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A review by cellardoor10
The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
4.0
I'm not sure I can truly explain how much of an absolute asshole the protagonist is. Possessive, jealous, bizarrely quick to anger (seriously, it's like in an instant, out of nowhere, he's yelling at rando desk worker #2), and really enthusiastic about some seriously misogynist insults. It was, on occasion, difficult to care what happened to him because he had to spend an entire night getting over how a woman might not be in love with him (seriously, fuck that noise). His complete rejection of actually learning the culture around him and proclaiming "Well I don't know why" reeeeeally gets grating. Buddy, do some research, ask people specific questions, and stop depending on that as a constant crutch.
All that being said, I found this book waaaaay more interesting than the previous two. Driving plot, interesting premise (person who doesn't remember, driven to find out). The characters were interesting overall. And I'm not totally opposed to an unsympathetic or rude or cruel protagonist, but I get frustrated when that protagonist is presented as being correct, being the hero, being totally reasonable. I get the feeling that Bradley assumed that readers would be like, yes, you do get to yell at randos and call your love interest cruel insults when she isn't exactly who you thought, but instead operates in a system you haven't bothered to learn about before stomping all over. That's the thing that bothers me. No. No you don't get to be a possessive, aggressive asshat and still have me rooting for you.
Additionally, the audiobook reader clearly wanted to be performing a play, and while his accent and voices are very good, his volume is *extremely* variable, such that finding a comfortable and consistent volume was pretty difficult.
One major issue I had, and this is going to reference some ugly, triggering stuff from Bradley's personal life, is that at least a couple times, a female love interest is described as childlike, or having a feature like a baby, etc. That would be off-putting on its own, but knowing about the allegations against Bradley and the convictions against her husband related to child sexual abuse, it's a little stomach-turning. It really pulled me out of those scenes in disgust.
All that being said, I found this book waaaaay more interesting than the previous two. Driving plot, interesting premise (person who doesn't remember, driven to find out). The characters were interesting overall. And I'm not totally opposed to an unsympathetic or rude or cruel protagonist, but I get frustrated when that protagonist is presented as being correct, being the hero, being totally reasonable. I get the feeling that Bradley assumed that readers would be like, yes, you do get to yell at randos and call your love interest cruel insults when she isn't exactly who you thought, but instead operates in a system you haven't bothered to learn about before stomping all over. That's the thing that bothers me. No. No you don't get to be a possessive, aggressive asshat and still have me rooting for you.
Additionally, the audiobook reader clearly wanted to be performing a play, and while his accent and voices are very good, his volume is *extremely* variable, such that finding a comfortable and consistent volume was pretty difficult.
One major issue I had, and this is going to reference some ugly, triggering stuff from Bradley's personal life, is that at least a couple times, a female love interest is described as childlike, or having a feature like a baby, etc. That would be off-putting on its own, but knowing about the allegations against Bradley and the convictions against her husband related to child sexual abuse, it's a little stomach-turning. It really pulled me out of those scenes in disgust.