Previously Published Review: A Brother's Price, Wen Spencer

Is this great literature? Oh no. Not in the slightest. Just read the cover blurb and you should know better!

Is this great Sci-Fi? Nooooo, not really. In fact, other than the gender imbalance, I'm hard-pressed to find any science-fictional elements here at all. I'm highly tempted to label this one "Speculative Alternate History Romance."

So, that established, how was it?

Well, as the only example of Speculative Alternate History Romance (hereafter: SAHR) I have encountered, I found it quite enjoyable.

Quick downsides:
The characters are drawn in very broad strokes, little detail, and much stereotyping. Secondary characters are likewise, but worse. No real character-building here, other than the main cast. Future SAHRs take note: even minor characters can be multi-faceted.

The main conceit is ignored as to cause and possible fixes. The world itself is drawn in sketchy fashion: the homestead, the city, the slums, the river... No real details of place and time anchor the story.

That combined with the the odd colloquialisms (Stetsons? Six-shooters? chaps?) do add to the western feel, but they also make the world seem a little unbalanced. How did the American West get turned into a hereditary monarchy of sister-queens? Where on earth (or not) are we? If they had been missing, and the western feel put in through character or other more subtle touches, that off-balance feeling might not have been niggling at my brain while I read. Again, potential SAHR writers, take care to establish the changes and underlying intelligence about why your world is so different.

The gender switch is amusing, but some of the particulars are a little overblown, and a little stereotyped. I know that's hard to reconcile, because she is purposefully playing directly against type for both men and women, but I felt that this story had the women come off as managing their new roles a lot better than the men do, and that's unfortunate. As I imagine them, SAHRs shouldn't have to be a man-bashing genre.

Quick positives:
The dialogue is written fairly well, and the interactions between characters are mostly believable (the initial 'romance' scenes are a little heavy-handed). I liked what little we saw of the world, and the plot kept to a very quick pace, so I never had time to think about what wasn't there. The main clan and their introduction to the city was a finely written section, and the few males in the story had distinctive characters (even the one who wasn't really IN the story.)

Overall, an amusingly light read. Jerin is a sweetheart, and I enjoyed the quick visit to his odd world. Maybe I'll write a SAHR myself!