PAINTING STEPHEN by Jayne DeMarco

Occasionally there's a story that comes along that crosses a line – and this one crosses two. Usually you can pretty easily categorize a work of fiction. Is it m/m? Is is gay? Is it mainstream?

And with PAINTING STEPHEN, which was Jayne DeMarco’s debut, you’d have to answer “yes” to all of those questions. I’ve read a lot of gay books … books written by gay guys, for gay guys, published and promoted by gay guys. They’re not often anything similar to the boy-boy romance that are so popular right now. There’s a certain brand of “nitty-grittyness” about gay books that gets to grips with the realities of being gay and just gets on with the process of living. On the other side of the fence, there’s all that deliciousness of discovery that makes m/m something of a joy! With m/m stories, you get the feeling that “the novelty hasn’t worn off being gay yet” …!

If this doesn’t make any sense to you, then read some of the great gay novels I’ve reviewed on my blog, and then read a rucksack full of m/m, and compare the two. Gay novels are fantastic because they actually feel like a slice of real life. M/m stories are fantastic, because it’s like the shine and glitter hasn’t worn off your Christmas pressies yet. And as a reader you get to love *both* …and ooooh, but you get to wish that there was something, some kind of story, that actually embraced both side of this literary coin!

PAINTING STEPHEN is just about spot on the target. It’s 45,000 words, which is a nice length for me to read. I don’t have a heck of a lot of time any more, and the spare time I do have is usually spent rocking around on a bus. I read on a palmtop device, with earbuds stuffed into both ears to kill the sound of the diesel engine…

And Jayne DeMarco came close to owing me a bus ticket, because I got so absorbed in the piece, I nearly missed my stop. It’s a very involving story, with some magically spicy bits, and some real thrills at the end, too.

In the first chapter you meet the hero, who’s an artist of 40 years old. He’s feeling his age, and his ex has not long before departed the scene, taking with her the bank balance. John’s bi, and he was married for about ten years. Right as the story starts, he’s in a deep blue funk about life … having a rough time, so he’s quite entitled to the funk!

His best friend is his agent, a gorgeous older man called Barry Provine. If anybody else likes old, old movies, you might known an actor called George Sanders. I would swear that the part of Barry was written for George Sanders. He’s lovely! He’s also smart enough to know what John needs. The best medicine would be something to snap him out of the Deep Blue Funk he’s in, and get his artwork away from the “too real” stuff he’s painting, and back onto something “semi-fantasy” and that Barry can actually sell through his galleries. Check.

The magic Barry works comes walking into the story on two beautiful long legs. His name is Stephen. He’s a knockout. He’s about 22. He’s a cross between siren and ingénue. He’s sexy as all get-out. He likes mature guys (thank God!) and he’s going to be John’s new model.

He’s also going to be the force of nature that rips John’s whole world to shreds like a tropical cyclone going through -- and John wouldn’t have it any other way. As the story progresses, you soon learn that Stephen is in big trouble, and by this time John has fallen for him, hook like and sinker. Of course he has to help! And Barry is right there to stand by them when the barrowload hits the fan in a big way.

This book isn’t very long, but it has a kick like a mule. The sexy scenes are delicious as well as being just a bit understated by today’s standards. The writing is expressive and emotional, but there’s nothing really sweet about it. The treatment of the Real World is *so* real, it puts you right there inside the artist’s loft, and in the street while they’ve being stalked by Stephen’s nemesis.

It’s the way the whole thing’s handled that makes PAINTING STEPHEN straddle the line between gay book and m/m … and -- at least for me -- it also crosses over into the mainstream as well. I say thing because the story is so “real,” and so strong, it stands on its own feet anywhere. Stephen could have been Stephanie, and it would work just as well without changing anything major. (I know that a couple of mainly-hetero readers Beta-read the manuscript before it was passed along to the publisher, DreamCraft, and the feedback was unanimous: terrific story.)

So, your bottom line is that this is something for *almost* everyone. It’s out in ebook format, and it’s going to be released in Kindle very soon. The price is between $3.99 and $5.99, depending on when and where you get it. Highly recommended, and I’m looking forward keenly to JDM’s next one. I also loved UMBRIEL, which was a co-work with Mel Keegan, and DreamCraft says JDM’s next one is an SF story. Great -- I have a passion for gay sci-fi. Aricia’s verdict: five stars and big fun.

Length: 45,000 words,
Format: ebook (PDF; Kindle due at this time)
Genre: m/m romance with a thriller's sting in the tail
Cover by Jade
ISBN: 978-0-9807092-3-0
Publisher: DreamCraft

Buy now, for $3.99, right here! (Also available at GLBT Bookshelf, Rainbow eBooks, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords, and soon at Kindle)

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Mel Keegan's new one rocks: GROUND ZERO

I'm lucky enough to be a proofie for DreamCraft, so I read this one a few months ago, long before the cover was painted ... before the web pages were uploaded ... before it tickled the Top 50 Techno Thrillers in the Kindle store -- and I can tell you, the ranking is highly deserved.

GROUND ZERO is one of Mel Keegan's best, and he's written some doozies. It's sorta-kind SF, yet at the same time it's close enough to the present day world for it to have a great contemporary feel. (In fact, I was at Amazon the other day and I noticed that a lot of users over there are tagging it "contemporary thriller" as well as SF. This shows you that the book is rooted deeply in the present, at the same time as having the SF "polish" that plunks it in the Techno Thriller bracket.

And "thriller" it surely is! Here's another one you don't want to start reading later in the evening, because you won't be getting a hell of a lot of sleep till you're done...! It's a page turner almost from the beginning. MK takes a chapter out to introduce us to the characters, the backdrop, the geography inside of which the story's going to be taking place. Then, Chapter Two starts ... and you're on a rollercoaster to the end.

It's also a damned hard book to review without handing out spoilers. So I'll describe it in broad terms and whet your appetite. It's set in Adelaide in 2048 (this adds extra zest for us, because Adee is hometown for MK and self, and the crew from DreamCraft), and it's set in the winter of that year, and in the hills east and south of the city. Those who know the landscape will find it so involving. Those who don't will find the descriptions evocative and visual. The big chances are in the tech that runs the world in this era. People haven't changed...

