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juushikaNothing explicit in this first review, but cutting just in case!
Title: Domination & Submission: The BDSM Relationship Handbook
Author: Michael Makai
Published: 2013
Rating: 1 of 5
Page Count: 75 of 495
Total Page Count: 324,040
Text Number: 1140
Read Because: previewing for a co-read which we obviously canceled because it bad
Review: DNF at approximately 15% (including some skimming). This is a broad introduction, and gave me at least one tidbit of value that I found while browsing ahead in the index. But there are other books (and basic google searches) of equal value but a more palatable tone—because this is almost unreadable, from the repetition and ridiculous overuse of italics to the author's unexamined biases and aggravating personality; I appreciate the reviews which confirm that this style continues throughout the book, which freed me of any impulse to continue.
Title: The Man-Wolf
Author: Erckmann-Chatrian
Published: 1876
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 90
Total Page Count: 324,130
Text Number: 1141
Read Because: fan of the trope, ebook free from Gutenberg
Review: I was slow to invest in this, despite the excessively evocative descriptions of the barren German forest, because it's so external: an observation of the werewolf as a dreamlike illness; distant, impersonal. But the outside view allows for the werewolf to be Othered, something less than human but more than animal, interacting with humans in a unique way:
This is an early werewolf story, and I love that these early examples can feel fresh, exploring aspects that haven't become central to a trope with defined, repetitious elements. But however interesting, I still didn't enjoy this, and it holds no candle to Clemence Housman's The Were-Wolf, also early werewolf fiction, also engaging a relatively unexplored element of the trope, but distinctly more captivating.
Title: Crota
Author: Owl Goingback
Narrator: Heath Kizzier
Published: Books in Motion, 2004 (1996)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 95 of 320
Total Page Count: 324,225
Text Number: 1142
Read Because: reading Native authors, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: DNF at 30%—moreso because it's not for me than because it's outright bad: procedural supernatural horror isn't my vibe, even when distinctly removed from modern urban fantasy, and the writing is workmanlike (probably exacerbated by audio), burdened with headhopping and infodumps, not especially evocative despite the gore. Under that, it's probably fine as a horror pulp, but I'm the wrong reader.
Title: Domination & Submission: The BDSM Relationship Handbook
Author: Michael Makai
Published: 2013
Rating: 1 of 5
Page Count: 75 of 495
Total Page Count: 324,040
Text Number: 1140
Read Because: previewing for a co-read which we obviously canceled because it bad
Review: DNF at approximately 15% (including some skimming). This is a broad introduction, and gave me at least one tidbit of value that I found while browsing ahead in the index. But there are other books (and basic google searches) of equal value but a more palatable tone—because this is almost unreadable, from the repetition and ridiculous overuse of italics to the author's unexamined biases and aggravating personality; I appreciate the reviews which confirm that this style continues throughout the book, which freed me of any impulse to continue.
Title: The Man-Wolf
Author: Erckmann-Chatrian
Published: 1876
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 90
Total Page Count: 324,130
Text Number: 1141
Read Because: fan of the trope, ebook free from Gutenberg
Review: I was slow to invest in this, despite the excessively evocative descriptions of the barren German forest, because it's so external: an observation of the werewolf as a dreamlike illness; distant, impersonal. But the outside view allows for the werewolf to be Othered, something less than human but more than animal, interacting with humans in a unique way:
It is a very strange feeling to be hunting down a fellow-creature; for, after all, that unhappy woman was of our own kind and nature; endowed like ourselves with an immortal soul to be saved, she felt, and thought, and reflected like ourselves. It is true that a strange perversion of human nature had brought her near to the nature of the wolf, and that some great mystery overshadowed her being. No doubt a wandering life had obliterated the moral sense in her, and even almost effaced the human character; but still nothing in the world can give one man a right to exercise over another the dominion of the man over the brute.
And yet a burning ardour hurried us on in pursuit; my blood was at fever heat; I was determined to stand at no obstacle in laying hold of this extraordinary being. A wolf-hunt or a boar-hunt would not have excited me near so much.
This is an early werewolf story, and I love that these early examples can feel fresh, exploring aspects that haven't become central to a trope with defined, repetitious elements. But however interesting, I still didn't enjoy this, and it holds no candle to Clemence Housman's The Were-Wolf, also early werewolf fiction, also engaging a relatively unexplored element of the trope, but distinctly more captivating.
Title: Crota
Author: Owl Goingback
Narrator: Heath Kizzier
Published: Books in Motion, 2004 (1996)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 95 of 320
Total Page Count: 324,225
Text Number: 1142
Read Because: reading Native authors, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: DNF at 30%—moreso because it's not for me than because it's outright bad: procedural supernatural horror isn't my vibe, even when distinctly removed from modern urban fantasy, and the writing is workmanlike (probably exacerbated by audio), burdened with headhopping and infodumps, not especially evocative despite the gore. Under that, it's probably fine as a horror pulp, but I'm the wrong reader.
