Her Majesty’s Men by Marquesate – review
Rating: 
Author: Marquesate
Genre: British military, contemporary
URL: Lulu
Price: $5.17 download, $13.79 print
Other Information/warnings: Explicit m/m, language, extreme violence, torture
Summary [from the publisher]:
Her Majesty’s Men is the story of two soldiers in the British Forces and of a friendship taking unexpected turns. In the eyes of the Army they are just two mates who are close. But from the revelation of personal secrets, ensuing hatred and aggression, through terror and danger, to loyalty, triumphant strength and courage, grows their own realisation of what they are: comrades first and foremost, but something else too, something more significant. The two Royal Engineers, Sgt Tom Warren and SSgt Alex Turner, learn to understand the real meaning of loyalty and strength. Their fight for survival cuts through all the discipline and rules, to tie them together in a unique bond of companionship and trust.
My review:
I have a confession to make. I’ve tried to read this novel several times. It comes up every so often in reader recs, and I wanted to like it – hey, military men, smut, angry sex, what’s not to like? But every time, the first few scenes made me close the browser window with a shudder. So when the author sent it for review, I thought I would try just one more time, see if I could give it an honest read through, and if not, pass it to someone else.
The first few scenes still make my teeth grind. Too many bad gay porn cliches, the wonky, unrealistic dialogue, the entire set up, just didn’t appeal, and still don’t. But get past that, and suddenly you find yourself with a real, decent story, real characters, and sex that really is smoking hot. It’s simply amazing how much it improves, and how different in quality the end of the book is from the beginning.
Let’s dispose of the negatives. The dialogue, particularly in the early part of the story, is crap. The author is not English and it shows – at no point did I believe these two soldiers were British, and the slang is just all over the place. Even the cursing is inauthentic. However, the dialogue becomes much less – less grating and less in quantity – as the story goes on, and the writing over all tightens up, while still betraying the author’s ESL status from time to time. It needs a British editor, and since Marquesate had co-authored further books with another ESL writer, I really hope that Brit picker was found. It could have done with a better editor anyway, but since it’s self-published, I understand the limitations there.
Tom is the weaker of the two characters – to say he thinks a bit like a moony school girl is not an unfair assessment, I think. He’s obsessed to the point of ridiculousness with Alex. Alex, while generally more interesting as the book goes on, is a tad unrealistic. You have to accept, for the sake of the story, the effect of his being tortured upon his sex drive, and while I did accept it, I did think it was a little ridiculous. However, the author uses the trick to good effect, and I’ll let it slide.
I also thought the scenes with the ex-wife and the sister were unnecessary, and heavy-handed. They felt bolted on, and with the ex-wife particularly, the attempt at rehabilitating her just did not work for me. Unless these characters appear in other books, I couldn’t see why they were included in this novel, and I could have lived without them.
However. The story really made me sit up and go ‘wow’ when Alex and Tom brawl and make some interesting discoveries about Alex’s sexuality. The sex and violence in this book are done extremely well – possibly the best, most exciting writing I’ve ever seen of this kind in this genre. The story works best when the two are combined, but Alex and Tom really shine when they’re not moping about their love lives and start being soldiers. Because they are kickass, manly, heroic soldiers who are truly the kinds of people you’d want in your army. I’ve read too many stories of incredible heroism from places like Afghanistan and Iraq to think Tom and Alex are in any way exaggerated. Alex’s bravery under torture and captivity made me ache to read. The tale of sacrifice and bravery, of brotherhood and love and mateship, worked in every way for me. It’s a shame the author dissipated the momentum with so much distracting stuff about the wife and sister, but it doesn’t lessen how very good those last set piece battle scenes are.
It’s worth noting that the author uses her close relationship with a real live soldier to excellent effect, and while the dialogue is inauthentic, the military side of things feels very real, and the details given in a way that makes you feel the environment. There’s no info-dumping, and no sense that this is just stuff the writer found on the internet and tossed in for verisimiltude.
