Rating: 
Summary: Beware of Dog
Review: I am usually motivated to talk about a book I liked! I tried not to write this review, thinking it was not worth my time, but I must. I have never read a book that seemed to relish violence as much as this one. I have looked at the reviews and tried to figure out what kind of person seems to be unaffected by, or even resonate to, the mental and physical terror, torture, and gore I found in this novel. As if this were not enough, I found that the characters never materialized as real and complete human beings. While there were glimpses of what it might have been like in the early days of the frontier, it often seemed to be taking place in today's world of corruption and violence. I suppose I should go into a lot of detail about what I perceive to be some of the weakness of the novel - such as the flash-back at the beginning of every chapter to the protagonist's childhood - but it's really just not worth it.END
Rating: 
Summary: good plot but no depth
Review: OK, I'm glad that finally a western gay literature is exist but this book have so much plot in it and there is no depth in all the characters. The mood of the story change all the time. From western to drama to romance to horror.The best part in this novel maybe the horror part. Although Michael Jensen has many chance to write more about the background of his character but he choose not to and when he write, he give all of the detail in one time. The reader know what happen but Mr. Jensen fail to create the emotional involvement between the book and the reader. I suggest you borrow it from your friends or from a library but this book does not have enough value to buy.
Rating:
Summary: Pure Horrible
Review: This is a trashy, poorly written romance novel (similar to those for which the likes of Fabio poses)pretending to be a historical novel. The Dialogue is trite and false, and the characters are flat and empty. Pass this cliche ridden novel by and pick up something good our genre has produced--White, Holleran, Levitt, Hollinghurst, but certainly not Jensen.
Rating: 
Summary: The Gay "Dances with Wolves"
Review: Frontiers was a good escape novel, just as "Dances with Wolves" harkened back to a time when the frontier existed and it was mostly unspoiled by urban blight and sprawl. This novel was as successful taking me away from the daily grind as "Wolves", but since its main character was gay it was even more delightful. I hope there will be a sequel! --Ronald L. Donaghe, author of Common Sons, part of the series: "Common Threads in the Life."
Rating:
Summary: good reading
Review: Well written and interesting. Didn't like the way the lead kept loosing the men he loved, but still a good book. I read it in a day and a half.
Rating:
Summary: Brave new genre(?)
Review: Jensen's debut novel has been much maligned for its anachronistic dialogue and attitudes, and with much justification. The book's greater crime, to me anyway, seems to be the inconclusive characterizations and unconvincing relationships. The "affair" between Chapman and McQuay, for instance, seems a thing of contrivance rather than a relationship based on any genuine sentiment or need. And the fact that Chapman has, up to that point, been portrayed as rather passive if not meek is turned on its head when he takes the "lead" role, so to speak, in the big bathtub sex scene with McQuay. It is such an erotic, turbulent, and well-done "coupling" that the reader expects a new and more intimate dimension to their relationship to be explored. It never is. Instead they become instant adversaries, their relationship doing a complete 360. Other connections between characters have that same uneasy sense of start and stop, as though Jensen were not entirely sure which way he wanted his novel to go. Another grievance would be the excessive gratuitous violence perpetrated upon animals. I know this is the frontier, where gentility was more often than not alien and the whole notion of humane treatment towards animals was nascent, but really some of the scenes (the early one with the captive rabbit especially) seem unnecessary and are upsetting. The novel would definitely never receive a citation from PETA. Still FRONTIERS is pleasurably paced and easy to read. Jensen has done his homework with regard to customs, geography, topography, flora and fauna, and the day to day struggle of these people trying to make new lives for themselves; he is able to give us a fairly convincing portrait of this tumultuous time in American history. And who knows, perhaps he has ushered in a new pop literary genre that will result in better, more ingratiating novels.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Story
Review: William S. Burroughs or E.M. Forster this book isn't. Nor does it haveto be. This is a good, entertaining story and well worth buying. Thebook chronicles the travails of John Chapman, a male homosexual on thecolonial North American frontier. The book is original andwell-written... While this book may not be a candidate for the Canonof Great Homosexual Literature, it deserves to be an addition to yourcollection of books you enjoy reading and want to read.
Rating:
Summary: Western myth with a twist of gay
Review: Michael Jensen's first novel tells a tale gays have always suspected--there were indeed men who loved other men among those brave pioneers who settled America. John Chapman is forced to flee to the uncharted wilds of New England when his affair with a British officer is discovered. Once there, he is saved by and begins a rough but hot relationship with the contentious Daniel McQuay, only to discover to his horror that the Irishman is not who he seems to be. The remainder of the novel details his escape to the settlement of Franklin from his savior turned psychotic killer, and his growing friendships with both the Indian woman Gwennie and the handsome young Palmer. Though at first the stilted dialogue and needlessly violent situations rouse skepticism, Jensen's careful attention to historical and geographical detail and ability to create interesting, colorful characters manage to hold the interest. The plot gathers steam and compels the reader toward the harrowing climax. Surprisingly for a novel that is advertised as a masterpiece of gay erotica, there are few actual sex scenes, a pity as the very first explicit encounter between Chapman and McQuay is a masterpiece. It occurs in a bathtub immediately after the two men have shot, gutted and cleaned an elk, all described in gory detail, and the juxtaposition of bloody death with wet, steamy sex creates a uniquely masculine and intensely erotic chapter. A pity Jensen could not have written more scenes like this and less of the rather offensive episodes involving both the Native American woman and Samantha, the pathetic daughter of a settler, who views marriage with the unwilling Chapman as her possible ticket to freedom. Both these portrayals are marred by stereotyping and unsuccessful attempts at dialect. All in all, "Frontiers" is adequate and even absorbing entertainment. It would make a good made-for-TV movie on one of the more permissive cable channels, though it's doubtful that a screen version will be forthcoming anytime soon.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling and rewarding find!
Review: I was at first looking for something new and different to read, rather than another atypical, anicdotal coming of age story that seems to overrun the book shelves of today, and wow what a find. Not only was it a fresh new story it was one with a timely and pioneer feel of an era long since past. You could almost feel what it would have been like had you lived in those days. A great find and a good read. I couldn't put it down... Waiting for news of a continuation to this book...I will be first in line for it!
Rating:
Summary: A BUCKSKIN-RIPPER: A Slice of Homoerotic History!
Review: Michael Jensen's novel FRONTIERS is to gay literature what the 'bodice-ripper' novel is to the hetero-novels! In the tradition of "Forever Amber" and "The President's Lady", we have in Jensen's magnificent novel, the first "buckskin-ripper", a highly charged, homoerotic, slice of American history. It is so well written that the average reader cannot put it down, once begun. And, of course, that is just the sort of novel that cries out for an immediate film adaptation. The filming of Jensen's masterpiece would, IMHO, be the first break-through film of gay interest that would be of special interest to a general audience. (Hey, I've heard enough jokes around my water cooler at work to know that even the 'straight' boys wonder what those mountain men did for fun in an isolated enviroment.) Mr. Jensen, please consult with the great, gay, screenwriter/producer Arthur Laurents and bring this exciting novel to the screen. And if I were casting director? Yes, Rupert Graves, would be perfection as John Chapman. Russell Crowe or Patrick Swayze as that hard hearted, HARD Daniel/Zack! Winona Ryder as Gwennie and Wes Bentley as Palmer. The mind reels and the mouth drools at just the thought of giant, George Stevens'-like close-ups of Rupert Graves and WesBentley together. This is a story that is more than an erotic turn-on. Your left with the question of what is it that makes a 'real' man? No one has a wrist problem in this story -- in the days of the New Frontier when men were men and other men were sure made happy by that fact!
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