You're about to meet Brendan Scott and Lee Ronson. Two beauties, an established couple, hitched and all, who grew up in the decades *after* anti-gay prejudice died the death it richly deserves. They're gorgeous, and the book is a tad bit hotter than MK's usual. There's quite a bit of sex, and it's deliciously written.

The book also has a sharp sense of humor. There's a lot of chuckles and a couple of belly laughs. But the "thrust" of the story is the mystery ...

It’s winter when the city suffers a series of bizarre murders, robberies at high-tech labs – and a virus which sprang from nowhere. Every two days, a fresh body is discovered … entirely drained of blood. Every two days, a weapons research or energy technologies facility is robbed of a seemingly bizarre list of oddments. Meanwhile, the virus known only by a codename – 2048-3a – is so new, no part of the community is immune and the city is crippled. Murders, robberies and virus are intimately connected in a mystery that will astonish. Lee Ronson and Brendan Scott find themselves taking point in an investigation filled with unexpected hazard – and equally unforeseen reward.

Lee and Brendan work for a university department. They're the data analysis team in the Paranormal Studies department at the new (fictional) Franklin University. They're the ones who get to go into the field, "wrangle" data on weird, offbeat cases that often turn out to be the work of serial killers, loonies, cults. On rare occasions, the data turns up a genuine haunting or sighting, or an "out of place artifact."

So DCS Maggie Jarmin hands the latest too-weird case to her old mate, Doctor Robert Strachan, who's the head of Paranormal Studies. And Doctor Strachan assigns Lee and Brendan to git out there and do the sleuthing, find the data to prove (or dis) what the hell is going on in SA this winter...

It's a mystery which unfolds over the book's 105,000 word running length, and it gets progressively more thrilling as it goes, until the last segment will have your heart in your mouth. And I honestly, seriously, can't say anything else without handing you plot spoilers -- and in this case, guys, plot spoilers will be story ruiners. You have to READ this one, experience it "as it happens" to get the thrill ... and it'd be lousy of me to spoil that for you.

The ebooks are out right now (everything from Kindle to Blackberry, via everything in between), and the paperback comes out in October. Right now, it's $9.99 across the board -- for a good, solid read, and a story that you're going to remember.

Here's the book's own page: http://www.dream-craft.com/melkeegan/ground-zero.htm

On that page, you can read the first couple of chapters, and buy it rafts of formats.

AG's rating: 5 out of 5, and a gold star for giving me an absolute thrill.

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Mel Keegan: The Winds of Chance ... launching now!

Welcome to the launch of

LEGENDS: The Fall of the Atlantean Empire

Book One: The Winds of Chance

At last ... fully edited, impeccably proofread, perfectly formatted for your ebook reader, desktop, laptop or netbook ... no typos, no shuffling from one blog post to another ... just read and enjoy, as a fully-featured ebook from DreamCraft!

In an era of storm and chaos, One will be born who will command the Power, but the ancient magic that flows in his veins like blood is his curse as well as his gift.

In this time of cataclysm and ordeal, the upstart Empire of Vayal has placed a bounty on the heads of all scions of the lineage of Diomedas, for the oracle foretold the doom of Vayal, and it rides on the shoulders of the One.

He lives and breathes already, hiding the old city of Zeheft and in the slowly drowning outlands. He is Faunos Phinneas Aeson, still dangerously young -- and he has one dread: the witchfinders of Vayal, who are charged with the hunting of those like himself.

Twenty years, Faunos has hidden and learned, until the gods of sea, storm and earth destroy Zeheft --and one night destiny brings Vayal's young witchfinder to the camps of the water gypsies, where a youth like Faunos should never have been. Galen lies dying; the City of the Sun is celebrating the coming of age of Soran -- althlete, hunter, beautiful as the night,  Vayal's heir and greatest witchfinder ...

The Empire of the Atlantan has one slender chance to survive, and its struggle will begin on this night.

Read the first four chapters, on GLBT Booshelf!

See the Legends art gallery -- art by Jade...

And save 30% ... indulge yourself in the "blog special," right on this page!

• Published by DreamCraft
• Ebook edition: July 2009
• 98,370 words
• For PC, Mac, Laptop, desktop, netbook, BeBook, iLiad, Sony Reader, Palm Pilot, Kindle, iPhone, Blackberry, Microsoft Reader, smartphones.
  

Download the PDF for BeBook, Iliad, PC, Mac, desktop, laptop, netbook: $6.95 -- save $3!

Download the Mobi, PDB, epub and LRF files, for  Palm Pilot, Sony Reader, Kindle, iPhone, Blackberry etc., for $10.50

Like to see more of the Mel Keegan novels? Start here:

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Blind and gay ... looking for a good read? At last, a Large Print Edition of Mel Keegan!

Not a book review today (if only I had time...) but a piece of news which is great for blind and gay readers (or visually impaired readers who like a good gay yarn). I'll keep this brief, because Mel Keegan has said it all on The World According to Mel.

There's not -- yet -- any publisher who is providing great gay fiction in a format that visually impaired people can read. That's about to change. Mel's mother was recently diagnosed with advanced glaucoma. I have the privilege to know this lady, and it's a tragedy. Losing your vision is always one hell of tragedy. And I struggle to imagine being blind and gay.

Leave it to MK to "do something about it."

The Swordsman is the first title which will be available to visually impaired readers in a Large Print Edition. The font is around the standard 16pt mark, which makes the book 600pp ... but every word is there, and I can tell you that as of today, a copy is on its way to Aus as a gift for Mother's Day, in May.

For the whole story, visit here: Gay and visually impaired ... what are you reading, and how?!

And please do pass this along to friends who are in this predicament -- visually impaired, dying for a great gay read, while traditional publishers aren't willing to get involved. Please share the above URL of the page on MK's blog -- or this page.

At this time, Me Keegan is asking for participation from visually impaired readers. There's a download, a small PDF, that you're invited to print out, read, try for size on the eyes, and give feedback. Please help to make this project a success.

Here's the direct link to the download, which gives the first 10pp of The Swordsman in the next format.

Other titles which will be appearing in this range from DreamCraft: Windrage; Tiger, Tiger; Storm Tide; Aquamarine; Fortunes of War; The Lords of Harbendane.

