Brendan and the Beast

Brendan and the Beast is a story I got through a Slash Pile recommendation. It’s a gay take on Beauty and the Beast (but what isn’t?). The author also has a blog about the story/book, and it seems to be on FanFiction.net, too. Just in cast you have a preferred reading site.

Anyway, when I saw the rec, I thought I’d give it a try, since fairy tales and gay romance seems to be my Thing. And it’s…hmm.

I hate to say bad things because I read the whole thing (with some skim mode), and because the author is looking into getting it published, and I don’t want to dissuade her–though I do think the book could seriously benefit from some serious editing, so I seriously hope she got that done between this ‘rough’ version and whatever’s going to the press. Also, the author clearly loved this tale, and there’s definitely fans for it out there.

But since I’ve already admitted to some flaws in the writing, let’s explore them in more depth.

First, the story starts out in a ‘fairy tale’ style of writing. This is usually not a great idea for an author, although I know what the appeal is. It–much like any other specific style of writing–is not as easy as it sounds. This author–Kodora–does a pretty good job of it (no unnecessary insertions of ‘indeed’ at least), but it reads very slowly, and continues for a very long time into the text. It does break down not too long after the two main characters meet, but getting there felt interminable (and I’m not sure the break-down was intentional).

Second, the relationship. It wasn’t insta-love, which is nice, but it was more like non-love. A sort of barely-more-than-platonic friendship that switched to them having copious amounts of furry sex, not unexpectedly or without warning, but still rather fast considering the general pacing. And also without a whole lot of tension, and I love tension–I think there was supposed to be tension, I just didn’t really see it. Also, furry sex. Plus it went on and on and on before the next section of plot progression.

Third, minor inconsistencies. Like the rose that was plucked off at the head, stuffed in a pocket, thrown at someone (when it lost some petals), then had a long stem to go in a vase, then was torn off at the head (again), traveled a bit, got stolen by an invisible servant, returned as a long-stem rose in a vase, all while maintaining a ‘prefect’ appearance. Then I think it was snapped off at the head (for a third time), before actually showing some wear when the whole castle starts to die. Also one of the snapped-off stems was long enough to grow a whole bush from in a few months. I don’t know much about roses, but really? really? There were a few other things like that, though none quite so painful. Still, it’s things I dearly, dearly hope were fixed in editing.

By now you’re probably wondering how I even got this far into the book. Well. There were some talking fish. And I liked the characters, once they interacted. And the twist at the end was pretty interesting. Honestly, it’s a pretty solid story/book, with a decently coherent world-setting, and some nicely dimensional characters. It takes some things from the Disney Beauty and the Beast, and some from the traditional version, and does it’s own thing with both, which is pretty neat.

So I think maybe I’d recommend checking out the published version, if it ever exists, in the hopes that the flaws were corrected (though there’s really no way around the furry sex), because it could be something beautiful. If the published version doesn’t exist, then…maybe this would be okay to read if you’re not feeling too picky, and don’t mind rampant rose abuse.