Posted by Lancelot Knight on 23rd Apr 2010

Into The Dark Wilds by Lizbeth Dusseau
Reviewed by Lancelot Knight, Copyright (c) 2005

On the one hand this is a lively, fast-paced adventure story; on the other, it is a thoughtful dissertation on the varieties and experiences of eroticism—especially female eroticism. Dusseau, who has explored many genres in her writings, has outdone herself here, with a richly-textured look into the future.



The present time, for the novel, is that of the 23nd century. Although sexual slavery is allowed, it is closely regulated through legal contracts and is deeply suspicious to “ordinary” citizens. In this tightly controlled, repressive world (not terribly unlike ours—hint, hint) Chloe Dulciat hungers, yearns to explore the many facets of her sexuality—from orgies and unbridled lust to submissiveness and sadomasochism.



She happens to come across a journal of her hero Rowena Dulciat, who sparked a sexual revolution a century before. Rowena, we discover, lived for “anarchy, chaos and sex.”



The book weaves together the sexual lives and explorations of the two women, as each in her own way discovers the paradox of liberation in slavery, love in lust, and pleasure in pain.



This bald dissertation of the book hardly does justice to the rich and vivid portrait Dusseau paints of this alien world—so different from our age in some ways, but so alike in others.



While this, it its way, is an imaginative adventure story, I would add that there are plenty of erotic scenes for the imagination to conjure up images – lovely visions of beautiful wenches branded and abused, whipped and used, adored and adorned.