Which titles are done first, and how long it takes to produce the range, depends on interest shown by readers. Thank you for help in spreading the word, and helping to "beta test" the format!

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Epic gay fantasy: The Lords of Harbendane

This novel should carry a warning: do not start reading when you get home from work at 7:00pm, even if the book is sitting on your doorstep ... because you're going to look like a zombie tomorrow, after having read till four in the a.m. to finish!

There's a certain "something" we've all come to expect from a Keegan novel. I'm still not entirely sure what it is but I should think scientific research could quantify it. Whatever it is, The Lords of Harbendane has it by the truckload. This one is Keegan pure and simple, with qualities that remind you of Fortunes of War and The Swordsman, Nocturne and Dangerous Moonlight. What qualities? Truth. Passion. Intelligence. Vision. Lyricism. And the "A-list" quality of a writer who's been on top of this game for two decades.

Picture this: it's a dark, dirty night, bucketing down, muddy, cold. The quintessential tall, dark, handsome warrior (he's a knockout -- trust me) is on a mission, and when he gets waylaid in a nasty little town, and aided by one of the most enigmatic and irresistible of Keegan's heroes, well, the story explodes from a chance event to the fantasy-scenario equivalent of world war three.

"Tall, dark and smoldering" is Rogan Dahl, who's been a prince, a hostage, a soldier, a cavalry colonel. "Drop dead gorgeous" is Tristan Carlin, who's been a peasant, a warrior, a scribe, and a wedlocked husband. Life is a rocky road for each of these guys; put them together, and you get a inferno waiting to go up --

And Keegan is going to make you wait! Everything you can imagine (and a bunch of plot twists you absolutely can't!) gets between these two guys, and when they finally get it together it's as exhausting for the reader as for the characters. And Mel Keegan manages to do this while staying on "this side of the line" that divides Legitimate Fiction from erotica. Harbendane will stand your hair on end -- at the same time as being absolutely legit.

The backstory is huge. It spans centuries of history and generations of the Halloran family. The Hallorans are Rogan's adoptive clan. He was sent to them as a hostage when he was a small child (in the traditional sense of the word "hostage," which meant the guarantee of someone's good behaviour). The Hallorans are the clan at the head of the great kingdom of Harbendane -- and as the story opens, Harbendane is up for grabs. They're beleaguered, surrounded by enemies on three sides, with nowhere to run and no one to turn to. They're fighting at capacity in the north, and when the ambitious, murderous chief from the next neighboring "superpower" in this land takes them on, they're hanging by a thread. The freedom of a whole people depends on tactics, strategy, and the willingness to take outrageous risks.

And that's the backstory, the scenario, not the plot! Against this monster backdrop, Mel Keegan's story is about individuals, how their lives are being twisted by duty, how their dreams and desires are being wrenched away, how they're still struggling to make something of themselves, how they all interact as they play their parts in a strategy that just might keep Harbendane out of the hands of its enemies.

I can't say much about the details of those personal stories, because I'm in plot spoilers instantly, and most readers absolutely hate to be told, "Tristan's real problem is..." and "Rogan's plan is..." I can tell you that the book is written with a great lyricism, imagery that comes to life, characters you're going to love, others you're going to hate. Obviously I adored Rogan and Tristan. (It's huge fun "casting the parts" as if Harbendane were a movie. I play this game with almost every book I read. Adds to the fun.) But I also loved Damiel and Morgan Halloran, which is a bit unusual for me. I don't usually "identify" very strongly with the female characters. These two are just amazing -- particularly Morgan ... the character blew me away.

The book is thrilling in many places, intriguing in others ... and keep the Kleekex handy, because there's a couple of places where you might need them. Fair warning: one of the major characters gets killed. (NOT Rogan or Tristan; but MK will make you care a lot about most of these characters, and one of them at least doesn't make it through to the end.)

Does the book have a downside? If it does, I didn't find it. The cover art is the best DreamCraft has ever done. Jade must have been absolutely inspired. (You get used to digital "art" ... but this is a painting, the way books used to have real artwork covers years ago. You feel kind of spoiled at the luxury.) The production values are very high throughout, and CreateSpace does a fantastic job with the paperbacks.

You can get it from Amazon.com in paperback. The Kindle version should be available by the weekend (it's been stuck in "publishing" for days now, and an email was just sent to technical support to get it "unstuck"). You can order the Mobipocket format for your Kindle, smartphone, Blackberry, Palm Pilot, and many other devices. It's available as a PDF for your iLiad, Palm, PC and Mac. And if you're reading on an iPhone, get the Kindle for iPhone applet. A hardcover version is being planned, and will be available from Lulu -- it'll make a great Chrissy pressie when the silly season comes back around.

Highly recommended. AG's rating: 5 out of 5 stars, and a gold sticker added on for excellence of presentation: the cover is amazing.



PC/Mac ebook:
$9.95 -- and identical in every way to the paperback.298pp. (Permissions: no editing, printing, text or image copy/paste.)

Screenreader ebook:
US$9.95 -- properly formatted, complete with cover art and map; over 430pp.(Permissions: no editing, printing, text or image copy/paste.)

and,
BUY THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE FROM MOBIPOCKET

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Author Interview: Talking with Mel Keegan

First, let me apologise across the board … I’ve been buried in work. Blogging has had to be back burnerized and nobody is more aggravated by this than myself because for a week I’ve wanted to review The Lords of Harbendane and Legends! It’s incredibly annoying just not having the time to do this. I also want to review a couple of old favourites and some new ones, including Josh Lanyon’s The Ghost Swore Yellow Socks. Yet here I am strapped for time.

I did get the chance to talk to Mel Keegan a few days ago and since I’ve been promising a ten-minute interview, here it is. Hopefully I can get sometime over the coming long weekend (Adelaide Cup Day … big horse racing carnival) and will be able to get some reviews done then.


AG: How was the launch of Lords of Harbendane?

