/siberia/ - Off-topic

The first part of this review will try to mostly be objective, with subjective criticism coming in through the second half. There should be only minor spoilers in the first half.

Objectively, the book is highly flawed. To start with, the structure between pornography and narrative is really bad. The first two sections, War Hound and Hunting Hound, are purely pornography and don't really have that much interesting character work going on. Hunting Hound is better than War Hound in this regard, but it still is too limited with its story and it is more of a pornographic pastiche. There aren't really any stakes and you know what's going to happen.

Rescue Hound is the real novel with actual characters, stakes, plot and character development. However, there is a big pacing problem. Much of its length is padded out with pornographic scenes, which aren't necessarily a problem, but I found myself getting bored. This was the part with a plot, and yet the plot was going so slowly. The story should have had less of it in and more character work or the introduction of more rebel characters (especially rebel characters in leadership who actually have agency).

The writing can be very sparse. It certainly is intentionally plain to an extent, but there could have been better description at points, especially during the drug scenes which are meant to be transcedental, but are written just functionally. It's at its worst in the beginning but improves as the story goes on. On the other hand, the action scenes are well written and I found them to be very exciting. Maybe this is just because I like mechs. I was not reading the book as pornography so I can't comment on the effectiveness of the sex scenes, and though some can be a little corny, I think they are mostly serviceable.

There are some plot inconsitencies. There isn't really a leadership on the rebel's side, they never actually do anything other than purely defensive missions. It's kind of ridiculous that they left Sartha at the frontline base rather than retreating her back. It's frustrating. Their supply lines and logistics also don't really make much sense. You can't fight an industrial war with hodge-podge individually made mechs, especially not one where you have a major material disadvantage and you are losing. Even producing replacement parts when every mech is unique would be a nightmare.

It is an idealist story which puts far too much weight on the actions of individuals. Heroes seem to dictate this war, which is not grounded or realistic. The plot does not really go anywhere. There is not enough worldbuilding or information about the war.

Subjectively, this book made me seethe. It is a completely nihilistic story, where EVERY SINGLE POV named character becomes a mental slave to the Handler. It shows no path to resisting the Empire or the Handler. The rebels only ever lose, and they are losing really hard by the end. There is no good character ending, no catharsis, only the inevitable slide into identity destruction.

I was engaged throughout the whole story because I was waiting for a twist. When I was reading Rescue Hound I was waiting for Kione to come to her senses. I thought she was a good person because she saves Radio Girl at the beginning of it. But instead it is literally just a downwards spiral where she becomes more and more fucked up and abuses Sartha really badly.

I really thought she would be redeemed in the end, I thought Radio Girl would sacrifice herself to save Kione at the end, showing her what the rebels really stand for. But there is no satisfaction, just loss and a transformation into being one of the abuser bad guys. This was such an incredibly unsatisfying ending for me.

I don't think characters have to necessarily be likeable, but there has to be other things going on in the story to facilitate this. There is nothing holding it up for Kione. She is an incredibly hateable character and only gets worse and worse. But more than this, I found basically all the characters to be unlikeable. They all piss me off so much.

This has to do with the whole psychology aspect of the story and this again connects with the nihilism. People in this story think and act like some misanthropic nazi would think people act and think. Everyone is deep down either evil or like a psycho-sexual gigasub who just wants to follow orders and is completely dictated by sexual gratification and cares about nothing else.

You can't say just to ignore this because its "just porn", because it isn't just porn, its a book with a narrative. It is art that someone wrote. Anyway, I would critisize any piece of media or entertainment for displaying this total nihilism. You can write non-con puppygirl smut without also making it really depressing and nihilstic! There's nothing stopping you from writing a happy ending or at least one with some hope. Or at the very least you don't have to write every character as being completely subservient to pseudo-psychological inner desires!

I think I should re-iterate how I think the action scenes were a highlight by the way. The mechs had weight to them. I just wish that at the end some random unnamed rebel gun implacement shot the Handler when she was exposed and the story just ended like that lol.