Girls aren't sluts. They don't randomly hook up with, exchange meaningless intimacies with, or fall in love with guys they just met for no reason and on no basis. Even if the guys are cool kiddos or handsome or even rock stars, most girls have enough self-respect to realize that compatibility takes time to discover and prove. Even if it's love at first sight there's still a courtship period of months or years where you learn how to relate to each other.
The corollary to this is that if there really are girls that loose, that they're stripping in front of random guys, hugging and kissing them, or going full throttle with them on minute one, no guy wants such a monster. It doesn't come with any form of approbation or affirmation, which is what makes a girl's feelings so special. It's like a dead skunk sitting in front of your porch, stinking the place up, signifying nothing. Nevermind the obvious fact that if they're willing to slut it up so quickly with you they'll do the same for every other guy they come across, meaning there can be no long term relationship and any kid she has won't be yours.
Xanth has always featured loose women, it's the key to every romance in the series, the girls are remarkably easy to conquer by any rando who is polite to them and has even a modicum of talent in any field. But this book felt like that squared. It's so heavy, so sappy, so drippingly easy for every guy to charm every girl, that the protagonist girl of this book falls for something like 6 different men/women in the same book and exchanges intimacies with all of them. And she's only one example of the problem I'm talking about, her companions aren't any better.
Such a person is contemptible and ugly, no matter what they look like on the outside. They're gross. They're disgusting. It's even obnoxious for a guy to be such a philanderer but at least that's in keeping with the male sex. It's abhorrent and ridiculous when characterizing a woman.
It isn't good writing either. The appeal of love is how hard it is to get and how precious it is once you've gotten it. It's a rare and spectacular gem most people never see in their whole lives. (Just look at the 50% divorce rate). What's the use in an author who details relationships worse than the average people experience on their own? We are selling them a dream -- what are you doing presenting a whorehouse?
It's lame that I paid $16 for this. I was ripped off by an author who put in zero effort, slapped some words together and called it a book. This is understandable given his age and infirmities, but then again, why is he even peddling books if he can't write them anymore? Doesn't he have the self-respect to not attach his brand to such inferior products? Doesn't he have pride in the previous Xanth books and not want to besmirch them with crap like this? Does he really need my money so much? (The answer is no, he says in the author's note he's comfortable financially.)
I'm reminded of my very first book, Wind, whose premise was that a boy and a girl, Gust and Gale, must marry with true love at the altar of the eternal city, Spa, in order to combine the elements of wind and water magic into the new element of Prismi, which would be strong enough to defend their kingdoms from the evil Fire and Earth aggressors plaguing their lands.
They were a prince and a princess, excellent individuals well liked by everyone who knew them. Perfectly handsome and talented, and of course motivated to love each other as soon as possible in order to save their realms. Nevertheless they went the entire book getting into fights, not getting along, fumbling about, and not falling in love at all. They were trying to like each other. At the end of the book Gust casts a spell on Gale that makes it questionable whether she can 'truly' feel anything at all, much less love, imperiling the entire mission.
There were supposed to be sequel volumes to this story but I didn't have the passion or the skill to deliver the entire epic as pictured in my head. But needless to say there were further complications, like Gale falling in love with Vistan instead of Gust against her own wishes and will, but she just couldn't help herself because that's how her heart leaned. And Vistan likewise falling for Gale against his will because he certainly didn't want to doom the mission and having to suppress anything that might tempt her from ever showing on the surface. It was going to be a very tough accomplishment indeed for that happy ending in the eternal city. It was even going to require time travel and the correcting of past mistaken decisions along the way.
That was one romance! That's my idea of a romance! It's tough. You almost die multiple times before it even starts! Phoenixes burn your face to a crisp! Your whole family is slaughtered by assassins!
So how does Squid fall for Chaos in something like three pages through nothing but kissing? Really? That's another route to true love -- meet a guy, immediately start kissing, decide you're in love by page 3? Even if that is a possibility and humans really are that simple, like beasts of the field with only one thing ever on their mind, how does it stimulate my feelings or imagination to hear about a romance like that? How does it inspire or encourage or enlighten me on anything? I'm just sitting here with an incredulous stupefied expression as I wonder how shit like this is published and sells for $16 a shot while my stories wither in obscurity.
And I haven't even started on the social justice warrior-ing in this story. When it isn't about sluts, it's about gays, cripples and transgenders. We get to hear all about the travails of handicapped people, people with the wrong body, people with the wrong appetites, abused children, child prostitutes, people of every ilk and sludge from every creeping corner of this dark earth. I think there were more freaks in this story than normal people. Technically even Squid is an alien immigrant orphan. Oh, woe is her! Let's just keep piling on the sympathetic figures we must all feel so sorry and understanding for!
Please let this be the final whimper of the Xanth series. Do I really have to fork over another $50 for three more samples of this product? Let it end. Dear God let it end.
Meanwhile, I'm also dropping Mushoku Tensei, because I can't in good conscience countenance a protagonist who's an open child molester/rapist. Paying further attention to him is a compliment I refuse to pay. There are various arguments you can make -- 'he's a kid so it's innocent fun.' Nope, his mental age is well into the 40's. 'the girl likes him so it's consensual.' Perhaps if he'd committed himself verbally to her first, but since he's simply making use of her body while fully intending to move on romantically with other girl targets, there's no way she's consenting to that. He took advantage of a sleeping child who is required to study under his instruction (creating a power imbalance making it even more impossible for her to give consent) and molested her while retaining his 40 year old male brain and knowing full well what he was doing. And to make matters worse, he feels nothing for her and fully intends to betray whatever feelings she might have towards him, and knows he's going to abandon her for another woman while he's molesting her while sleeping.
It has great art and voice acting. It even has some good characters and snappy scenarios. I can't stomach it any more. I endured him stealing panties and stealing peeks and all the rest which was already scummy for the sake of the good art and animation and whatever. But what is this? He's awful. He's about the worst person imaginable. This is one of the worst crimes imaginable and I'm supposed to follow the rest of his exploits for another 50 eps or 1,000 chapters or whatever? To what end? I should have known after his apologetic treatment of adultery where this was going. Down and down and down all the way to hades.
Vikings has awful people too, but it never tries to justify or apologize for them or make them into sympathetic figures. It's understood and quite clear that they're awful and there's no justification for what they do. Mushoku Tensei tells the whole story from the stream of consciousness of Rudy, the child rapist, where he justifies everything he does as it happens. He's made into as sympathetic a figure as humanly possible. It's much more insidious when he does a crime than when someone else does it.
I never thought I'd find a day where I want to cleanse my soul with some good clean Vikings fun -- but Mushoku Tensei plus Skeleton Key has put me in exactly that situation.
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