MK: Interesting! Successful, given the circumstances. The reading community isn’t as “socially secure” as it used to be a few years ago, and books have become more expensive. So has postage! When I began with DreamCraft, we could mail a book around the world for A$8 (about US$6). Now, it costs $16.04 (A$25.46) to mail the same book from Amazon to the South Pacific region. Has this killed local sales? Yes. Does this impact significantly on overall sales? Of course it does! However, if you remember that readers everywhere are struggling to cover their domestic expenses, it’s actually tremendously flattering when these same people pay what I, personally, consider an outrageous amount for a book. It’s US$22.50 for Harbendane at Amazon. That’s not a lot of money in Aussie terms, for a brand-new paperback, but in the States it’s way over the top. Also utterly unavoidable for a book of these dimensions.

AG: Prices are rising everywhere. I read on your blog that in a few years Amazon is expected to have taken control of the ebook market with Kindle and will start to hike the cost of ebooks…

MK: It’s been mooted, but on thinking it over I honestly doubt it’ll ever happen. I mean, they can charge US$30 (A$47.60) for an ebook novel which is, frankly, no more than a bunch of electrons, pixels, what have you … but no law says readers have to pay so much! Also, with POD publishing trending the way it is, the self-same book that would be wearing a $30 pricetag in the Amazon Kindle store would still be costing $10 via the author’s website. What kind of idiot would pay $30 for something you can get for $10? All they have to do is Google the author’s name and/or the title of the book, find the website and download the identical goods from Payloadz or whatever.

AG: I guess Amazon will find this out the hard way. You were angry and outspoken the other day on your blog also about the fact the Kindle Store is out of bounds to “foreign writers” …

MK: I was steaming mad at the time. In fact, I still am, on behalf of “foreign” writers everywhere. We don’t call ourselves foreign! Aussies and Kiwis and South Africans and so forth think of folks from North American as being foreign! But, whatever your perspective on geography, you get to a critical threshold in the Kindle publishing process where they ask you for your American mailing address and American phone number. This automatically shuts out 90% of the world’s literary voices -- which would be fair enough, if Amazon.com was not infamous for dumping cheap goods into the world marketplace! As I said on the post where I talked in depth about this, to make it halfway decent and acceptable, the conduit has to run in both directions. I might still be able to sneak into the Kindle Store by getting access to a proxy address, via family in the US. But ... it's the principle of the thing.

AG: Any chance of Amazon Kindle changing its way of working, do you think?

MK: Maybe. Kindle is very new, and everything needs a shakedown, but so far the development process has taken years and they’re still US-centric. Also, the second incarnation of the Kindle gadget it out, and they’re already in trouble with it. It works just fine -- in fact, it works to well. Apparently, the gadget has a text-to-voice feature which effectively turns every ebook into an audiobook … and it turns out the Kindle’s human voice algorithms are pretty good. Mellifluous and accurate in intonation. This is really rubbing the billion-dollar audiobook industry the wrong way.

AG: So Amazon isn’t out of the woods with Kindle yet. And let’s face it, writers -- like yourself and others I know personally! -- are always out there looking for alternatives.

MK: And finding them. I stumbled into the Mobipocket Store yesterday and found myself made as welcome as I was unwelcome (as a "foreigner") at the Kindle Store. Mobi is a very different kettle of fish. It’s not the hardware that's proprietorial, it’s the way the ebook files are registered … yeah, sure, I know, we’re getting into the area of DRM [digital rights management] here, which is a huge, swampy zone. But improvements are being made, and Mobi is far better in this region than other formats like the protected PDFs -- those are a nightmare, from what I hear. Also, Mobi works on Kindle … and you can get a free download of the Mobi reader for most platforms, and then you can go ahead and download your purchase multiple times -- for your desktop, laptop, netbook, screen reader, whatever. I’m interested … very.

AG: You’re also going to Smashwords soon, aren’t you? I have a couple of readers who’re into the iPhone thing, and they’re waiting for the phone versions of some of your titles. Any info?

MK: We tried the upload to Smashwords yesterday, but they were having server issues. If not for this, two or three books would already have been there! We’ll be trying again later today. Cross your fingers for us.

AG: Hey, consider them crossed. Which titles are going to Smashwords first?

MK: Fortunes of War, The Lords of Harbendane and Dangerous Moonlight.

AG: How soon can we expect The Swordsman and the NARC series to be ready for the iPhones?

MK: April or May … sooner than that if sales are really good. It takes about 2-4 hours to convert a single book over from the DTP files from DreamCraft to the stripped files needed to make the conversion to multiple ebook platforms effective. Being a working stiff with three blogs and some remote semblance of a private life, I can only do one or maybe two per week. Bear with me.

AG: They say patience is a virtue! How’s critical response to Harbendane?

MK: So far, so good. I’ve only had reader response so far, but it’s all in the five-star bracket. I’ve sent it to Rainbow Reviews, and am optimistic that it’ll be well received there too. I’ll be sending out several more review copies in March and April. So ... any idea when you’re going to get around to a review on this blog of yours? Hint, hint. Not to apply any pressure, you understand…

AG: aarrrgghh! As soon as I can get some free time from work.

MK: Tell me about it. Finding time to blog is difficult… finding additional time to promote the blogs is even more so, which is a principal problem with Legends. I’m having a hard time catching people’s attention! I’d hoped the “viral marketing” concept would have worked: word of mouth. People tell people who tell people that there’s a FREE MEL KEEGAN NOVEL out there. Free for the download, and so on. This didn’t happen, and since I can’t access search engine traffic, promotion for Legends is a question of applying to directories … and being rejected by more of them than will give Legends a listing.

Art by Jade, from LEGENDS: A digital novel by Mel Keegan ... are you missing the fun?!

AG: That’s bizarre. Why can’t you use the search engines?

MK: Think about it! Google or Yahoo, whatever, picks up on keywords. Say my characters are drinking wine during the m/m seduction scene. Google would very likely send visitors to the page, who’d been searching on wine, or goblets. Or silk bedsheets. Or scented candles. They land on a page where two guys are getting it on; someone gets a shock and complains -- big trouble.

AG: Oh … yeah. Right. Duh. That could get confusing for the engines and a bit nasty if the wrong people (maybe kids???) got into pages where they absolutely shouldn’t be.

