A Few Good Men: Upcoming Reviews

I did have to dip back into Heyer to find a testrogenic work.  In fact, I think it is my new favorite of hers, Friday's Child.  But it will be a busy week, so though I am finished with it, it won't be till Friday or the weekend before I get the chance to review it.

Concerning Gail Dayton's works, I have read the first and made it page 164 in the sequel, The Barbed Rose, and I don't think I can read any further.  This work appeals only to a certain sect of people of which I am not one.  If you like to read about women having sex with multiple males, sometimes simultaneously, and the males liking it and being superfocused on her, this novel is for you.  For that is the main plot.  In the first novel, The Compass Rose, the demon killing plot doesn't really occur until say the last 50 pages of the 400-odd work.  (Can't remember exactly, it's in my to-trade-in bin.)  I don't expect this one to be any different.

But I don't want to seem like I am disparaging this work just because I don't enjoy orgies and super-doting men. Because the major appeal of this story is interesting worldbuilding--though, the first few chapters make it a little hard to get through.  Later on it gets less infodumpy.  However, I'd take an infodump any day if the works would explain what the heck men do.  Almost every position from military on down to bakers are filled by women 90% of the time.  They are admitted into some positions, like bodyguards of the magicians and some other military positions--mostly to channel some of their aggressive traits, the novels say, but still that cannot account for the lack of men in working positions.  Do they stay home and take care of the children from their group marriages?  Given the main female's background, I don't think so.  For it sounds like a second mother raised her.  So what the heck do the men do?

Besides worldbuilding, I enjoyed the strong female character in the first chapters of the first novel, which is saying a lot.  I don't generally like female MCs.  But she lost that strength steadily throughout the novel.  She has yet to regain it in The Barbed Rose.  In fact, the main female character has an almost fanficy feel to her (nothing wrong with that, for that's why I read the Twilight series), and the males definitely do.  They are almost all instantly supportive of the female MC, despite the fact that I find it hard to believe men like to share a single woman or that misogynistic males can change colors that fast or care to lose their nationality that fast through forced marriage.  The men generally also get along really well with each other fast, too.

I dunno.  I just can't get into it or don't get it.  Now if the demon-killing plots had been predominate, that would be another story. 

A Few Good Men: Musings

Just a couple things of note.  I mentioned considering a Reverse Bechdel a post or two back, but upon further reflection, I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

Also, I'm currently working on reading Gail Dayton's The Compass Rose.  Wow, this novel has a lot of estrogen in it (in an interesting way), but I'm up to page 182, and the males aren't really . . . I dunno.  Things are happening to them that is interesting, but I'm not seeing much of them, their personalities, what makes them tick.  Quite frankly, I don't know what to say about the men, because there isn't too much to say about them.  It's mostly about the main character, the female, after all.

So, I'm not sure if this one will work for A Few Good Men.  The problem is, after I read this one, I intend to read the other yardsale find that looks like it was set in this same world.  So, I'm thinking I'm going to have to find a short Regency romance and read that simultaneously or something.  Because if I get out of the habit of reviewing, I'll probably stop permanently.  Me and my attention span, you know--it's no bigger than a flea's, one with ADHD to boot. 

Well, we'll see.  I may need to just read something else simultaneously anyway to get my man-candy fix.