The strength advantage is important, but so is the fundamental difference in the cost of sex. Rape is a male crime for a reason. Great review though, I only wish the author stopped calling GFM "she", such book could never have been written by a woman.
I understand your point and I agree re: the pronouns. At this point, as I'm sure you've started to notice, oblique speech is a necessity if only to be able to say the basics and get to the urgent points. It isn't an endorsement of the dishonesty that tends to come with it.
Women have written violent fiction before but GFM's understanding of what it is to even _be_ a woman is so comical and cosmetic that I think I'd have to write a part II for the review to get into that. Do you see what I mean?
Violent – sure, fetishizing rape – definitely not. We talk a lot about physical differences between sexes, rightfully so, but very little about the cost of sex. When it comes to sexual relationships males gain a lot and lose next to nothing while females can lose a lot while gain very little to nothing, especially in species with prolonged gestation periods and long childhood. Rape is an unfortunate result of this dichotomy observed in many species. Thankfully, we are social creatures and our society counterbalance that by disincentivizing rape via various means, making it more costly for males. However, the dichotomy still exists and always will be, but we don’t talk about it often enough and almost never when discussing transgenderism. And my point was that GFM's sex is immediately obvious from his portrait of sexual relationships in the book.
As for TIMs’ absurd ideas of what a woman is, I think your review already shows that well.
Well said! There seems to be a common theme among trans writers to caricature or fetishize womanhood, at the cost of the woman herself. If you’re going to do a part two Kiwifarms has some excellent information archived, both on GFM and pop literature as a whole.
THIS crap was published by Tor? I always took this publication as a serious and quality work publisher, and I have read some great novellas on its site.
But reading the excerpts shared in this substack, I am having a serious headache.
This was a fun read and I hope you review more books (and even films) in the future if you can. Would love to read a collection of essays from you one day.
And those passages from the book that you included read like tumblr fanfic....
your skillful pen and your sharp eye came together to give this honest and eloquent review. glad to have you in these times of madness. we need to laugh at the kaiser
lmao are you telling me Tumblr-favorite disk horse mehreenkasana actually turned out to be a violent, mundane and unimpressive conservative all along? that there was always something inherently broken inside of her, that it showed in all her writing and that people could see it? And now that she's married, the terf brain virus has made hating trans people the totality of her unremarkable personality?
I'm happy for your new life, mehreen. Staying at home, jobless, financially dependent and cooking for your lazy husband all day is the first authentic living you have done in over a decade. I'm glad you stopped pretending to care about liberation, imperialism or social justice. You were always just a common tradwife, with mundane ideas and - let's face it - no writing skill whatsoever
Wow. This was masterful.
Thank you.
The strength advantage is important, but so is the fundamental difference in the cost of sex. Rape is a male crime for a reason. Great review though, I only wish the author stopped calling GFM "she", such book could never have been written by a woman.
I understand your point and I agree re: the pronouns. At this point, as I'm sure you've started to notice, oblique speech is a necessity if only to be able to say the basics and get to the urgent points. It isn't an endorsement of the dishonesty that tends to come with it.
Women have written violent fiction before but GFM's understanding of what it is to even _be_ a woman is so comical and cosmetic that I think I'd have to write a part II for the review to get into that. Do you see what I mean?
Violent – sure, fetishizing rape – definitely not. We talk a lot about physical differences between sexes, rightfully so, but very little about the cost of sex. When it comes to sexual relationships males gain a lot and lose next to nothing while females can lose a lot while gain very little to nothing, especially in species with prolonged gestation periods and long childhood. Rape is an unfortunate result of this dichotomy observed in many species. Thankfully, we are social creatures and our society counterbalance that by disincentivizing rape via various means, making it more costly for males. However, the dichotomy still exists and always will be, but we don’t talk about it often enough and almost never when discussing transgenderism. And my point was that GFM's sex is immediately obvious from his portrait of sexual relationships in the book.
As for TIMs’ absurd ideas of what a woman is, I think your review already shows that well.
Aha. I understand what your point a lot better now. Thank you for this.
Well said! There seems to be a common theme among trans writers to caricature or fetishize womanhood, at the cost of the woman herself. If you’re going to do a part two Kiwifarms has some excellent information archived, both on GFM and pop literature as a whole.
THIS crap was published by Tor? I always took this publication as a serious and quality work publisher, and I have read some great novellas on its site.
But reading the excerpts shared in this substack, I am having a serious headache.
Sorry, but this book sounded so stupid that I could only read the first and last 4 paragraphs of your fine review.
Haha good to see you here, Darrell.
This was a fun read and I hope you review more books (and even films) in the future if you can. Would love to read a collection of essays from you one day.
And those passages from the book that you included read like tumblr fanfic....
your skillful pen and your sharp eye came together to give this honest and eloquent review. glad to have you in these times of madness. we need to laugh at the kaiser
"We need to laugh at the kaiser" is a wonderful sentence. Hope you're well, Peri, and thank you for these kind words.
lmao are you telling me Tumblr-favorite disk horse mehreenkasana actually turned out to be a violent, mundane and unimpressive conservative all along? that there was always something inherently broken inside of her, that it showed in all her writing and that people could see it? And now that she's married, the terf brain virus has made hating trans people the totality of her unremarkable personality?
I'm happy for your new life, mehreen. Staying at home, jobless, financially dependent and cooking for your lazy husband all day is the first authentic living you have done in over a decade. I'm glad you stopped pretending to care about liberation, imperialism or social justice. You were always just a common tradwife, with mundane ideas and - let's face it - no writing skill whatsoever
Poignant, exacting, and fresh. Well done.