Comments on: Review: Savage by Lila Dubois

By: Lila Dubois: Savage | The Naughty Bits

Lila Dubois: Savage | The Naughty Bits — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:53:57 +0000

[...] This review was originally written for The Good, The Bad, The Unread. [...]

By: From The Dean's Desk

From The Dean's Desk — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 06:00:12 +0000

From The Dean’s Desk:
How entirely quaint of you to disagree with The Dean and yet offer no additional evidence of your contention. Scholarship, dear child, is what is necessary here if you aspire to review genre writing.
The Dean

By: Teddypig

Teddypig — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 16:24:13 +0000

Sorry Dean I disagree.
I count Andre Norton as an “actual master” of science fiction and also one of the first women to succeed as a writer in that genre.

By: Devon

Devon — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 13:53:02 +0000

Huh. Interesting approach for an RFG.

By: From The Dean's Desk

From The Dean's Desk — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 08:22:58 +0000

From The Dean’s Desk:
The Dean is concerned that perhaps the reviewer did not actually read all of the text but only skimmed for the sex bits. If only the reviewer had actually bothered to read and understand the strand of cultural identity that Ms. DuBois was setting up, the ethnocentric comments leveled regarding what are clearly cultural norms and activities would have been either set in context or eliminated.
The Dean finds it annoying when authors work hard to not play to western European stereotypes, are then rebuked by those who cannot carry their scholarship out of the classroon and into some actual application. Ms DuBois is to be commended for consciously side stepping the problem that many writers commit when they impose current time and culture- specific norms of morality and conduct onto what is clearly a storyline that is not.

The dialogue is intense and necessary for plot points (as opposed to just getting characters to the next sex scene), the imagry is detailed and rich, the editing smooth and useful, and the cover acceptable, although not at the level of Forbidden. The Dean was more than satisfied with this offering and was left with no unanswered questions.

The Dean suggests that the reviewer perhaps confine himself to those genres with which he is familiar (and apparently only comfortable) with the conventions of the genre. On the other hand, perhaps actual scholarship should be applied in order to broaden the reviewer’s literary base. The Dean suggests the collected works of Niven, Brandbury, and other actual masters of science fiction.

By: Savage: Review by Teddypig « Within The Castle Walls

Savage: Review by Teddypig « Within The Castle Walls — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 04:22:23 +0000

[...] you go: TEDDYPIGS’S REVIEW AT THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UNREAD. Published [...]

By: Devon

Devon — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:47:42 +0000

I wanted to read Forbidden, but never got around to it. I can’t decide if this would make a good guilty pleasure read or inspire great rage in me. Hmmm…

By: Teddypig

Teddypig — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:24:12 +0000

Well I should repeat that I really loved Lilaâ€™s writing style.

She kept the werewolf romance so symbolic and nuanced that I thought she was going to keep it like that. So when that changed and he actually turned into an actual beast… *sigh*.

I am also not one of those people that absolutely needs every loose end tied up. I just wanted some small direction or simple acknowledgment that these personal issues were still valid.

As I said, the Romance was a sure thing in this story so all these small angst kept me involved and to ignore them while smacking on the HEA was just more *sigh* inducing.

I guess my expectations were peaked by the quality of the writing from the beginning.

By: Bev(QB)

Bev(QB) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:16:10 +0000

I’m glad you took one for the team Teddy, cause this book sounds like it would just piss me off to the point that I’d end up doing some serious damage to my laptop when it hit the wall.