lightreads

Steamroller by Mary Calmes

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


It's kind of confusing how hit and miss Mary Calmes is for me, considering that everything she writes is fundamentally the same. It doesn't matter whether she's writing contemporary or urban fantasy or whatever, I could pick a Calmes out of an anonymous lineup after ten pages. It'll be the one with the serious desire kink—where every other guy desperately wants the protagonist – and possessive behavior on the part of whichever muscle-bound Neanderthal is the central love interest of this one, who will win the protagonist after somewhat strenuous pursuit. It's a formula. She really, really, really likes it. And it seems to be working for her, so hey, carry on.

I keep reading them because her protagonists have a range and vividness I'm not used to seeing in this genre. These guys get to be real and flawed and complicated in ways that ring true (though don't expect the same treatment for the love interests. Like . . . at all.) And she has a nice touch with the friends and community. (Though as a side note, I can't tell if I'm perturbed or entertained to see that the gay romance genre substitutes "douchebag straight friend" for the "sassy gay friend" of your standard het romance.)

This one was a total miss because it wanted to be a novel, but she didn't let it be one. Dunno why, but this novella is missing about 40,000 words. Prickly overworked poor college kid is wildly pursued by wealthy adored football star on the way to the draft, see above re desire kink. Cut so many emotional corners it lost all tension and interest, and didn't live up to the promise of the protagonist.




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Burning Bright by Rachel Wilder

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


The one with the gay veterinarian who meets the kinky marine weretigers and then there's a lot of growling and group sex.

God, this was so boring.




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...Don't even lie. You totally missed me.

Mexican Heat by Laura Baumbach

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


We interrupt this flow of childhood nostalgia rereads to bring you some gay porn -- excuse me, "manlove."

This is the one about the two undercover LEO's in a mob war and one of them calls the other -- I swear to God, I am not kidding about this -- gatito and there's lots of sexual dominance and tragedy and eventually some really dubious disability content. There is an exponentially higher component of batshittery than I usually expect out of Josh Lanyon, but you know, for that long stretch from 2 to 5 a.m. when there's just absolutely no way I'm getting to sleep, I was really down with that. In the light of day . . . yikes.


The thing with the limes and the net bags? That wasn't sexy, not even at 4:30 in the morning.




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Kushiel's Chosen by Jacqueline Carey


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Perhaps some day I will read one of these BDSM courtesan-spy epic fantasy doorstops and actually be able to talk about it afterwards, but today is not that day. Because right now, I am just so fucking grateful to this book, it has eclipsed the book itself – unintentionally hilarious, strangely unproblematic – almost entirely. This is what I read during the final two weeks of my last semester in law school. It’s what I read on the eight minute dog walking breaks, what I read when I snapped awake at 4:30 in the morning but just could not face studying more right then, what I read when I took a half-hour breather twelve-hours out from the end when the euphoria started setting in, it’s what I read on the train in to my exams. And you know, there were pirates! And prison breaks! And kinky lesbian sex scenes! And great battles! But I barely noticed, because this book was pleasant in a white noise kind of way, and it was long so I didn’t have to face finding something else to read, and it just tra-la-la’ed along for 600 pages whether I was paying attention or not. Basically it was the book equivalent of someone quietly holding your hand and telling you about their day just so you could listen to the sound of their voice and not worry about the sense of it.

Oh my God, Jacqueline Carey. Thank you thank you thank you.

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As the title suggests, this is an anthology of erotica about zaftig people (usually women) and their lovers. The stories which stand out for skill and real thematic depth are Corbie Petulengro’s “In Season” about a young femme finding the power of personal competence after fleeing from a violent partner, and Hanne’s “Denial” about an overweight man’s discovery that his diet coach lusts for him. Much of the rest hover in some other classification like monologue or vignette or open letter, or even prose poem in paragraph form. They range from a sweetly infatuated ode on a beloved to a frankly bizarre story about a woman getting a blowjob from a stranger on a sausage fake penis, and through many lands and degrees of quality in between.

Which isn’t surprising. Though writers of erotica are a very experimental bunch (in terms of form, geez!), I bet there was a very small pool from which to draw this anthology. And it shows. Most of these pieces do triangulate female desire, big bodies, and food/eating/consumption. But they’re a jumble not a chorus, and the book fails to be an anthology in that the works are not in real conversation with each other. And as much as I like her personally, Hanne’s introduction adds nothing to draw these diverse and sometimes strident threads together.

But taking off the academic hat, it is a book of erotica. And these stories are, indeed, erotic, though I found most bemusing rather than outrightly arousing. I’d like to think this is because I’m not generally engaged by short form erotica -- I need to actually care about the people getting their jollies, and short stories aren’t sufficient to make me do that.

One thing I will say for these writers collectively, though, is that many of them have guts. And I’m not talking about their subject matter – though a few of these stories are bizarre and revealing – but a sort of prose guts. They go on wild figurative fancies full of vaginas with teeth, lesbian goddesses, explosively purple passages. And you’ve got to admire that sort of unbridled enthusiasm.