Our latest adventure
with the Black Dagger Dudebros follows Butch, the human ex-policeman
who lives with the Brotherhood and his long distant love affair with
Marissa, King Wrath's ex-shellan who he first met in Dark Lover
After months with no
contact during which they mistakenly think they both hated each other, Butch is forced to share a
long quarantine with Marissa after a painful encounter with the
lessers and the Omega himself. They rekindle their old love, but
Butch is permanently infected by the darkness of the Omega and fears
endangering her and the Brotherhood.
Butch also has to
wrestle with his own demons – his past, his family and the problem
with being a human living with the Brotherhood. As he increasingly
feels himself as an outsider and an interloper in the lives of the
Brotherhood who, as a human, cannot aid them in their war against the
lessers, he questions his place, his continued living with them and
even his continued purpose and existence.
He certainly questions
if he can be good enough for Marissa, pure blooded aristocrat with
impeccable lineage and station. But Marissa herself has to find her
own place with Butch, overcome her deep sense of inadequacy and faces
vampire society's push to sequester all unmated women for their own
protection
An old prophecy has
also arisen – the legend of the Destroyer – no, sorry, the
Dhestroyer (no, really) – which may be the key to ending the
lessers - and the Omega – entirely. But with the darkness of the
Omega help Dhestroyer kill him, or lead to Dhestroyer himself being
consumed
Yet again, and I have
to say it, I am vexed by how little attention the Black Dagger
Brotherhood actually pays to the lessers. They go out, they hang
around bars and clubs and hope the lessers attack them, or, should a
civilian be attacked, they rush to respond as fast as they can.
There's very little pro-active battling the lessers and, really, if
the lessers weren't almost equally incompetent/inclined to fight each
other the fight would probably be over by now. I would love to see
them doing more for the actual war, rather than it being a footnote.
This book also makes
excessive use of that romance trope I hate so much – the ridiculous
misunderstanding. Butch and Marissa's relationship over the past 6
months and in this book has been fraught with neither of them sitting
down and explaining themselves. Instead we get misunderstanding, hurt
feelings and pouting. I've never been a fan of the trope, I have to
say.
I'm also tired of
absolutely everyone in this series having a deeply tragic past.
Everyone. All the Brothers, all the women the Brothers love, everyone
has a tragic past. Someone open a window and let the angst out.
Story-wise, I was
pleased to see some meta-plot developing with the Destroyer prophecy.
I also find John's continued developing story interesting and worth
reading. Both show signs of being interesting and more advanced plots
beyond “vampire meets woman” plot lines that have generally been
very similar and not especially deep. On that note Butch's and
Marissa's relationship does not fascinate me, since all the conflict
in it is based on their low self-esteem of not being good enough for
each other. I'm hopeful that future books will focus more on these
developing meta-plots and a little less on the
engorged/throbbing/wet/tumescent etc etc. For this developing meta,
I'll give it more than previous books.
And I have to address
the tropes – not just of this book, but the series because they started in Dark Lover and have kept up through them all.
There are a lot of
prostitutes – many many prostitutes in these books – and they're
all completely anonymous non-people. No names, no character, they
walk on, get physically described, perhaps used, and walk off. In
many – perhaps even most – cases they're also victimised.
Murdered by Lesser serial killers, fed on by one of the Brothers etc.
Now turn round and look
at the heroins – for the most part they're sexually inexperienced,
sexually uninterested or outright virgins before meeting their Twu
Luvs. If that wasn't coded enough – the Goddess of the vampires,
the one they pray to is called the Scribe Virgin.
Not, of course, that
these pure adored women are not victims – they get names and get to
be adored but all of them have either been attacked and kidnapped or
are presented as deeply tragic, vulnerable and tortured. The one
strong, kick arse, independent, doesn't need a man to rescue her/hold
her hand we've had so far in the series is Xhex (yeah I have no idea
how to pronounce that either) who repeatedly has her gender doubted
and is called a “shemale”.
Vampire society/as a
species is also deeply misogynist. Men create “bonding scents”
that marks the women as theirs and go into mad rages should another
man touch their women. Women are treated as fragile little flowers or
children – there's a tradition of cohntehst (I know I know,
the extra hs again) where 2 men fight over a woman and sehclusion
where a woman basically becomes
the property of her male relatives who control everything she does.
The aristocracy even tries to make sehclusion
automatic for all unmated females and while Marissa opposes this, she
opposes it primarily due to domestic abuse victims who would have no
help under such a system rather than because women are quite capable
of running their own lives. Her objection is primarily founded in the
vulnerability of women, not the assertion of their right to be
independent.
This
book also continues with the same casual misogynistic and homophobic
language we're so used to.
And
finally, no book review of the Black Dagger Brotherhood would be
complete without a mocking of the names and language. In addition to
Dhestroyer (new name) a prize has to go to the word phearsome
a term referring to the “potency of a male's sexual organs”. Yes,
I'll present that without comment I think.