MK: Exactly. So right now, here’s Keegan’s Master Plan regarding the Legends Project. The story breaks down into five major “books,” and I’ll complete the first. The site can sit up there at Blogger, looking gorgeous (and it does!), while I figure out how to promote it without paying megabucks for adverting. Meanwhile, I’ll be finishing Hellgate. By the end of the year, Legends will either be attracting readers … or not. If it’s not, the site will come down and I’ll go on and finish the whole project for issue via Mobi, Smashwords, Payloads, Amazon, whatever. The whole thing was an experiment, after all -- you have to remember that “negative data” is useful too. What I’ve learned so far is that not too many people are interested in following a serial! And/or they have no real use for ebooks, so reading fiction on-screen is anathema. Or, they don’t like the action broken up into daily doses. Or, they don’t care for fantasy. You add those things together, and you get a fairly small nucleus, or core, of readers who are enjoying it … just too few people to make the project a success.

AG: And are readers being supporting via the advertising?

MK: Not really -- and this is where I’m very surprised indeed. We had a flush of people supporting Legends in the first week, but right now we can go 1,000 page loads without getting a click on a Google ad, for instance … and the click, when you do get one, is worth about 15c. I understand about people not wanting to donate $1 (we’ve had the mighty sum of 7 of those clicks in a month -- I’m very grateful to those people who did indeed click!), and I also understand about people not shopping at Amazon, because folks are counting pennies -- myself included! But there are ways to be supporting that don’t cost the reader anything at all, and it seems that very few people are sensitive to this issue.

AG: In other words, they’re happy to swing by every day and get the fiction, but they don’t want to trade anything at all for it…

MK: Most people swing by once at week (at the weekend) and collect 10 segments at once, and vamoose till next week. I don’t at all mind people doing this -- it makes sense! But with one visit per week there doesn’t appear to be any impetus to offer some support, even be it just a click on some item that everyone in the world knows will vector a microscopic gratuity back to the host. It’s curious to watch what’s going on, and this is also a valuable part of the experiment. It’s just important to be patient, leave no stones unturned, give the project the full energy and creativity it was supposed to have, and allow enough time for it to “cook” properly.

AG: You’ve got a lot more patience and perseverance than I would have! Last question … what are you writing now?

MK: Obviously Legends, but unless there’s a miracle, I’ll be putting that onto hiatus at the End of Book One. I’m spending the rest of the year to finish Hellgate. Completely. Totally. Right to the end. Then we’ll relaunch the series in new venues, with a new campaign … and see what happens next.

AG: Thanks for your time, Mel -- I know you don’t have a lot to spare and I see you fidgeting in the direction of the door! Best of good luck with all your projects.

MK: Thanks -- and it’s been a pleasure.

***

Many thanks to Mel Keegan for this interview, which will “hold” this blog while I dig my way out from the pit of work that I’ve been buried in. Next review: Lords of Harbendane. Then, The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks. I’m hoping to get back with those next week.

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Gay mystery and ancient Chinese magic: The Jade Owl by Edward C. Patterson

I was asked a while ago, will I review POD books ... and the answer to that is a resounding yes. I've said this several times before, and it's true: some of the best fiction being published today is coming out in POD form, where it's direct from the writer to the reader.

However, the first thing I need to do is make sure to qualify this statement! "Direct from writer to reader" does not mean the book hasn't been edited, proofread, labored over, illustrated, layout-designed and so on. The best POD books have had every bit as much work as a book issued from a traditional publishing house. Sometimes more.

I applaud when a really talented writer has the courage to go it alone, because it's going to mean work such as a non-writer can't imagine. (Mel Keegan states the case better than me in this post: POD Publishing: why do it? And why not?")

So I'm delighted to be reviewing The Jade Owl by Edward C. Patterson, which is available from Amazon. com as a paperback, and also in Kindle. It's also available from Smashwords in several formats. (I have the PDF for reading on my desktop because I haven't yet saved enough of my pennies to get an ebook gadeget. Soon. Very soon.)

The story falls into the same category as the "urban fantasy" novels of writers like Charles de Lint (Yarrow, Greenmantle and so on) and Jan Siegel (the Prospero's Children series). It takes place in the real world ... but one of the foundation stones of the book is, paranormal artifacts do exist, and the powers are real. (The same foundation stone is holding up everything from Indiana Jones to the Mummy movies. It's come to be a Hollywood staple.)

In this novel, the artifact is an ancient Chinese object, a six inch piece of Jade carved in the likeness of an owl -- and it's actually a key that opens a box known as the Joy of Finches. What's in the box? That would be telling! But everybody wants the key.

The first thing that impressed me about Jade Owl was how knowledgeable about Chinese antiquities the writer is, and about China itself. Shanghai and Beijing are described with the same amount of detail and enthusiasm as San Francisco -- and never having been to either China or the USA myself, I really appreciated the "local color." Many writers, when setting their plots in London, New York, what have you, seem to think that everyone's been there and knows intimately every secret of the city. Not true. So, the first level where Jade Owl succeeds is in "selling me" San Francisco, which is the setting for the first long segment of the book.

Then it's off to China, and in the second half of the novel the adventure really kicks in. The first half is more of an exploration of culture, personality, even history. There's not too much "action" in this part of the story, but I liked having the story built up properly from the ground up, so that all readers are on the same page when the knock-down-drag-out adventure begins.

The characters are, for the most part, excellently drawn, with only one or two of the lesser players falling back on "stock characterization." Edward C. Patterson's dialog is very believable, you can "hear" voices saying these lines. But it was the paranormal aspects of the story that hooked me ... I love this stuff anyway, and the Jade Owl does it well. I know a little bit about things Chinese, since I grew up with a huge crush on Bruce Lee and read/watched everything I could get my hands on over the space of about ten years! Jade Owl is a real treat.

It's a crying shame this book had to be self-published, and you have to ask yourself what the publishing world is coming to, when gifted writers everywhere are having to fly solo. Jade Owl is not just "competently" written -- it's only one thorough, ruthless edit away from being on a par with the top-notch writers who sell in the gajillions. (Trust me on this: I've been a pro "proofie" for decades and have seen the best and worst that professional writers can turn out ... and some long-time professional writers I could name churn out unpunctuated drivel that has to be bashed into shape by line-editors who get paid about $10 an hour!) There was a time, maybe 20 years ago, when a publisher would take in a manuscript from an inspired and gifted writer, and would assign an editor to do the final work, then the book would be jacketed and sent out there with posters and hype galore. (Doesn't happen now. A manuscript can be received that is absolutely gem-perfect, and it'll still get turned around and sent back unread ... sad to say, I've worked in the industry and seen what happens: it'd shock you).

