Lynn Flewelling

If exploring the slipperiness of gender means putting a child in between hollow twodimensional clicheés of men and women to you this might be just the book for you.
Men are brave full of pride eager to fight in battle and slaughter and the only other thing on their minds might be fucking and drinking.
Women only want to turn men's eyes, wear pretty clothes, jewellery, want dolls and be equals to men except they are portrayed as superior in every way but shunned nonetheless because men are pigs.
There are a few better fleshed out characters I'll grant but that is only because court intrigue and plot require some motivation for people to not just act like pitiful stereotypes.
I originally gave this book 3 stars but after reading and suffocating in the second one which gets much worse in all the aforementioned aspects I have to correct this down to 2 as my rating was in good faith to the shortcomings being resolved and more depth to become visible later. This is most certainly not the case.
In short, big parts of this series are shallow, undifferentiated and sexist despite the attempt of being the exact opposite.… (mer)