as someone who reads a lot of fiction i read a couple of those books and calling them "phonographic books" is pretty far fetched, most of these books have maybe 1 sex scene that's less than 3% of the book length and if you take that away from the story they are just like every other book in the same genre but with a giant female cast
Let’s call this what it is: a sales pitch for two books. Both listed with links after a long rant.
The pearl clutching is almost satire levels in this article and there’s way more scantly clad women in comics and tv posters since the 1980’s. Also Amazon has multiple western categories (including a Louis L'Amour Westerns category) so going to call bullshit on these books doing well in “Men’s Adventure” is keeping people from finding his books.
To be entirely fair to the gooners, publishers have been using beautiful women to sell books since before Margaret Brundage painted the first Conan cover for Weird Tales in 1934. Put Dejah Thoris on the cover of a new print run of the Barsoom series and you could sell it tomorrow (it's worked for the comics and the Michael Whelan covers from the 80s). I don't think anyone expecting prurient content will complain too hard once they've had the chance to discover Edgar Rice Burroughs for themselves.
Honestly, grow up. As another commenter said, science fiction and fantasy has been putting half naked ladies on the cover of things forever to make it sell. You hit the nail on the head that these books should have a category of their own to not dilute the pool of fantasy and sci fi stories without spice/romance, but to say they should go away is beyond ridiculous. Let people enjoy what they enjoy and if you don't like it, don't buy it. It's that simple. Stop pearl clutching at the covers.
Honestly, I purchase almost nothing by writers who started after 2000. I have since branched out from my SF/Fantasy/Adventure niche into Hard Boiled Detectives due to my love of Glen Cook. I am now busy collecting Dashielle Hammett, Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane and Erle Stanley Gardner.
"I don't browse amazon for book recommendations" is my answer to that. Most of my reading list recommendations is either A) sometime discussed by my friend group, or B) something I see through one of the recommendations filtered through the blogs, substacks, social groups, etc. Due to the preponderance of slop generated procedurally, I'm quite a suspicious reader these days.
Certainly though, something like those covers, suggests poor content within. You can in fact usually judge a book by it's cover, and a cover that puts the wrong thing on is going to attract a particular readership. Style matters.
Its about damn time people started recognizing word porn. Women have been getting away with criticizing men for their attraction to the visible while the women have been equally eating up teh audible porn. While both sexes have physical attractions when it comes to men it IS the visible that is most important and for most women it is the audible, what you tell her, that is most important Granted you can't be a fat ugly pig who can talk nice but you can have an average looking guy nailing a 10 if he can smooth talk her. This is because women by design are narcists and can't help but crave and eat up that male attention.
Female romance novels absolutely ARE porn! Just as with visible porn for men, the audible porn for women alters their brain chemistry causing them to expect men in real life to be like these fictional characters.
Some of it is, and some of it isn't. Like it or not however, if you don't have a couple of sex scenes (FTB or explicit) in your books, it's going to hurt sales - and this goes back several decades. People want to see the guy get the gal, and get her in bed as well.
As for 'harem', well it was okay for women to write reverse harem and sell billions of books, so that should mean it's fine for men to do so now as well.
Now yes, some of the stuff out there (for both women and men) really isn't anything other than 'stroke' fiction.
And some of it is much deeper than that with interesting and well developed characters, strong plots, and enjoyable stories. I was personally a bit disappointed when the 'harem' aspect of Men's Adventure turned more heavily towards the sex scene aspects, but to be honest, if that's what the public wants, then that's what they get.
There are still a lot of great series and stories out there, which don't focus on the sex, that's just a fun diversion in the story. But in today's world, can you really blame men for wanting to treat women, as women have been treating men since the 80's? (or probably longer).
Now if only they'd sell them in supermarkets with the girl's por- err,,, ROMANCE :-D
Sadly, I find both harem and love-triangle romances to be retarded. They're not as gross as libertarian adventure fiction that gets into 13-15 year lead characters who are "soooo mature" and are now sexing it up onscreen, and with grownups+, but they're just as annoying.
Because the cool characters and strong plots and intriguing alternate worlds are all there. But just as with the progressive writers who hit you with some genuflecting to the DIE gods out of nowhere, WHAM. Harem romance. Moronic hypergamous love triangle. Gag a maggot.
It's a shame that the lack of personal continence is normalized in fiction, rather than an add-on for plot necessity ala Terminator. But there you go. Still, we don't HAVE to feed the beast, do we? Especially now that we know where it leads?
And yes, of course I blame men for acting like retarded women. Or rather, I don't blame them, but they are repellent. Just like those Stronk Wahmen characters - see the latest Snow White for an exemplar.
(*Every. [redacted]. Time. I swear. Stick with too many of these series long enough and it slips the leash. And bam, everything leading up to it makes one want to puke.)
Yes, it's not for everyone, and I would never claim that it was. But a man with multiple wives is something that has happened, and been accepted, many times throughout history.
There are even mainstream religions that practice it, currently, and are finding acceptance in a great many 'western' and 'modern' societies. How many rich and powerful men, famous men, actors, sports stars, politicians, in the USA have more than one wife now? (though they call them 'mistresses').
