somehow weyodi squid managed to take every sub-genre of fiction i loathe, cram it into one work and come out with a masterpiece of perfection! monster bride (monstrum mundi book 1) is definately in my top 20 favorite novels of the past five years-i do read a lot. it had to literally be forced down my throat because the four words “science” “fiction” “romance” “novel” used in any combo generally leave me gagging. the idea of laser phasers, clones, tang, heavy bosoms and pulsating members...well, come on...i can totally watch star trek and not have to use much imagination and uhura was smokin’ hot. under extreme duress i began my journey into the symbolic world of polycorpus plumber; within 2 chapters i was enchanted; by the end of the book i was screamin’ “hell yeah!!!!!”
i first need to indicate my extreme displeasure in calling this at all a “romance novel” because it is by no means romantic. it is a novel with sex. it is a novel with loads of sex, but that is where the similarity dead ends. i read a few romance novels when i was young which was fun because it was wordy porn, but after age 10 there was generally better reading material in nudie mags. sex is an integral part of the relationship dynamics of monster bride inasmuch as sex is an integral dynamic in a relationship between a woman, her husband and her husband’s cousin, and the doing it business is essentially scenery not plot. weyodi squid manages to use the word cunt with so much affection and affirmation it makes me proud to be a lady! no overly floral synonyms in this book-nitty gritty!
the story takes place in futuristic london-if the roman empire had never retreated. there is an intense amount of ancient rites, social orders and amalgamation of cultures from egyptian, babylonian, greek, and various others which is historically accurate with what was seen in the pre-christian rome. the populace of londinium celebrated saturnalia and lupercalia while also using electricity provided by eels, transportation of flying ships and people who are reanimated from death. there is pulsing patriarchal imperialism and the social elites are the uncommon monsters while the commoners, who are allowed to work, hold no position of authority or social importance.
titus albinus, head of the londinium aristocracy with military decoration and priest to apollo, was convinced by his greatgreat(etc) grandmother, an oracle, to marry polycorpus, a girl made of pieces and parts of more than one dead infant and reanimated because she would be the only female able to give birth to his children, most importantly his son, even though she was said to be made of the parts of only common infants. titus was easily won over because his need to carry on the family legacy and name was desperate and his previous, uncommon monster wives, all four, had all died trying to give birth to his little bundles of joy. titus was rich, respected, able to shimmer into invisibility and possessed the best etiquette. polycorpus, on the other hand, was common, strong, clumsy, cared nothing about society or protocol and had the misfortune of being a female who had never been told
a review of weyodi squid's monster bride
-grace