I read this book before I saw all the reviews here and I'm wondering if we're all talking about the same novel. The one I read was formulaic and totally unremarkable. Compared to some really excellent novels set on the frontier and featuring gay characters (The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon or The Rest of the Earth), Frontiers is pretty lame--lowest common denominator fiction, written as if it wanted to be a screenplay. I never believed for a second that these characters lived in the 1700s, what with all the late 20th century pop psychology running through the narration. Within 20 pages of the end, I simply stopped reading. I was so bored with the characters and knew exactly what would happen next. If you like contrived, anachronistic historical fiction with tons of gratuitous sex and violence, then Frontiers might be right up your alley.