Good Grape Wine Company

Note: The reader from South Carolina appears to have an odd view of what "lesbian" is, though she apparently is one herself. I would agree with the person who said that Amber Noon isn't as lesbian as I would've liked it to have been ... and point out to the reader from South Carolina that having elements such as "all the men were evil" and "all the men were murderers and rapists" does not make a book "more lesbian."

Lesbians generally don't hate men - I think you've confused us with married heterosexual women. ;)


Not as good as Coral Dawn - perfunctory and unrefined   March 4, 2003
 6 out of 6 found this review helpful

To the reader who said it wasn't lesbian enough... Huh? Let's see... All the men were evil, completely bereft of any redeeming morality. When they weren't killing and torturing innocents, they were abusing women. All the men hated women. All men were murderers and rapists, and the only man they followed was the one who was more of a murderer than they are. The men who didn't follow him were actually even MORE misogynist than Zed.

All the women, on the other hand, were lesbians. All were exceptionally intelligent, moral, and upright, all displayed heroic virtue. All the lesbians were morally and socially superior to men. And all women, when freed from the oppression of men, choose to be lesbians, which is in itself presented as virtuous. And at the end, it is determined that lesbians ARE, in fact, superior to men, proven by the finest minds. Period.

Out of curiosity, how much more lesbian did you think it should be?

Hmmm. As a lesbian, I have to say - this comment is fairly typical of a certain faction. I think it's the standard gay/lesbian rejoinder, describing an affinity group as "they aren't active (gay, lesbian, feminist, etc.) enough" when you what you mean is, "I'm not getting laid after the meetings like I thought I would." And that's true - if you want the steamy sexual tension and romance of Coral Dawn, with the primary form of artistic expression being erotica and every character's sex life the most important piece of character development, you'll be disappointed. If you want character development at all, you'll be disappointed - she tried to tell two stories in the same word count as Coral Dawn, and did neither well.

I found it shallow and rushed, as if she had a certain word count to stay under and had to gloss over the details to make it all fit. The plot was transparent, though the twist at the end was unexpected. The social ideas posited are a ludicrous dystopian fantasy of necessary separatism, ham-handed at best. To be honest, I expected better from Forrest.


Never thought I wouldn't rave about a KVF book...   February 3, 2003
 10 out of 10 found this review helpful

After such a long wait for the sequel to Daughters of a Coral Dawn (which I love, including its flaws) I can't believe that this book was a disappointment.

It has Forrest's excellent prose, and her ability to create a good plot and really well-defined characters. All of her craft is there.

What's missing is heat. Fire, passion -- not in what the characters do and feel, but in the writing itself. The word craft seems so calculating at times that, to my amazement!, I found myself distracted from the story and not really caring about the outcome.

As another reviewer said, there is bit of a flaw in the plot, in that the women have such an easy time overcoming every technological barrier. Problem? So-and-so the brilliant this-or-that will find a solution and save the day. And we're told most of this, not shown it. And maybe that is the biggest flaw. The diary entries for the main narrators are very thin on dialogue and action. There's a lot of telling and not much showing.

KVF fans will want to read this book, but they should do so with their expectations set to something less than the KVF they expect. Maybe I'm wrong -- it's been nominated for a Lammy -- but for the life of me I can't see why.