But -- I digress! The Jade Owl is an extremely good read. It gets off to a slightly shaky start, but the style settles right down after a few pages and is very readable. You'll like the central characters of "Rowdy" Gray, Nick Battle and his partner, Simone. In fact, you ought to love Simone, who's a drag queen from the Castro, indomitable, very human, very "real." There's enough gay content to keep GLBTI readers reading -- and more than enough action of other kinds (sensual, paranormal, cultural, comedic) to keep straight readers reading.

It's also hellaciously good value for money, at $15.45 for the paperback, $3.19 in Kindle, and $3.99 from Smashwords ... and this is a major novel, over 200,000 words. And here is one of the great things about getting a book direct from the writer: because there's no publisher to accommodate, the price can afford to be much lower than you'd think.

Does the book have a downside? Well ... maybe, but it depends who you are, and what your "ear" is like! The writing style can be a little erratic at times, but many readers would also call this one of the book's charms. So there you are -- as with so many facets of so many books -- it's actually your call. I found the PDF ebook easy to read, but halfway through I longed for a "proper" ebook reader to get away from the PC -- not the author's fault! When I get myself an iLiad, or Bebook or something similar, I shall be reading Jade Owl a second time in the comfort of a hammock chair at the bottom of the garden.

I should also note that there are two more books following on from The Jade Owl , the first one of which is available now, the second, on its way. I still have to get to the second, so can't talk about it here.

Recommended on many levels. AG's rating: 4 out of five stars -- with a "gold star" added for incredibly good value for money.

Here is Edward C. Patterson's page at Smashwords, which you can get the ebook in several formats.

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Gay fantasy from the pen of the wizard

This is not a book review, but rather, something of a Service Message ... you could say I'm blogging to tell you why I'm not blogging!

The reasons are numerous and I can't get around any of them. In the first week of February it was HOT, and then HOTTER, and after that everything else was just a blur. I couldn't work, so the work piled up around me, and how that it's "only" low-90s in the shade I have to catch up. I'm about to review JUMPING OFF THE PLANET, THE HUSTLER, THE JADE OWL, and a couple of others, plus --

I had wanted to take part in the book launch for THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE ... I missed out on that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity ... and the second launch, for the digital novel, LEGENDS. I missed that too, through having to work.

There's not much I can do to make up for either one, but I can certainly get my review of HARBENDANE online as soon as possible, and I can give a powerful "plug" to the digital novel right here.

This is the first Keegan book in a long time I haven't been a "proofie" on ... because it's going direct from MK to you, via the gorgeous webpage (designed by Jade at DreamCraft). Haven't seen it yet? Don't delay:

LEGENDS: The fall of the Atlantean Empire, a digital novel by Mel Keegan.

What's absolutely great for me about this project is that it's as new to me as it is to everybody else as I read it online. I never saw any of this before ... I don't know what's going to happen next. I'm back every day for my "next installment" and loving it. The idea is brilliant ... and incidentally, so is the novel -- which we expect from MK. If it wasn't brilliant, you'd wonder what was going on.

I can give you the "blurb" right here:

"In an era of storm and chaos, One will be born who will command the Power, but the ancient magic that flows in his veins like blood is his curse as well as his gift. In this time of cataclysm and ordeal, the upstart Empire of Vayal has placed a bounty on the heads of all scions of the lineage of Diomedas, for the oracle foretold the doom of Vayal, and it rides on the shoulders of the One. He lives and breathes already, hiding the old city of Zeheft and in the slowly drowning outlands. He is Faunos, still dangerously young -- and he has one dread: the witchfinders of Vayal, who are charged with the hunting of those like himself. Twenty years, Faunos has hidden and learned,until the gods of sea, storm and earth take Zeheft; and one night destiny brings Vayal's young witchfinder to the camps of the water gypsies, where Faunos should not have been. The Empire of the Atlantan has one slender chance to survive, and its struggle will begin on this night."

And after that, all I can do is encourage you to git on over there and download the parts that are online right now! It comes out daily, seven days a week, at a good-sized chunk each upload.

Better yet, it's FREE. You probably think you misread that, so I'll say it again, and elaborate a little! Free online gay fiction. Free Mel Keegan books. Free for the download ... save it to your device, print it out, go for it.

Right now your getting dizzy, wondering how in the heck this works, right? There's a message on the LEGENDS site, and I'll quote you a little bit of it right here.

Like the idea of free fiction, like free TV?

Then, simply “support your local” – and here’s how:

1. Tell your friends, get them on board … if you’re enjoying a great gay read with LEGENDS, then recommend it to others. Send the url to friends you know will enjoy the read and appreciate the pricetag! (For the same of sheer simplicity -- forward this whole message.)

And,

2. Notice the ads. Keep in mind that MK has bills to pay too, and … hey, you know how it works, right? You’re free to download, copy the novel to any device you like and read at your leisure; print it out, if you prefer. But –

Don’t just send the files to your friends. Send the the url! For the advertising to pay for the writer’s time, your friends have to actually be on the page – sending them the files will defeat the object. Just forward this whole message, and …

Enjoy!

There it is in a nutshell: get your friends in, help yourselves, understand that advertising on the site is paying MK's bills. That's all there is to it. Personally, I hope this works 100%, because I can't imagine anything better than being able to download the absolute best work from the really good writers who can make it available to me (free gay novels online!) at a price I can really, seriously afford. Uh, free.

I want to interview Mel Keegan about this (also about HARBENDANE) for my blog here, but it's tough getting enough of MK's time to do a proper interview, so ... it'll happen when it happens.

In the meantime, let me also give you the link to the booklaunch of THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE ... which is in my "top five Keegans" but please don't make me choose a favorite. It would change every day. Here is the link:

WELCOME TO THE BOOK LAUNCH.

Best I can do do, belatedly, folks, and my apologies to all for missing this.

Back tomorrow with another review!

