Jenny Fern reviewed Dorsai! by Gordon R. Dickson
Review of 'Dorsai!' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
I don't know why I still torture myself with older sci fi.
In theory I should really like it, and I still hold on saying "I love sci fi," but sometimes the misogyny and the self-insert idealized male are just too damn much.
In Dorsai our main character is Donal, a man of a top tier race of warriors (so he's like super buff and powerful), but he's also ~nOT LiKe oTHer GiRls~ because he's just so like incredibly smart. He doesn't think like other people so when he joins the system of soldiers for rent he quickly climbs rank through his ingenious tactics such as basically committing war crimes and being ahead of schedule.
He's always so damn smart and strong that he's never in danger, which from a storytelling point of view is just a horrible main character choice. (Oh but he's so confused by a fickel female, jeez what's he gonna do about that?)
If you've ever watched a video review dissecting one of Onision's books, reading this was a similar experience to that.
There's a illogical woman (of course) but she's of "good breeding" so our dude is intrigued by her. He almost gets wifed up by some lady but he dodges that bullet (am I right men?), and proceeds to advance his career sociopathically
And he just cruises along doing war stuff, takes a brief break to walk on air, and then becomes the commander of chief of all the planets and some dumb "twists" are revealed.
There's a lot to unpack from this book, but in short, it's not good.