Again, not blaming you for not liking it, however it is far more common than you might realize.
as someone who reads a lot of fiction i read a couple of those books and calling them "phonographic books" is pretty far fetched, most of these books have maybe 1 sex scene that's less than 3% of the book length and if you take that away from the story they are just like every other book in the same genre but with a giant female cast
Let’s call this what it is: a sales pitch for two books. Both listed with links after a long rant.
The pearl clutching is almost satire levels in this article and there’s way more scantly clad women in comics and tv posters since the 1980’s. Also Amazon has multiple western categories (including a Louis L'Amour Westerns category) so going to call bullshit on these books doing well in “Men’s Adventure” is keeping people from finding his books.
To be entirely fair to the gooners, publishers have been using beautiful women to sell books since before Margaret Brundage painted the first Conan cover for Weird Tales in 1934. Put Dejah Thoris on the cover of a new print run of the Barsoom series and you could sell it tomorrow (it's worked for the comics and the Michael Whelan covers from the 80s). I don't think anyone expecting prurient content will complain too hard once they've had the chance to discover Edgar Rice Burroughs for themselves.
Honestly, grow up. As another commenter said, science fiction and fantasy has been putting half naked ladies on the cover of things forever to make it sell. You hit the nail on the head that these books should have a category of their own to not dilute the pool of fantasy and sci fi stories without spice/romance, but to say they should go away is beyond ridiculous. Let people enjoy what they enjoy and if you don't like it, don't buy it. It's that simple. Stop pearl clutching at the covers.
Honestly, I purchase almost nothing by writers who started after 2000. I have since branched out from my SF/Fantasy/Adventure niche into Hard Boiled Detectives due to my love of Glen Cook. I am now busy collecting Dashielle Hammett, Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane and Erle Stanley Gardner.
Hellooo sexy elves!
"I don't browse amazon for book recommendations" is my answer to that. Most of my reading list recommendations is either A) sometime discussed by my friend group, or B) something I see through one of the recommendations filtered through the blogs, substacks, social groups, etc. Due to the preponderance of slop generated procedurally, I'm quite a suspicious reader these days.
Certainly though, something like those covers, suggests poor content within. You can in fact usually judge a book by it's cover, and a cover that puts the wrong thing on is going to attract a particular readership. Style matters.
Its about damn time people started recognizing word porn. Women have been getting away with criticizing men for their attraction to the visible while the women have been equally eating up teh audible porn. While both sexes have physical attractions when it comes to men it IS the visible that is most important and for most women it is the audible, what you tell her, that is most important Granted you can't be a fat ugly pig who can talk nice but you can have an average looking guy nailing a 10 if he can smooth talk her. This is because women by design are narcists and can't help but crave and eat up that male attention.
Female romance novels absolutely ARE porn! Just as with visible porn for men, the audible porn for women alters their brain chemistry causing them to expect men in real life to be like these fictional characters.
Some of it is, and some of it isn't. Like it or not however, if you don't have a couple of sex scenes (FTB or explicit) in your books, it's going to hurt sales - and this goes back several decades. People want to see the guy get the gal, and get her in bed as well.
As for 'harem', well it was okay for women to write reverse harem and sell billions of books, so that should mean it's fine for men to do so now as well.
Now yes, some of the stuff out there (for both women and men) really isn't anything other than 'stroke' fiction.
And some of it is much deeper than that with interesting and well developed characters, strong plots, and enjoyable stories. I was personally a bit disappointed when the 'harem' aspect of Men's Adventure turned more heavily towards the sex scene aspects, but to be honest, if that's what the public wants, then that's what they get.
There are still a lot of great series and stories out there, which don't focus on the sex, that's just a fun diversion in the story. But in today's world, can you really blame men for wanting to treat women, as women have been treating men since the 80's? (or probably longer).
Now if only they'd sell them in supermarkets with the girl's por- err,,, ROMANCE :-D
Sadly, I find both harem and love-triangle romances to be retarded. They're not as gross as libertarian adventure fiction that gets into 13-15 year lead characters who are "soooo mature" and are now sexing it up onscreen, and with grownups+, but they're just as annoying.
Because the cool characters and strong plots and intriguing alternate worlds are all there. But just as with the progressive writers who hit you with some genuflecting to the DIE gods out of nowhere, WHAM. Harem romance. Moronic hypergamous love triangle. Gag a maggot.
It's a shame that the lack of personal continence is normalized in fiction, rather than an add-on for plot necessity ala Terminator. But there you go. Still, we don't HAVE to feed the beast, do we? Especially now that we know where it leads?
And yes, of course I blame men for acting like retarded women. Or rather, I don't blame them, but they are repellent. Just like those Stronk Wahmen characters - see the latest Snow White for an exemplar.
(*Every. [redacted]. Time. I swear. Stick with too many of these series long enough and it slips the leash. And bam, everything leading up to it makes one want to puke.)
Yes, it's not for everyone, and I would never claim that it was. But a man with multiple wives is something that has happened, and been accepted, many times throughout history.
There are even mainstream religions that practice it, currently, and are finding acceptance in a great many 'western' and 'modern' societies. How many rich and powerful men, famous men, actors, sports stars, politicians, in the USA have more than one wife now? (though they call them 'mistresses').
Again, not blaming you for not liking it, however it is far more common than you might realize.
So true. Lots of harem trash out there.
Why in the heck would I want to read about tattoo-covered women?
Men don't let another men write or read porn.
So are these Logan Stone books AI generated?
no, this is just an old man yells at cloud scenario
The anime was better.