The text needs editing to remove stupidities like
“Fuck!” Tom hissed, glad for the running water.
and the non-English phrasing. However, for a self-pubbed work, it’s pretty decent, and better than I’ve seen from some epublishers.
The early part of the book hits certain nerves with me, but there are undoubtedly many readers who love this style, and will eat it up with a spoon. The rest of the book should appeal much more widely – provided the reader is prepared for some pretty damn visceral torture and injury scenes. Then, if you’re reading military romance, you probably expect this. With these caveats, I recommend Her Majesty’s Men as a solid, enjoyable read.
I stopped to read the reviewed story about in the middle of it not so much because of its quality but because of its politics. I know that my political believes are not typical for a slash reader, so I supposed that the story could find its readers who did not care much about UK military exploits and wanted something else. But I guess I was wrong.
Could I please ask what was SO heroic about UK soldiers being in places when they were not asked to come in the first place? If I remember it right, Alex was tortured in Asia (not Afghanistan neither Iraq ) and Latin America. Does it mean some states from there were in war with UK, attacked UK and thus UK had right to send her heroic soldiers there?
And about torture. The person living in a glass house would be better off not trowing stones
I am not sure how many UK “heroes” were tortured in Latin America or Asia, but I bet that words “torture”+ “UK” would bring a lot of stories about UK doing the torturing (in Afghanistan and Iraq, but not only)
I know that I am out of favor with the site owner. She could ban me altogether, if she wants. But I still is interested in logic of people with such opinions.
Thanks
1. This is not a political forum. If you want to comment about the political content of this story, please contact the author.
2. Your remarks about ordinary soldiers, I find personally offensive.
3. I don’t ban people for being offensive idiots, only for spamming.
4. Israelis live in glass houses too, and I would ‘bet’ that a google search on ‘Israel’ and ‘torture’ would find me 8,240,000 hits. Including
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/637293.stm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44664-2004Jun15.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/bloom11082005.html
On a personal note – fuck off.
Thanks for the answer. I will fuck off, but I suppose I should first to try and put a few things stright.
1. At least 10% of the review was about politics. ONLY becase of it I commented
2. You have all the right to be offended, but from the author of “Kei’s Gift” I expected another reaction to the book. I guess I was naive. Thank for the lesson, anyway.
4. Of course, IOF is not less guilty of torture than UK army, maybe more. But you missed an important thing here – I am AGAINST the crimes of IOF, including commited by “ordinary soldiers” My only “heroes” are refuzniks. If you check my previous comment on HMM you could see it. And IOF could not go on with its crimes without UK support of Zionism, unfortunately.
Thank you one more time. (I am not kidding, you answered me, not everyone on your place would do it)
I am greatly amused by people taking offence at politics in fiction, because clearly they lack the brainpower to understand that fiction is NOT reality and that views expressed by characters in a book ARE NOT the views of the author.
But I guess readers seeing a pro-torture agenda in Marquesate’s book think that J K Rowling believes in magic and Pullman believes polar bears can talk. (No, really, they can!).
Oh dear, oh dear. I guess some people just have uch huge chips on their shoulders about some issues they take offence at any mentioning of it. I think readers like that should be forbidden to read fiction – for their own deluded sanity – and seek therapy, because their issues definitely screw up their judgement.
Do us all a favour, rose, take your issues where they belong: to a psychiatrist or an anti-torture demo.
How *anyone* can see this novel as pro-torture, I have no idea.
Rose and you are both making this personal. Since I didn’t exactly hold back, I won’t take any action, but please confine future remarks to the writing, or take it off the site. Thanks.
