's, and it seems a bit mad now, but I was only little). Already a fantasy lover – well, I'd read The Hobbit, with the scary bits read aloud to me, and The Lord of the Rings, at least the Frodo and Sam bits – I was drawn towards Lee's The Dragon Hoard and it ended up being the first book I bought for myself. I raced through it at the time, but I can scarcely remember it now – although a quick bit of research sends me plunging back into the world of Jasleth, the unwilling shape-shifting prince, and his quest for fortune. Lovely.

Anyway, after the machismo of Conan the Barbarian I was keen to sample a female author for my next World of Fantasy outing, and Lee seemed perfect – she'd won a British Fantasy award (the only woman ever to do so, astonishingly) and I'd loved her as a child. And she looks ever so cool on her website. So, I plumped for Death's Master – gorgeously ridiculous cover and all – and I was predisposed to like it, I really was.

Having fought through Conan and all his lily-white wimpy women, imagine my joy to be greeted by Narasen, "the leopard queen of Merh", beautiful, a warrior, and uninterested in the male sex: "I do not lie with men," she says firmly. Of course things end up going wrong for her: she and her city are cursed to be barren, it's only if she can bear a child that her kingdom will survive but – after very reluctantly trying with many – she realises the curse means that only a dead man will be able to impregnate her. A bargain with Uhlume, Death's Master, ensues, but it all goes wrong and she's condemned to live 1,000 years in his kingdom. She never stops being thoroughly feisty and brilliant, however. Even when, later in the book, she's turned completely blue (long story).

Then we move on to the real focus of the book, her child Simmu, who was always going to be quite strange with one dead and one living parent. Being raised by mischievous demon messengers, and then priests, only adds to his oddness. Simmu is another great creation – he/she can be either man or woman depending how he feels, and some excellent mixing-up of perceptions goes on when he/she falls in love/lust with the friend s/he's known from childhood, Zhirem. It doesn't work out and, angry, Simmu sets out on a quest to drink the waters of immortality in order to destroy Death. Simmu succeeds, but – well I never! – immortality isn't quite what s/he'd hoped.

Lee is, I have to admit, a beautiful writer. I've complained before about over-the-top attempts to ape a "heroic" language by the likes of Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock. Lee gets it spot-on, with moments of wry humour amid her smooth, elegant prose; she gives the impression of days-of-yore and a faraway world, and tackles her creation's weird eroticisms, without ever being tempted into going over the top. (Another author, incidentally, who I think is good on this is Guy Gavriel Kay: "The sun rises in your eyes" is the marriage proposal in Fionovar, and I sort of love it ...) But, attempting to summarise the story here, I realise what, for me, went wrong in Death's Master. The story is just too splintered, too multi-stranded – I haven't even begun to address what happens to Zhirem, which feels somewhat tacked on to the end – and ultimately it failed to hold my interest. The characters Lee has created are unique and brilliant – a far cry from usual fantasy tropes and all the better for it. Along with Narasen and Simmu, there's Yolsippa, immortal and tricksy, only turned on by cross-eyed women. There's the evil but amusing Lylas, a witch frozen at the age of 15 and all the sillier for it. But I'm afraid their disparate adventures just didn't quite do it for me.

I would recommend much more heartily another Lee novel, The Birthgrave. It features an equally odd heroine – "To wake, and not to know where, or who you are, not even to know what you are – whether a thing with legs and arms, or a brain in the hull of a great fish – that is a strange awakening. But after awhile, uncurling in the darkness, I began to uncover myself, and I was a woman." But it has a much more compelling storyline. I read it last year after buying a secondhand copy in Hay (bedtime relaxation after the frenzy of the festival) and adored it; almost as good as Jane Gaskell, and coming from me that's the highest of praise.

Lee has written tons of books; these are some of her earliest, and rather hard to get hold of. It's a shame, as are her comments to Locus that "if anyone ever wonders why there's nothing coming from me, it's not my fault. I'm doing the work. No, I haven't deteriorated or gone insane. Suddenly, I just can't get anything into print". And on her own website she says: "As for new novels, earlier plans are becalmed. When I know I'll let you know. Otherwise, no 'large' house at the moment has taken any interest in any of my work. Macmillan and Hodder both refused/dropped offered proposals. Tor passed on reprinting Red as Blood. Others I have approached don't reply at all." That's just not right – Death's Master didn't blow me away, but even so it's far more interesting than lots of the talented-orphan-on-a-quest-type books which pour out these days. Can't some brave publisher help out an author who deserves to be published?

As for me, I need to pick my next outing. I'm already some way into Jack Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth – what would people think of that? And my husband gave me a copy of the tribute book, Songs of the Dying Earth, with stories by authors including George RR Martin, Neil Gaiman and even – hurrah – Lee herself, written in honour of Vance. But let me know if you'd rather something else – as ever I am open to suggestions.