Incidentally, though not romance novels, have any of you read Dorothy Dunnett’s “Niccolo” series? They’re amazing, erudite, confusing, mezmerizing, totally enjoyable books. Although they’re a lot of work to read, since Dunnett has a rather eliptical writing style, I’ve always found them worth the effort — and that’s saying a lot, because I normally prefer my prose straightforward.

Notice the SEAL and “Green Beret” mentions? Why would masculine men like those be interested in romance, of any color?

I have a theory as to why that is. The relationships in romance novels can be summed up as “men are expendable, women are too precious to risk”. A primary motivation factor for men going into the US military is the urge to protect and to serve. Not only to protect their family and country, but to earn the respect to which service would provide them. The respect of their peers, their buddies, their officers, their NCOs, their battle comrades, and so on.

Military men of the Special Forces variety, at least, are not fundamentalist conservatives. They don’t really believe in the adage that women should be kept at home and barefoot. What they want is an equal partnership, where everyone pulls their own weight. The thing that really annoys people, and not just in the military, is if you are part of a team that doesn’t pull its own weight. In romance novels, the heroine and the hero often times have their own personal strengths that when combined, makes for better synergy.

In military situations of war, those strengths are tested to their limits. In the military, there are loads of stories about girlfriends and wives breaking up with the soldiers when they are deployed. Stories of cheating, gross malfeasance, embezzlement, etc. Instinctually, I’m pretty sure a lot of men like to visualize a story in which the men in a relationship do their part and the women do their part. Where the hero is admirable, but act like some friends they know about in that they are really stupid in some things. Where the heroine is a strong woman that can stand up in a moral challenge, to complement the physical courage of the main protector, the man.

Honor Harrington, John Ringo’s Cally novel, and Miles Vorkosigan are science fiction dealing with wars in nature, but they are also have romance plotlines for the main characters sooner or later.

As the societal roles for women and men change, people want to read about how things should be like. Certainly their personal relationships and the relationships of their friends are not so easy to solve.

There’s one story, that while not a romance, was quite gripping in a historic and human sense. It was the “Gates of Fire” by Steven Pressfield. Heard about it from LTC Kurilla via Michael Yon. There’s no romance themes per say in it, but it does deal with the dynamic between men and women in war time. Which I think is one of the selling points for military science fiction romance novels. So, if you just visualize a person reading Gates of Fire and also reading military science fiction and romance novels, you could perhaps connect the dots.

If you’re reading for an “escape,” what better way to do it then with a trashy romance? Hey, I like them, too, on occasion.