The worlds orbiting Cavanagh's Star are in turmoil.Civil war on Umeh—ignited by outsiders—threatens to annihilate …
The wildest thing about re-reading these books is not that I'm only realizing how deeply they changed me the first time and how central they have always been to how I conduct myself; it's that they're changing me again.
Anyway, if you want to understand me, read these books. I'm basically a Targassati wess'har isan.
Matriarch is a science fiction novel by the British writer Karen Traviss published in September, …
I've been re-reading this series in large part because I remember being deeply influenced by it as a pre-teen and wanted to see how it held up.
Well, I'd had some realizations to the effect along the way, but this specific books really drove home the extent to which I modeled the kind of woman I wanted and endeavored to be on Shan Frankland.
It's fascinating to see which aspects of myself were shaped by which aspects of her. With my much greater life experience, it's interesting to watch the ways my emotional responses and judgements have evolved, too.
Mostly disappointing and some questionable views on consent
2 stars
I wouldn't consider myself an expert or super experienced in the subject matter (BDSM/Kink) which is why I wanted to read this book, to learn more. However it didn't have much to say that I didn't already know. That might be a sign that I've had good mentoring so far or that the book is quite shallow, or possibly both. It really only touches on basics and spends a lot of time with telling stories of the authors' amazing adventures, which tbh I wasn't really interested in.
Slightly amusing was the way these let's say slightly older authors talk about online culture in terms the "the Net" and "Netfolk". They really could have asked someone who's a bit more at home online to proofread this for them.
What really stuck out was a section where they argue that, as a top, you're supposedly obligated to follow through with dates and …
I wouldn't consider myself an expert or super experienced in the subject matter (BDSM/Kink) which is why I wanted to read this book, to learn more. However it didn't have much to say that I didn't already know. That might be a sign that I've had good mentoring so far or that the book is quite shallow, or possibly both. It really only touches on basics and spends a lot of time with telling stories of the authors' amazing adventures, which tbh I wasn't really interested in.
Slightly amusing was the way these let's say slightly older authors talk about online culture in terms the "the Net" and "Netfolk". They really could have asked someone who's a bit more at home online to proofread this for them.
What really stuck out was a section where they argue that, as a top, you're supposedly obligated to follow through with dates and play-sessions even if you don't feel up for it. I'm sorry, but that's not how consent works and forcing oneself to do kinky things regardless of how one feels or even want's to do it is a wild thing to suggest. They later contradict themselves about this in the same book but it really made me question their qualification to give advice on these subjects.
Just like The New Topping Book by the same authors, which came out after this but I read first, this book very much shows its age. It is from a time when online resources like Fetlife were far more scarce than today and someone coming newly into kink would have had real difficulty finding any useful material. That is no longer the case and these books today read like someone did maybe a week’s worth of internet research to compile them.
They cover a lot of the basics quite well, but if you already have some experience, even just a little, and especially if you had even just a halfway decent mentor who introduced you to kink, they don’t offer much new insight.
I’m sure they were useful 20 years ago but I wouldn’t recommend them today.
They also have a few issues that you’d expect to see in books …
Just like The New Topping Book by the same authors, which came out after this but I read first, this book very much shows its age. It is from a time when online resources like Fetlife were far more scarce than today and someone coming newly into kink would have had real difficulty finding any useful material. That is no longer the case and these books today read like someone did maybe a week’s worth of internet research to compile them.
They cover a lot of the basics quite well, but if you already have some experience, even just a little, and especially if you had even just a halfway decent mentor who introduced you to kink, they don’t offer much new insight.
I’m sure they were useful 20 years ago but I wouldn’t recommend them today.
They also have a few issues that you’d expect to see in books written by cis people in San Francisco around the year 2000: a very limited view on gender, some very obvious cultural appropriation, and a sense of assumed authority on their subject matter. They sometimes like to define things is very stiff terms, which feels very dated today.
Bad takes on ethics, poor demonstration of proper consent. Do not recommend as a guide on those things. The summary of what kink entails could be useful for the uninitiated.
