The following review was originally published in the May/June 1991 edition of Inception, the print publication which predates this web site. At the time, The Monstrous Regiment was newly released.

Artemis is a colonized world where the women rule and men and not held in very high regard. The matriarchal culture dominates, with men treated little better than slaves. Corinna, who lives in the Marsh, becomes involved with Elvon L'Belder, who is the man behind a revolutionary movement against the Dominatrix, matron and ruler, and the oppression of the feminist city of Silven Crescent. She becomes his lover briefly, as well as his confidant and helper when General Carmenya Oralien pursues him into the marshes of Artemis. Corinna and her family hide Elvon when matters get complicated by the arrival of Carmenya Oralien at her home. She is "discovered" by Carmenya and returns with her to Silven Crescent. Corinna becomes embroiled in the events that follow but is unable to stop things from getting out of hand. Meanwhile, her family members are getting caught up with the stranger "Joel" in their midst -- none other than Elvon who has obtained the protection and help of the household's head, Corinna's mother, Dannel.

And while the cultural gender clash of Artemis' colonial descendants thrashes to a peak, the existence of the mysterious Greylids comes to light as more than myth -- Elvon is led to search for and contact them; alien beings with incredible, ancient powers, indigenous to Artemis, who have long hid themselves from the human population. It is only with their help that Elvon can hope to challenge the Dominatrix and resolve the confused whirlpool of Artemis' society.

The Monstrous Regiment deals adequately with the psychology behind a world structure this way; despite being rather overly feminist, the society is still human and therefore not difficult to sympathize with. It has the added twist that despite having rid themselves of the dominant hold of warmongering men, the women's own flaws and neuroses, as excellent portrayed by the decadent Dominatrix, surface to assert themselves as perhaps not the ideal solution to men's penchant for war and violence; or as an ideal outcome of the eternal battle of the sexes.

Empathy with the characters is established almost immediately. There are some aspects of this book that strike one as being slightly amateur. It puts forward the ideas embedded in the experiences of the characters rather too subjectively, leaving one with the feeling that it's almost like a comic book storyteller in instead of an in depth, profound explorational study of the matriarchal society. Suffice to say that if you find the storyline, the plot or the character handling too crude for you taste (i.e. in the first chapters, General Carmenya Oralien comes across as a tight, warmongering, mannish bitch -- while later her character develops an empathy in the reader that jars with the original impulse to dislike her -- and all this despite the fact that she retains throughout a very masculine strength), then you can take heart in the fact that Aleph, the sequel, is better and actually makes The Monstrous Regiment an excellent prologue to the events in Aleph. You shouldn't read one without the other and The Monstrous Regiment, despite being slightly simplistic for some, makes tremendous impact in our genre as an excellent representation of a possible future planet ruled by dominating females. Puts feminist SF/Fantasy in a new light: the aspect of "how far as we willing to go here? And do women really know better, being far from sublime and perfect creatures?" And it's nice to see a healthy female heroine like Corinna taking sides with the men instead of joining the elite of the feminist fanatics against heterosexual relations.

Quite complex and gripping actually -- you get thrown in the deep end from the word go: no endless soliloquys from secondary characters about past events for update or entire chapters spent chiefly on the personal history of the main characters. Not to mention the surprisingly intense ad passionate relationships developing between some characters that come to light during the course of the story. The scenario is one of challenging our present-day views of feminist alternative culture. Yet again, Storm presents us with another side of the coin, be it hermaphroditism and androgyny or just ground-breaking sexual pyrotechnics. Definitely one to recommend to anyone who has read Storm's other literary works.