Reviewer: It Was Me Signed
Date: July 13 2023
Title: Chapter 17: Epilogue and Afterward
I don't think saying that this is my favorite among your stories that I've read so far does it justice. This story was incredibly well put together, from its seamless blending of genres to the way that it so beautifully yet sneakily set up and built on early plot points and character elements for some great pay offs to just the shear entertainment value of it.
In other words, it was pretty okay, I guess.
But the first thing I want to say about this (other than that stuff above; just pretend that's not there?) is that there was one point in the story that made me feel like an idiot, which is a good thing.
When Griselda proposed to Dirk and it was clear that Hardstone was working with her, I started thinking back to chapters I had read days before. Then I found myself going back and rereading a few passages from those chapters. One came to mind in particular: Dirk's first encounter with Cynthia. As I reread her chastising our hero for not coming to thank her for sending for him after his aunt and uncle's deaths, I saw what I was looking for. The priestess made a big deal about how hard she had to work to pretty much force Lady Griselda and that "little woman" from the bank to send for him instead of just auctioning the land off.
You pretty much told us right there who was responsible for the murders and land snatching scheme. Of course, we had only seen each of the culprits once at the time and they hadn't seemed like major characters as of yet. Also, that particular line of dialog ended with revealing that Tom, our favorite red herring, was responsible for convincing Cynthia to send for Dirk in the first place.
I absolutely love stuff like this! Stuff that takes on a different meaning after you have all the facts. When I review your stories, I usually use the word subtle at least once, and there are usually a bunch of little things I see in your writing that hint at stuff that I don't bother mentioning since I make these reviews long enough as is. But this one I definitely had to mention. Thank you for making me feel stupid!
I also really like how you approached the gender-swapping theme of the story. I'll admit, that's not usually my thing, as most stories I've read with said theme tend to really emphasize the belittlement of males in a way that comes off a little too preachy for my tastes. But your approach was much more nuanced, with a wide range of diversity in terms of how the Amazons viewed Dirk. Their society doesn't necessarily devalue males, but it can certainly breed that feeling in those who probably already feel superior to them due to their size and strength. This is pretty apparent when comparing Cora, who seems pretty open minded for an Amazon, and Cynthia, who may have thought males less capable early on but even then seemed to only want to help them with their troubles, with, say, Griselda and Isabelle, who clearly think of males as lesser (although Griselda seems to rethink this at the end). It's also demonstrated through no-named Amazons (or named but mostly irrelevant characters in some cases) as well.
But what really makes this stand out from other gender-swapping stories is the source of the conflict it creates for Dirk. Usually, that conflict is external, with the main character fighting to maintain whatever shreds of respect and dignity they can. For Dirk, however, he deals with the more hostile efforts of the Amazons pretty well for the most part. For him, the conflict is more of an internal one. It's how the people who care about him make him feel that has him questioning himself. An independent guy who, as he said, was far more used to being relied on than relying on others, doesn't know how to feel about people wanting him to rely on them. Their desire to keep him safe is something that appeals to him on some level, but he struggles to fully accept it because he's not a safe guy. I found this conflict a bit harder to define and much more interesting than the external conflict I mentioned above.
Of course he also has mixed feelings about being dominated in the bedroom, but he doesn't seem to have too much trouble realizing that he likes that more than he doesn't, thankfully!
I also thought the use of the compliance ribbon during the wedding, with Dirk refusing to say "I do" was a pretty neat metaphor for how he was not only able to keep being himself in a society that wanted to "tame" him, but he was only able to do so because of his love for Cora, the only one who he would let tame him, if only a little.
But I also found the relationship between Dirk, Cora, and Cynthia to be pretty interesting as well. Cora and Cynthia have very different but equally strong bonds with Dirk, and we get to see those bonds develop in very different ways throughout the story.
With Cora, her normal awkwardness around men actually works in her favor with Dirk, as he finds her talk of battles and hunts interesting, unlike the men "native" (see husband raid) to the Queendom. Also, while she still has some of the same beliefs about men that her fellow Amazon's have, she's actually pretty open-minded by their standards, at least when it comes to strawheaded Imperial types. And then there's the fact that Dirk isn't afraid to be aggressive when it comes to initiating sex or moving the relationship forward. Those three traits allow the two to share unique experiences herding on the ranch, killing dinosaurs in the jungle, and in the bedroom, bringing them closer together.