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Stonewall years: a dose of Real Life, gay style, from Edmund White

Some books you just have to read, to be able to understand and appreciate them, and The Beautiful Room In Empty falls on this list. I could tell you what it's about (and will!) and for the majority of the plot you'd probably say, "So what?" Because this book is about life-as-it-is ... not as we wish it were. (The ending is a different matter -- I'm getting there, stay with me.)

If there are two writers who are absolutely diametrically opposed to each other, it would have to be Edmund White and Mel Keegan. White most often writes in autobiographical style, and so many of his works explore (in some way, even if it's through the medium of another character, not himself) who he is, what he is, what made him so, where he's been, where he's going.

Edmund White revels in the day to day business of being. (Meanwhile, Keegan confesses flat-out, without even being jabbed with a sharp stick, that every MK book is pure escapism -- Keegan is bored by everyday life and writes SF, fantasy, historicals, to opt out of the daily grind ... and the novels are always fun.)

Beautiful Room... is the middle book of a trilogy. I never did read the first volume (A Boy's Own Story), because to be utterly frank, I'm not interested enough in children to tackle a whole book about them. Any kind of children. A boy's eight or nine and starting to mature gay? Great -- he'll get interesting enough to read about in another ten years or so! I started with Beautiful... and I did get, and read, the third book, The Farewell Symphony, but I won't be able to review this. I lent it out and didn't get it back, and haven't read the book in about 20 years. I remember that it was good, but I need to replace it. (Something else I'll do when I get the proverbial Round Tuit. I'm not quite the last of the procrastinators, but ... I came in second.)

Beautiful... is suspended somewhere between novel and autobiography. If you were just handed the text to read, without blurbs and promos, you'd take it for a real autobiography. It's so skillfully handled and so real that "Bunny" (the narrator; what the heck is that short for?!) could easily have been Edmund White himself.

There's no element of the fantastic, nothing of the adventure or the violent or the outrageous. No punchups or battles, much less swordfights, plane crashes, gunfights, lost artifacts, treasure to hunt, mysteries to solve, murders to investigate, drugs changing hands, car chases --

All the elements that make novels "go" from the mysteries (like the Adrien English books by Josh Lanyon), to the gay science fiction works (by writers like Constantine, McHugh and our own Keegan), are totally absent.

In the hands of any other writer I can think of, The Beautiful Room is Empty would have turned into wall-to-wall soap opera! It didn't -- and nor did Edmund White let it slither down the greasy, slippery slope at the bottom of which are books like Jackal in the Dark (which in itself is a great book -- just a mile away from White's writing.)

It's some element in the writing style that stops the book morphing into something along the lines of Gordon Merrick. (I'll be getting around to Merrick later in the year ... bear with me). Where Merrick revels in the sort of plots that wouldn't be a whisker out of place on The Bold and the Beautiful, and The Young and the Restless, White rises above the swamp and takes material that's perilously close to far greater heights than soaps ever aspired to.

His writing is often almost metaphorical or allegorical. He seems to see through what you can perceive with your eyes, to some "reality" behind the mask of what we think of as being real. It's all very Jungian! As I began -- some books, you have to read in order to understand and appreciate, because if I give you the basic plot line, at its simplest, you really will say, "so what" --! And you'd be dead wrong in that conclusion.

Beautiful... is moving, and exquisite -- and I think it's also become a historical. It's set in the 1960s, ending with the Stonewall "uprising."

Personally, I have no memories of Stonewall. I was about seven at the time, and in Australia we didn't get a lot of American news. Even if we did, at the time, Stonewall would've been reported down here as "civil disobedience," just a bunch of people rioting against the authorities! (Yes, I know how horrible that sounds! But think: if the American authorities had to be rioted against before they'd change, why should the authorities 10,000 miles away side with the rioters against their opposite numbers? The truth took months, closer to years, to percolate out this far, and by then there were bigger local stories to overpower the news ... Vietnam ends and our soldiers come home, Cyclone Tracy destroys Darwin, the Federal Government gets sacked, the monstrous bushfires...)

So, the Stonewall scenes at the end are quite an experience, and I can honestly say I learned a lot. There was a sense of "unreality" about them, because I read the book in about 1988, when things had gotten much better for the GLBTI community, and reading this, one was stunned by the fact that something like Stonewall could and did happen.

This is also a "coming out" story, which makes it not my usual fare -- yet I can wholeheartedly recommend it. Why? Because it's done so well, and because it's a historical. Moreover, it's a 1960s book that was written by one who was there at the time. If a contemporary writer were to write about the period, anything s/he wrote would be "tinted" by the next forty years. Like a Hollywood movie that's made now and set in 1944, it'd look and feel different from a movie that was made in '44 ... and I don't just mean the difference in movie technology!

The Beautiful Room is Empty is about life, being young and gay in a culture that stigmatizes you, finding your courage, deciding to be what you are -- and then stand up for what you believe in. There's a lot we can still learn from books like this, because the struggle for equal rights isn't over yet for the GLBTI community in the States, Australia and other First World countries. And even when it's been won in these countries, many other nations are lagging a long way behind, so the struggle will go on for decades.

Wholeheartedly recommended. AG's rating: 4.5 stars out of 5. The book has been done in many editions. The one I have is the mass market paperback with the nighttime street scene in garish colors on the cover. Amazon has good deals at this time ... you can get very cheap used ones, but in the interests of propping up the ailing industry, I urge you to pay a few bucks and get a new one! Remember that buying a copy for 10c doesn't do anybody any good really (except the post office, which charged the full whack for delivering it).

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Gay science fiction gets wet: Mel Keegan's drowned future

What a joy and a relief this edition is! It's only the second time Mel Keegan's Aquamarine has been printed, and the DreamCraft edition is so far superior to the old edition put out by MPG (the Millivres Publishing Group), you will be astounded.

Quite a story is attached to the old edition. I don't want to type the whole thing here ... it's too hot and I'm too tired after the week-long heatwave that has another week to go, and besides that Mel Keegan and the guys at DreamCraft have told the story better than I'd be telling it. So I'm going to save time and sweat and paste in the relevant bit from Aquamarine's own page...

AQUAMARINE is once again MK's property, since the rights have 'passed back to the author.' This is tremendous news for DreamCraft, and also for readers who either haven't been able to find a copy of AQUAMARINE (it's been hard to track down recently), or ... readers who have been driven bananas since 2000, by the 'tatty' presentation of the MPG issue. If you've read the 'Keegan Speaks' page, you'll know that 'things went haywire' at the pre-press stage.

