"The Twelve," makes it sound like a bad tv show or video game to me. So thanks for the review, but this won't be one I'll be checking out.

Incidentally, why is rape of prisoners cliche? An abundance of it in books with such situations doesn't have to mean the author is predictable, it could just be the most realistic outcome for such a situation.

That sort of reasoning reminds me too much of the complaints Bakker received for the Prince of Nothing trilogy, for its portrayal of women, when all he was doing was showing a realistic medieval/dark ages world, just with the small difference of incorporating magic into it.