Cynthia's development as a character, let alone as a love interest for Dirk, had a different feel from Cora's. While Cora was likeable from the first time we see her, Cynthia initially comes off as a snooty, anti-man religious zealot. From there, however, as we see some her cuter, almost childish ways and her, uh, quirks, get highlighted, kind of worms her way into likeability, to the point where she ended up being one of my favorite characters in the story.
As for her relationship with Dirk, she seems grateful from pretty early on for how respectful and appreciative he generally is and the fact that he's cool with her using him to fulfill her domination fantasies but frustrated when he doesn't fit the mold of what she feels is a proper man in the eyes of the goddess. This changes with the dream sequence with the elven bandits. She sees a side of him that no one will ever see, mostly because its in the deep recesses of his subconscious. That seemed to be the point where Cynthia stopped worrying about Dirk's behavior and truly accepted him for how he is. Seeing something that real has a way of doing that, I think. But between that and her being able to use Dirk's dreams to live her true giantess fantasies, their relationship takes a quite different shape than Dirk and Cora's.
I see what you're getting at when you say that Griselda was meant to be the gender-swapped version of a Disney villain stealing the female lead, and I guess that's what she did (as Dirk pretty much made the comparison himself when we first find him in that tower), but honestly, that's not what I took away from her at all. To me, she was more of a Machiavellian villain, an example of how we need to be careful when it comes to working toward "the greater good."
Griselda's goal was a worthwhile one: to modernize the Queendom with better weaponry to protect her homeland from the lizard people and the Imperials, should the realm of men ever decide to invade. Everything she does to get her hands on the Northstar ranch she does for the safety and betterment of her people. That's about as noble an aim as one can have, I think.
Of course, the things she does (or is able to accept, anyway) in an effort to reach that goal are anything but, however. Although most of the dirty work is undertaken by her incredibly shady associates without her direct consent, she keeps working with them nonetheless, knowing full well what they're capable of.
What makes this more interesting to me the fact that when Griselda has chances to do unsavory things to help her plan directly, she almost always chooses not to. She would rather have Cora serve as a guard to keep Dirk in check rather than just use a compliance ribbon to steal his free will. She not only made sure Cynthia, who she kept complaining about, was safely with her when she passed out during the lizardman invasion, but she rejected her cousin's idea to kill her once it looked like the battle was over. She even saved Dirk when he was going all Captain Rhodes against the undead when it surely would have been much easier for her to just let him die and buy the property that way.
The only evil thing Griselda is directly involved in is trying to force Dirk to marry her in order to steal his land. Even that, at first, while seeming cruel, was probably justifiable to her, as he would be well off living a pampered life and she would train him to be a "proper" man (something she probably believes is actually doing him a favor, as she seems to have a pretty low opinion of men). And after Dirk's heroics during the invasion, she seems to gain a new respect for him. Ironically, while this made her sound more like a decent person doing a terrible thing, in a way going forward with the wedding anyway almost seems more evil, as she acknowledged the love between Dirk and Cora by giving them that time together but still planned to ultimately ruin it anyway in order to stop the next invasion.
I say all of that just to say that Griselda, to me, was a very complex villain, and I really enjoyed what she added to the story.
Her cousin, Isabelle, on the other hand, was a very simple villain. Not that there's anything wrong with that. On the contrary, evil for the sake of itself can be a good thing when done well, which I think it was with her. Her cutthroat nature was perfect to earn the disdain of the readers: "Oh, someone doesn't agree with the way we do things? Why not just kill them, or at least take their free will from them?" And then to have her meet her grizzly yet just end at the feet of maybe the most lovable character in the whole story was a happy helping of karmic goodness!
And then there's Ms. Samantha Hardstone. Heartless and clever. We only saw her one time before it became pretty clear that she was in on land snatching scheme, and during that one time, she did a masterful job of steering Dirk toward Tom in his search for his aunt and uncle's killer. The subtle way she hid behind confidentiality but "let slip" that the supposed prospective buyer of the property was a he was smart enough, but to then have apparently "let slip again" to Tom that Dirk was going to not only stay but catch up on the loan payments was a brilliant way to pit the two against each other without doing so directly. Of course, she was also the only one smart enough to go get the mage killer when the lizard mages were fucking up Rain's End (even though hey weren't there, I doubt Griselda or Isabelle would have even considered that).
