Raised By Wolves, W. A. Hoffman

Admittedly, I haven't quite finished this book yet. But I can still review it for what it is- if I for some reason decide the ending is vomit-worthy or causes me to tear my hair or cry at the utter terrible-ness, then I shall of course come back and write y'all an update. As it is....

Basically the story is this: Black Sheep Man careers about Europe and the The Empire like a cross between Indiana Jones and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. He spends a lot of time in the opening pages musing about all the many many times he's macked on with that dude over there and over there and oh look, there's another... Then he spends another couple of pages chatting about how much he likes threesomes. So basically the scene is set. It's the seventeenth century and our dear protagonist is a MASSIVE SLUT-FACE. So then the Tramp-Skank gets on to talk about things that don't involve his member- namely how his job is something along the lines of a career criminal. The first adventure is all about how him and his Man Friend (I would say boyfriend, but he's also consequently involved with this Noble-class Hooker) devise this scheme to kill some dude and blahblahblah- it's all not overly important to the plot line and it's over and done with in twenty lines or so. BUT THEN. He has to leave Florence because he DID kill some dude and the family has become somewhat pissed about the whole shenanigan.

And so, alas, he has to leave behind his Man Friend, who apparently is some kind of Greek god, and he decides to return home to England. We learn that he left England twenty bazillion years before because his cousin raped him, but in actual fact he's the sole heir to an Earldom and some massive fortune. He gets back to England then, assuming many a fake identity along the way and meets back up with his peeps. I should also note at this point that he's quite different from the rest of the nobility, mainly because he talks a lot about the "sheep" and "wolves"; the peasants and the nobility. He's pretty much a seventeenth century communist- he believes everyone should be equal and he hates the fact that he can pop caps in gangstas' asses and get away with it and yet the peasants can't. So basically he hates power and he hates money (I know right, freak-tard).

So he gets back to England, his evil rapist cousin is trying to marry his sister, who, in actuality is a bit of a bitch anyway, so he swiftly prevents that from happening and agrees to go to Jamaica for Daddy, in order to buy enough time for Daddy to plan a dastardly end for the Rapist-Cousin. So he hops on a boat and sails about for a bit to get to Jamaica.

And I draw somewhat of an issue with the book here. By this point (ie. not that far into the book, to be honest) I'm almost getting tired of hearing about his penis. There's only so much I want to read about the adventures of a seventeenth century penis, I'd much rather read about a seventeenth century pirate guy. He talks about how he has to restrain himself from kissing the crew every five seconds and how his libido is back and how he just wants to have a good ole fashioned tumble in the hammock with half the dudes on board. Yes, I know that to get to Jamaica from England in those days it was like, five weeks stuck on a ship or something, but REALLY. Maybe because I find it difficult to relate to the protagonist, who is clearly turning out to be an absolute nympho. I don't spend my time wanting to get jiggy with anything that moves, so perhaps that's why I find it difficult to really believe this scenario.

Another issue I draw with the book, the main character is very open about being bisexual. It's not that it bothers me, its more the fact that it doesn't seem historically accurate. I always gathered from history books etc, that unless you lived in Ancient Greece or a similarly accepting culture, people probably weren't as likely to go skipping about the street telling anyone who'll listen all about how you like to fuck other men. Wouldn't there be repercussions for this in the seventeenth century? It's not that he even tells SELECT people, he basically tells anyone who'll listen. Isn't he scared of, I don't know, persecution? I suppose my main issue is that the ideals of the day don't seem to be all that well represented here, for what is an otherwise very accurate historical novel (or maybe I'm wrong- maybe it was fine to be gay in the seventeenth century I don't know).

HOWEVER on saying that, I do really like this book. I can't wait to finish it because it's actually very interesting and well written. The adventures that Slutface has are really entertaining, regardless of the endless shagging (or perhaps because of it).

Brethren: Raised By Wolves, Volume One by W. A. Hoffman, Alien Perspective (January 1st 2006)