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A review by cseanread
The Cleveland Heights LGBTQ Sci-Fi and Fantasy Role Playing Club by Doug Henderson
2.0
This title left me feeling.... shorted. I have several complaints:
The first mainly being the amount of sexual innuendo in the story. Yes, The Gays (TM) love a good sex joke, but this felt excessive to the point of stereotype. With how much queer folx have had to work to get out of the over-sexualized image we've had for decades, it's disheartening to see it reflected in a story that's meant to be for and about us.
Second, some of the story arcs felt very loose and out of place. The vampire subplot in particular I just did not understand and felt deserved it's own book alone. I don't know enough about the author, but this feels like a first-novel type of problem, where the author wants to include All The Ideas instead of focusing on a singular plot hook.
Some of the supporting characters felt flat. Particularly the feminine ones -- but I suppose I can let that slide a little since this is a book about gay male romance. But still, would've been nice to see some of those characters fleshed out a little more.
And worst of all -- I didn't want the two main boys to end up together. I don't know if this is a failing on the author to create characters I could empathize with and like (and thus hope they ended up together) or if it was a lack of writing good chemistry between the two. Either way, I thought Ben was kind of a whiny incel-type, and Albert was too far up his own ass. Again, there's a stereotype that people who play D&D all live in their parents' basements with zero friends -- and Ben kind of fits the bill for that, which might be why I disliked him. Albert is wishy-washy about what he wants and hurts Ben in the process, which makes me unsympathetic to Albert, so why would I want the two of them to end up together?
I really, really love the idea of a book centering around a queer-focused D&D group. Though it's a little bit niche, I feel like there's a lot of potential for compelling characters and exploration of a number of contemporary topics.... but I just feel like this one missed the mark and left me unsatisfied.
The first mainly being the amount of sexual innuendo in the story. Yes, The Gays (TM) love a good sex joke, but this felt excessive to the point of stereotype. With how much queer folx have had to work to get out of the over-sexualized image we've had for decades, it's disheartening to see it reflected in a story that's meant to be for and about us.
Second, some of the story arcs felt very loose and out of place. The vampire subplot in particular I just did not understand and felt deserved it's own book alone. I don't know enough about the author, but this feels like a first-novel type of problem, where the author wants to include All The Ideas instead of focusing on a singular plot hook.
Some of the supporting characters felt flat. Particularly the feminine ones -- but I suppose I can let that slide a little since this is a book about gay male romance. But still, would've been nice to see some of those characters fleshed out a little more.
And worst of all -- I didn't want the two main boys to end up together. I don't know if this is a failing on the author to create characters I could empathize with and like (and thus hope they ended up together) or if it was a lack of writing good chemistry between the two. Either way, I thought Ben was kind of a whiny incel-type, and Albert was too far up his own ass. Again, there's a stereotype that people who play D&D all live in their parents' basements with zero friends -- and Ben kind of fits the bill for that, which might be why I disliked him. Albert is wishy-washy about what he wants and hurts Ben in the process, which makes me unsympathetic to Albert, so why would I want the two of them to end up together?
I really, really love the idea of a book centering around a queer-focused D&D group. Though it's a little bit niche, I feel like there's a lot of potential for compelling characters and exploration of a number of contemporary topics.... but I just feel like this one missed the mark and left me unsatisfied.