Of course, I do NOT see the book as “pro-torture”, I only meant that the book about UK (USA, Israel) army and torture could bring to some readers feelings not intended by author. Magic is non-existing, but the UK soldiers REALLY do the things the author and the reviewer think is OK. And I was very surprised that somebody could think that for the author Alex and Tom are not true heroes. And for the reviewer they surely are (she said it plain enough) . So, I suppose my not good enough English is to blame for such misunderstanding. Anyway, I believe I was polite enough to not deserve be send to therapy by other commentators. By the way, why being anti-torture, or, to be more precise – anti-imperialist – means the need of therapy?
I hope my post was about the writings (and the review), not counting the question of being civil in comments.
Thanks
Hi rose,I personally think a writer is allowed to touch “hot irons” – and politics are hot irons. Marquesate is writing about *soldiers*, though, not the generals. Tom and Alex are not the guys who decide to wage these wars, they are soldiers, they follow orders. An while intervention may not be heroic (personally I think the Iraq invasion and the intervention in Afghanistan are wrong, so I’m a liberal, sometimes a left-leaning liberal) – *acts by individuals* can be heroic. It is heroic to save the life of a comrade at personal danger/pain. That’s a fact. Marquesate keeps, I think, the actual place and time of the action deliberately vague, exactly, I think, to preempt all association of “good” or “bad”. It could easily have been Afghanistan, but it’s *not* and, I think, on purpose (I haven’t talked to the writer about it, because frankly I think it’s really obvious). So, I think writers have the right to write about armies even if they do not agree with foreign policy. So I don’t get where it says in the text that Marq condones the actions of the UK government just by *writing about two soldiers*. I don’t get that. ”By the way, why being anti-torture, or, to be more precise – anti-imperialist – means the need of therapy?”That’s not what you said. Your statement shows clearly you believe that the writer condones torture and what you call “imperialist actions” just BY WRITING ABOUT IT. That’s where my brain bleeds a little. And you do *not* comment on the book, but write about your political vbiews which you project into a book that is perfectly innocent. To disallow writers to touch hot irons means we’ll all be forced to write and read about fairies and unicorns all the time. Again. Just having tortture/war happen in a story doesn’t mean the writer condones or supports it. Simple. You you believe it does, that’s a matter of psychological projection.@Admin: I try to be less offensive – the previous comment was meant snarky, really more than anything.
Alex, thanks for being l”ess offensive”, I really prefer to talk with polite people .
1) I commented first of all on review (on the book I commented before). It was (for me at least) a clear instance of supporting imperialism. If I mistook it, I am sorry.
2) “they follow orders”
Since 1945 it is NOT an excuse, sorry. And I do not see Tom and Alex as having the slightest problem with the orders they got. More than that, the author NEVER shows the slightest sign of not approving the orders. OK, it is fiction. Would you like a pure fiction about some Nazis being tortured by UK soldiers and then being heroically saved by their friends? Were there any Nazi heroes? Even if they saved their friends who went to murder some Slavs and take their land and got caught doing it? (My grandfather and granduncle were killed fighting Nazis) If some German writes about a pilot-bomber of London being downed and his best friend (lover) going undercover to UK to spring him out of captivity afterward, would it be OK and “innocent”? And UK soldiers are not drafted, and if they refuse to take part in war crimes they would not be shot.
There are some CO in USA, and I see them as a heroes. They refused to go to criminal war even if it meant they could not “save” their friends who do.
3) I suppose I take HMM too seriously. But while the author has a right to write about EVERYTHING, her readers have the right to judge her books regarding the topics she writes about. She likes to write about army buddies and some torture. OK. What about thinking a bit before using as a prop a REAL army which is busy torturing NOW? If this is ” innocence”, it “makes my brain bleed”.
4) Of course, I suppose I am too harsh to slash readers who want to have some fun and not to use their political views while reading M/M
I am sorry for writing even more about politics, but I suppose it is still related to the book in question. After all, if it would all about fairies, I would not mind at all
By the way, now I am reading Dusk Peterson’s fic The Eternal Dangeon, which is full of torutre, and could be even seen sometimes as “condoning” it. And still I like the the fic a lot, mostly because it is so true, even though it is even not about “Earth”. So I suppose I do not need a therapy after all
And “they follow orders” is not an excuse, at least not sinse 1945.
