Yes, I am venting a bit today and hope it will be cathartic to get this out of my system… I received another 1-Star rating (and short review) from a new Amazon customer/reader who fully admits that they did not even read the entirety of Fate.  Their problem with it?  “Too much sex.”  I have a feeling that even one short, sexual scene would have been too much for this particular reader, but who knows.  While they are obviously entitled to their opinion, is it wrong for me to wonder why the researching and writing and editing and tremendous soul-searching that goes into the creation of a nearly 700-page novel might at least deserve 2-Stars for the effort alone?  You see my point, right?

In glancing over the 42 posted reviews of my novel, I noticed that many folks have mentioned that the sexual scenes in Fate were enormously “tasteful” and “well-handled,” with one reader even stating that my brief depictions of sex were “nothing that a typical high school student would be unfamiliar with.”  Most modern day novels contain sexual scenes when appropriate to the main characters in the story and should be expected.  Even the best-selling historical novel, Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett contained raucous sex scenes.  Some are 6 to 7 pages in length and too detailed even for me.  By contrast, my novel contains some sexual encounters that are quite literally three sentences.  The problem may be that my antagonist is also a famous person in history who actually lived.  Some readers may simply not be ready to wrap their heads around a famous historical figure having homosexual encounters.

Now I will admit a few things:  When I penned this story, I knew full well that it would be controversial.  I understood the psychology that occurs when some readers discover famous personages brought to down to flesh-and-bones. I can imagine them thinking,  Tchaikovsky was a genius and is very high in my esteem.  He would never have sex, let alone homosexual sex… he was creating music 24/7 and did nothing else!  (This is, by the way,  how music benefactress Nadezhda von Meck actually thought about Tchaikovsky.)

But perhaps (sadly) the real problem is the homosexuality.  Readers might be a lot more forgiving if the sexual scenes in Fate were heterosexual in nature.  For all the progress made in the last few decades in regard to GLBTQ, there are still many who are offended by it all.  To those readers who have understood the importance of the irrefutable relationship between this composer’s compositions and the simultaneous events of his personal life and liaisons, I thank you.  You will “get it.”  And you will enjoy the read.  By contrast, if you don’t want to know about how Tchaikovsky’s music was influenced by his intimate life then there are many biographies available for you to choose from.  Fate is definitely no “biography!”

The ironic thing is that in reality, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a very naughty boy.  VERY NAUGHTY.  I had to tone him down to a great degree just to make him a bit more likable, and was constantly on edge that my writing wasn’t going to be true to him and to the history.  Now I say, thank God I did tone him down!  I guess it could never be enough for some people though.

Best regards, Adin Dalton