And it was nice to see the western-themed villain meet a proper pasta-styled western end, outdrawn by an antihero of sorts.
And what a nice little redemption arc we got for Tom. A former outlaw who used his masculine charms to manipulate himself to the top of the social food chain in Amazon country, he started out sounding like a pretty shitty guy (he may not have killed Amaya and Markus, but he certainly wasn't above hinting that he did to try to intimidate Dirk). But the more we see of Tom, the more likeable and reasonable he seems to become. His "forbidden" romance with Cassidy not only served to add to the intrigue and mystery that the stories early chapters provided, but also really humanized Tom as well. Then, during the invasion and his dealing with Hardstone, we got to see that build up pay off with him fighting bravely, killing a murderer, and sacrificing a beautiful shirt!
And finally, the action sequences in this story were really good, but that chapter where Dirk takes on the Lizardfolk mages was on a different level. Your descriptions generally aren't super detailed, but the details you choose to include always seem to put a clear image in my head. And your short, crisp paragraph style really lends itself to the pacing of an action scene (and makes it easier to read, too). But what really set that chapter apart for me was Dirk's thoughts throughout. As he's killing the mages, he's not just recalling his training, nor is his thought process relegated to the narrative. Instead, we get to read actual memories, quotes from the people who trained him even, giving us insight into how he's going to handle a given situation. That gave the action a really personal feel, as those memories were masterfully crafted and felt real. It really raised my investment in the scene, and it was already pretty high before that point.
This is already ridiculously long, so I won't go into too much detail on this, but all the usual rants I have about your character work (I guess I got into that one a little bit) and world building definitely apply to this story as well.
Also, a quick question: Where does this story fall on a timeline of your fantasy world? Granted, I'm only familiar with The Elf is Innocent and Tyrael's Quest, but I'm curious where this falls, especially since it seems like Dirk has some experience fighting elves (albeit rebel elves, at least in theory). I just didn't know if this story took place at about the same time or if young Amaya is out running around at the time of those other stories (or maybe they've all been dead for a thousand years at this point, who knows?).
You know, I don't think I've read enough of your work to definitively say that this is your best, but if you've written something that you think is better than this, please point me in that direction. This was that good.
Author's Response: I'm glad it was "pretty okay" lol. Anyways to go over a few points, I think you nailed what I wanted to do with a lot of the characters. Griselda is basically a symbol of the old order of things, and so while she's the villain I wanted her to have a certain nobility to her even if her plans are ultimately pretty evil. As Cora herself says a resurgent Queendom built on the back of murder and rape wouldn't be worth it, no matter how noble the ideals are.
As far as where this falls on the timeline, Dirk and Cora's daughter leaves home for the first time roughly around the period of The Elf is Innocent, and Tyrael's Quest is the "last" entry in the total timeline so far. For some other ones that take place around the same time Bee Happy takes place fairly shortly after Dirk left the army, as bandit elves are still a problem for the characters therein. If you're looking to read more of the Fantasy universe Diplomatic Mission and Saving the Kingdom for Dummies are both there but they're a bit rougher since they're my early work. I'm pretty proud of all the one shots in the fantasy universe, so you can check those out at the series page. Diplomatic Mission and Saving the Kingdom for Dummies are also there if you want longer stories, although they're rougher as they're my earlier work.
Aside from the fantasy stuff if you're asking about the long form novel length stories I'm pretty proud of Reunion, which is another character driven piece. Back to Normal? deals with your typical shrinking scenario after the fact, basically following several "former tinies" who will return to small size if they are separated from a wristwatch that keeps them full size. There are some other long form ones, and while I'm happy with them all I think that the ones mentioned are probably the best. If you want episodic sci-fi adventure stuff you might check out Conquest of Earth or Rise of a Supervillain. If you want comedy I think Welcome to Hell is probably my funniest one, it involves a guy who dies and gets sent to Hell by mistake, luckily his assigned giant demon tormentor realizes he's innocent, but it's really just the start of their problems.
Anyways thanks for the review!