Rose, sorry, but I find your narrowmindedness deeply offensive. And stealing my words and twisting them to your end is a bit sick, too. Of course the Nazi thing is an argument to end all arguments, and, sorry, but it’s been done to death on the internet. Every time somebody is losing an argument, they pull out the Nazis. I understand Marquesate is German, so if I was her, I’d be very offended.
Yes, I think it would be acceptable to write about heroic Nazis, because I personally do not believe the cartoony “X are all bad evil bastards” cliche. It insults my intelligence. There *were* heroic things that the Germans did – just like the Brits, the Afghans, the Russians, the Soviets. I had a contact who was with the Israeli paratroopers, and he told me lots of stories. Shooting a child, for example. Taking a shot-up piece of head (the bit with the hair attached) and making fun of it. He told me how he shot a suspected suicide bomber. Is that heroic? Writing – good writing – does not press views on you. I feel insulted and angered when anybody tells me what I should think. Real people – and compelling characters – are neither black nor white. Yes, I could imagine a heroic German in the 1939-45 time slot, fighting, because nobody is good or evil, that’s categories that only work in Disneyland, and I’m older than 14, so no need for me to stay in DIsneyland or be morally outraged by the moral ambuiguity of real people.
In any case, if I was Marquesate, I’d tell you to please leave my books alone. I’m not Marquesate. But please, please, if I end up publishing something via Lulu, leave my books alone. All of them. Because they will feature non-Disneyland characters; some of them do the wrong things for the right reasons, others do the right things for the wrong reasons, in any case, they will do things that you find morally reprehensible, and I’d rather not “earn” a pound sterling than have somebody like you read my book. Please stick to books that are easier and have the right kind of moral outrage to tickle you.
And with this, I stop feeding the troll and return to writing; writing for readers that are free in their minds to even entertain a morally reprehensible thought or two.
Yes, Alex, you could be sure I let your writings alone
I suppose I am not interested in such sort of writings anyway. I prefer, as I mentioned before, Dusk Peterson, and then Manna and Parhelion. By the way, there are a lot of torture in Manna’s fics as well, and I suppose she is not Disney-like. But then, I think that I could simply do not understand what I think about fiction, maybe I am an idiot, as Alex sees me, because sure Alex know better 
After all, Alex was sure I saw HMM as “pro-torture” 
Yes, the Nazis were much abused as an argument. But what could I do if it was the only example of “bad guys” which I could find for Alex who is (more or less) against war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not against the army that wages those wars? And then, Alex using excuse “following orders” reminded me strongly about Nuremberg.My only problem is that I love Ann Somerville fiction (most of it) and now I am a bit confused, because of this review. But anyway I am gratefull for Kei’s gift and her other fiction, even though there are a lot of torture and not a single Disney’ char. 
And, last but not least, I was not objecting to anything “morally reprehensible” (if I could steal two more words). I was objecting to crimes – real and grave crimes – being glorified. Colonial wars (right now) are criminal (which included Zionist crimes). They are not about “bad guys” and “good guys”. They are about mass murder and ruining whole nations. And I am not comforted if someone in colonial army is a nice guy who loves his colonial army buddy and risks his life to save him from ungreatful non-white peoples.
Rose, would you please go away? Your comments are incredibly offensive, barely intelligible, and you’re imputing thoughts and interpretations to me and to Marquesate – and to Alex – which make no sense. This ‘discussion’, so far as I can see, is just you mouthing off with your peculiar views, and I have no interest in them. Take them to your own blog/website.
As for The Darshian Tales, somehow you missed the fact that most of my heros are soldiers. Not pacifists. And like Alex, i would really like you not to read any more of my stuff, if it leads to this kind of thinking.