"Erotic romance" that is neither erotic nor romantic.
Full disclosure: I'm a big fan of m/m and f/f slash fiction, and I've read a lot of it over the years. And what I expect from it is not that it is some great literature that reveals something about the human soul or whatever - I want some nice romance, and it can be cheesy and there better be some cliché involved (memory loss! accidental marriage! they have to pretend they're a couple! etc.). Of course, I don't mind some hot sex scenes, but they're an added bonus mostly.
So when "Slave Boy" was recommended to me it wasn't entirely unreasonable that I should like it. Slash with a mix of D/s - something I really liked in the Administration series - and the book wasn't that expensive, so I thought I'd give it a try.
I wish I wouldn't have. This book is so unbelievably bad words almost fail me. Please, bear in mind that I expected it to be cheesy and all that. But I also expected the main characters to behave somewhat like actual people might.
In the beginning, we're introduced to the two main characters - two men who are part of an interstellar religious organization/ corps called the Order of Light. One is the master and the other his pupil, although the pupil is almost old enough to become a master himself. The master is a large man while his pupil is smaller. The pupil also has short spiky blond hair. They have this intense mind-bond that allows them to talk telepathically when they choose to. And each of them is secretly in love with the other but doesn't tell the other one because that kind of relationship is forbidden by their order. They're on their way to a summit where they have to convince some alien race not to annihilate another alien race. For reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, the pupil has to pretend he's his master's sex slave in order not to offend the alien bad guys. Sound familiar? Yeah, I know, it's just about every. damn.Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon fanfic ever written.
Again - the setting, the characters, the plot - no matter how contrived or cheesy or ridiculous all this sounds, I do like that sort of thing, and I've read some great stories using something similar like that. This book, however, wasn't one of them.
Basically, this book is like really bad porn. The "plot" is just an excuse to get the characters to fuck, or rather, like in one notable example which I WISH I COULD UNREAD DEAR GODS PLEASE, almost-fuck. Again, it's not like that isn't the case in 95% of all fanfic I've read, but in this case it's so badly done and none of it makes sense. Apart from the fact that I doubt there is an alien race that requires people to fuck each other in front of the king as a tribute (if there is, I don't want to know) my main problem was with the main characters who act like they're completely insane. Nevermind that the whole (main) story takes place over a time-period of about two days while their relationship progresses at a really unnatural pace, the most ridiculous thing is the non-stop internal WHINING of these two supposedly grown men who fight for the good of the universe (I fear for the universe).
Basically every interaction they have is along the following lines: they're in a situation that requires them to be intimate in some way or the other. So each of them thinks, "OMG I want him so badly, but no, it's wrong, I shouldn't, he doesn't like me that way, I can't, but I have to, oh no, look what I'm doing!" And then their mind-link starts working and they start telling each other stuff like "I want to fuck you so hard, please Master fuck me lalalala NO ONE TALKS LIKE THAT WHEN THEY THINK THE OTHER PERSON DOESN'T WANT THEM. PLEASE." And then they start whining again. And the dirty talk is so horrible, and the sex isn't hot and their relationship is supercreepy, because the only way a D/s relationship works for me is when they are actually equals. This is just icky and what I think the author believes is romantic is disturbing and ridiculous and about as "sweet" as Edward and Bella's wonderful love. UGH.
Another thing that bugged me was that the whole thing was very similar to another of Anderson's books I've read - the "Assignment" has some situations that are almost identical, and even though there the relationship at least wasn't quite as disturbing, I found that annoying.
So yeah. I'd apologize for the rant, but I think I deserve it after reading the whole damn thing. (Which I only did because I was on the bus and then there were only a couple of pages left over, and what would have been the point of stopping there?)