Any men-build-stuff-and_chase-women recommendations?

[garygibsonsf]

The main character doesn't build anything in it that I remember, but Hunter S. Thompson's early novel 'Rum Diary' has a certain, early sixties MadMen-esque flavour of journalism, manliness, drinking and skirt-chasing, as I recall. Not sf, mind you.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by radius

The recent threads mentioning Leo Frankowski and John Ringo have made me crave some male wish fulfillment reading

I think the sort of book I'm looking for is early Crosstime Engineer style where a man changes society via his engineering skills and women throw themselves at his feet.

From you later comments, you want/require the story line to stop at the point the women throw themselves at the men's feet & not tell you anything after that point. This usually doesn't happen in any fiction I'm familiar with short of a John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara movie.

Good luck.

On the other hand if you let the woman be the brilliant one you might try some of Jean Auel's "prehistoric" books (the Earth's Children series). IMO the second in the series is the best (The Valley of Horses). The first mainly provides background & the 4th & 5th run out of story to tell. The 3rd is pretty good. I actually read them in the order 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th which seemed to me to be a good order.

It (the 2nd & later) does have a strong, male, inventive character that women somewhat throw themselves at (especially in the 2nd).

[radius]

Originally Posted by slayda

From you later comments, you want/require the story line to stop at the point the women throw themselves at the men's feet & not tell you anything after that point. This usually doesn't happen in any fiction I'm familiar with short of a John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara movie.

Good luck.

Not at all... I have a stack of John Norman and Sharon Green paperbacks from my school days. I also went through an Anne Rice phase and I have the Story of O in more than one medium. I often wish that some of the novels I read were *more* graphic.

What I meant when I said that the story was buried under the wish fulfillment part is exactly that. When reading Howdershelt and Ringo, it feels like the actual quality of the writing is a secondary consideration.

Have you ever actually read the Ed Howdershelt books? I tried one. The writing was pedestrian at best and the science fiction trappings were lazy.

Similarly, for the "Ghost" series. I find Ringo to be mediocre even when he is writing military science fiction but the writing in the first Ghost book was an incredible let down.

For example, he doesn't want his protagonist to be blowing away faceless bad guys, so Ringo's solution is to give us a scene or two from each of the baddies' point of view shortly before he is blown away. What is the point of that? By introducing us to villains only shortly before they are killed, we never develop any sympathy for them or their point of view anyway! All he accomplished was to slow the story down and waste paper/electrons.

Then, in the middle of this action story (using up a third of the book), the main character has a cruise in the Carribean during which he introduces two young girls to the pleasures of S&M. This could have been sexy and exciting, except that Ringo spends so much time explaining how this isn't deviant behaviour and what a safety phrase is etc. that it drains all the energy out of the sex. What's the point of wasting a third of the book on sex scenes that aren't even arousing? In fact, I don't remember if he even gets around to describing the sex at all. Blech.

Best (or worst) of all, it has nothing at all to do with the plot. All those pages of unsexy, unexciting crap you had to wade through didn't even have a payoff. ARRGGGHHHH!!!!!

On the other hand if you let the woman be the brilliant one you might try some of Jean Auel's "prehistoric" books (the Earth's Children series). IMO the second in the series is the best (The Valley of Horses). The first mainly provides background & the 4th & 5th run out of story to tell. The 3rd is pretty good. I actually read them in the order 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th which seemed to me to be a good order.

It (the 2nd & later) does have a strong, male, inventive character that women somewhat throw themselves at (especially in the 2nd).

Hmmm... I know for sure that I've actually read The Clan of the Cave Bear, and probably The Valley of Horses but I can't remember anything at all about them except that they are about a cavewoman.

Obviously I have different taste than you do

[alia]

Hahaha interesting request. I don't know about building stuff, but James Bond has billions of women throwing themselves at his feet - here's the link to the latest James Bond eBook.