Homo Action Love Story: A Titular AnalysisHomo: The veracity of this, the first of the sequence of title words, cannot be argued. This is indeed a very "homo" novel. All of the main characters are homosexual to various degrees. As for the supporting characters, I cannot say. Although I suspect some of them are probably homo as well. There are very few female characters and I cannot comment on their sexuality, only to say that one female is called Lucinda Skullcrusher and if that is not a lesbian epithet, I don't know my lesbian epithets very well. There is also a surprising amount of sex (or near-sex) in this book. Homosex, of course, none of it marred by any girl bits. And very hot homosex indeed. One homo aspect that I very much enjoyed was the vision of a future where sexuality is a non-issue and people may love and/or sleep with whomever they please.
Action: Ah, action. That difficult to define and even-more-difficult-to-successfully-write-about word (used here as an adjective and neither a noun nor verb). In my humble opinion, the action is the most successful part of this novel. At first we have action in the form of professional-league paintball. (And if you'll permit me a brief aside here: I understand sport the way a person blind from birth understands colour, that is to say that the neurons responsible for the understanding of sport just failed to develop in my brain, and thus I have no interesting in nor concept of competitive sport. This brings me to my point: professional paintball is a sport I could get behind 100%. For it is awesome.) Professional paintball is to the mildly futuristic world in this book what American football is to America, what hockey is to (?)Canada and what soccer is the rest of the world. And our hero(es) are mostly professional paintballers. We see them in glorious action on the paintball field. We also see the price of failure in professional paintball, and this price is exile to a mysterious island for 5 years if one is "simu-killed". A simu-death sparks the next bit of action, in which our heroes decide to visit said island in order to find a simu-dead boyfriend/teammate. This bit of actions takes the form of a boat trip; replete with trash-pirates, sharks, a daring rescue and some MMA fighting. Yes, the action was indeed spectacular, and what makes it even better is that there is about as much adventure as there is action. Some of the action (sexual and otherwise) has a lovely, dreamy quality as well, but I will refrain from describing these scenes as Mr. Monopoli has done them justice enough.
Love: Ultimately this is a romance novel, and the romance is what raises conflicting feelings. Alas, I cannot say too much about why my poor feelings were conflicted, lest I give too much away. But I believe the conflict stems from the narrator, whom I have neglected to mention until now: Boots McHenry. I am not sure whether or not I like Boots; he seems simple, but has strange, eddying depths that catch you unawares from time to time. There is a quiet desperation about him that lends an uneasy contrast to the blueness of the water and the vastness of the sky. I believe that the way the romance is handled is what will cause readers to either like or dislike this book. But yes, there is love abundant and it is love that spurs the action and love that is comfort in the end.
Story: When all is said, though, this is one zilla awesome story.