I love women, too

I just finished the Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy and all I can say is wow. wowie. wowzers.

It seems that he used his first book, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", to teach himself how to write a great novel then perfected that formula until he had the literary equivalent of nitroglycerin.

The novels just explode.

I also blogged about the series after I finished the first book and some of my opinions about Larsson have changed a bit – you can read my thoughts here.

Larsson was a Swedish financial journalist, just like the protagonist of his series, Mikael Blomkvist, and Blomkvist is a pretty thin disguise for the man that Larsson obviously considered himself to be.

Blomkvist is a financial journalist from Stockholm. But not only that – he's an ace. The kind of genius journo that is one part gumshoe, one part spook and two parts super lover. Over the course of three books he breaks two stories so huge it would give any journo a total rager.

But it's Lisbeth Salandar who steals the show. In my opinion Slanadar is the best fictional character since Huck Finn. Tiny, bisexual, goth, and severely anti-social, Slanadar is a computer hacker with possible Asberger's, a photographic memory, killer tats and an attitude a mile long.

Simply put – I adore her.

Larsson was a master of his craft. A ruler of plot development. In "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" he introduces the characters and intricately weaves a storyline of financial malfeasance, sexually charged murder, torture, rape and a family mystery. Then he wraps everything up quite nicely. So nicely in fact that after you read the last page of the first book you wonder what he's got left in the tank for the next two.

But Salandar is the key to the entire saga. I'm not going to spoil anything but she's the ball you should keep your eye on. Not that it will be that hard to do – I think I fell in love with her somewhere between her tattooing "I am a sadistic pig, a pervert and a rapist" on a guy's stomach and her breaking a biker's jawbone with her tiny, yet heavily-booted, foot.

My only complaint is that among the male characters there are only two variations: the paternal savior or the misogynistic pedophile/rapist. The same is also true for the female gender, the two variations are either: a) the victim or b) the heroine.

I did appriciate the fact that Larsson puts more effort into Blomkvist's character development in the second and third books. My main complaint about the first novel was that Larsson felt compelled to make his characters screw at every available moment. And believe me, I am not a prude, but when the characters shed their clothing whenever they can it becomes as predictable as a bad porno.

But Larsson's predilection toward promiscuity – moreover his justification for infidelity and a distinctly European disdain for the idea of faithfulness – provide interesting insight into his opinion of what constituents a "healthy relationship."

In the novels Blomkvist has a long-time ongoing relationship with married woman, Erika Berger. Berger is married to a bisexual artist but she has been Blomkvist's lover for longer than her marriage and her betrothal didn't put the brakes on her sexual relationship with Blomkvist.

Though he frequents the beds of other women she has sex with him because "he's the only man that can truly satisfy her womanly needs." All the parties involved are OK with the arrangement and the justification given for the whole thing is that human desire is equal to human need and it's just not natural to deny yourself.

I found it interesting that the most important aspect of any relationship, according to Blomkvist, is trust. Yet sexual infidelity does nothing to break down the trust in any of the said relationships. Over the course of entire series Blomkvist only spends time alone with one female character without having sex with her, yet the fact that he sexes up roughly half the characters introduced in the novels that fact causes no interpersonal sparks – save for one, major spark (but I'll leave that alone because it's a pretty big plot point).

But other than that I have no complaints. I am sad to be finished with the books because a good book is like a good drug - you get hooked on the purity. I mean who wants to go from Colombian bam-bam back to cut up ghetto crack rock?

And believe me, the Millennium trilogy is some really good ish, yo...