The book was never proof-read! MPG went to press off the 'raw' files which Mel had emailed from Fairbanks, Alaska. Now, normally a book will be proofread four or six times before being published. (At DreamCraft, all books are proofed five times by humans and twice electronically.) This means very few errors get through. No book is error free, but you can get close, and we do. For seven years, readers have loved AQUAMARINE even though they've had to grit their teeth to get through the typing hiccups ... they can't be called 'proofing errors,' because the book wasn't proofed! So we've invited MK to go back to the 'raw' files, the exact, same files that were emailed from Fairbanks, and not only will they be properly proofed by DreamCraft,but MK has the chance to take a 'second bite' here: rework, redevelop, re-edit. The story won't change, but parts of the narrative are almost certain to. The end product will be far superior to the MPG presentation in many ways. We'll have a full-color cover, with a genuine depiction of the characters and locations rather than a monochrome (blue) pic of a young man; the interior text will be thoroughly proofed and error free; and the narrative will have been re-reveloped. Any writer will tell you, good books are not written, they're re-written ... and we're looking forward to wonderful things with the DreamCraft edition of AQUAMARINE.
http://www.dream-craft.com/melkeegan/aquamarine_dc.htm

There you have it, direct from DreamCraft and what more could you wish for! All that was promised was done. Beautiful new typeset, gorgeous cover, and it's been proofread to death. I oughtta know, because I did it twice myself. I'm a proofie for MK and DreamCraft; and sure, it's a lot of work, but it's also a hell of a lot of fun. How hard can it be to read a really good book? (Also, I get to write on Mel Keegan with a red pen ... evil chuckle. How many people in the world can say that?!)

The story of Aquamarine has always fascinated me. I love it. One reviewer at Amazon called it "the book Waterworld should have been." I'd go along with that. It takes place in a "drowned future," so it's another one of Mel Keegan's after-the-holocaust plots, but in this case it wasn't a nuclear war, it was a cometary impact that put the final kybosh on the world after we'd already done 75% of the job with global warming.

The story takes place about 80 years in our future, I think. You can easily recognize the remnants of our world and our society. As always in a Keegan story you have two gorgeous heroes in a romantic relationship. In this book it's Russell Grant, who's a genetic scientist, and Eric Devlin, who's a genetically engineered human -- "transhuman" is the term they're using now. (In fact there's a recent blog post on Mel's blog about this, well worth reading.) Eric has been designed so that he can live and breathe in the sea ... because the world is 90% underwater now, and future generations might depend on being "homo aquaticus" to have real freedom.

Eric and Rusty live on the floating city of Pacifica, which lives in the shelter of the converted monster oil tanker that serves as the mothership for the city ... and the whole project is the brainchild of a very old man called Gerald Duquesne, who had a vision and acted on it when there was still time, even though everyone thought he was mad. Pacifica is quite a great place to live and Eric and Rusty have good lives ... till they get complicated.

A bunch of mercenaries (very nasty characters) come in from Australia, wanting to hire Eric to do a job for them, and when he refuses they just nab him and force him to do the work. Now I have to be ultra-careful, because the plot spoilers are sloshing around your knees here!

Without wrecking the plot for you, I can tell you that what starts as a minor nuisance in a wharfside pub blows up into a possible nuclear war. There's 200 pages between these two events, and if you love science fiction, and gay romance, and thriller-type action, you're going to love this book.

It's one of the earlier Keegans, and you can tell: the plot is more linear and less tangled and interwoven. It's FUN, without getting into the deep dark places inside the characters' minds and hearts. If you want something dark and convoluted, then I really recommend you try the NARC novels, which will blow your mind. But if you want a fast-paced, linear, "sunny" adventure, which is perfect for a rainy day or a hot afternoon, you can't go past Aquamarine. I know that a few critics have said, "Not what you expect of Mel Keegan," because the style is light. But I have to ask the question, Why is there something wrong with the style being light? I'd guess MK felt like writing that way at the time, and for me (and for a lot of other readers) it works. It's all down to your preferences. I like it a lot, I find it fun and refreshing, so I can make the recommendation without hesitation. Want something dark that'll stand your hair on end? Go for NARC. It's Jarrat and Stone you're looking for, and you may never be the same again!

The only downside Aquamarine ever had was that the previous edition was so full of typos you sometimes cringed as you read it. Raw typescripts are like this. Trust me -- the word of God had to be proofread or you'd have ended up with The Book of Gemesod by Moshes, in which it says, Thou shalt now commute adultery, and Vengeance is mean, sayeth the Loud. Believe me ... they also serve who sit and proof. And I'm one of 'em. The DreamCraft edition has taken care of this problem and at the same time the book was beautifully rejacketed.

Highly recommended, without reservation. AG's rating: 5 out of 5 stars, and a gold stamp for having the determination to go ahead and do it.

Buy it brand new from Amazon -- and take care that you don't buy the old Millivres edition by mistake. It's a lot more expensive (because it's getting rare) and in the end you'll only wind up gnashing your teeth at the "tatty" job they did on the presentation. The old edition does not have the full color cover -- it's easy to tell them apart, BUT ... something weird is going on in the Amazon engine, and lately the DreamCraft edition isn't showing up in a "Mel Keegan" search. If you search on "DreamCraft Aquamarine," it shows up, but that's the only time you see it ... and if you don't see it, how can you buy it?? Jade (the cover artist and webpage guru at DreamCraft) found this out just a couple of days ago, and I heard that MK is going to be blogging about it soon.


Let me guide you through the minefield.

THIS is the DreamCraft edition -- new cover, all fixed, $22.50; this is the one you want:



This is the old version, "tatty" presentation by Millivres, spot color cover, and expensive because it's rare -- this is the one you would probably go past:



God knows, if you're a completionist, get both! But really, where's the decision?! Glad to be of help here.

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Gay romance on the high seas: The Buccaneer by M.S. Hunter

At last, just when you thought the beast would never come along ... there it was! A novel that is at one moment an adventure, a romance, exciting, colorful, up-beat, well-written, well-researched, long enough to be a satisfying read, and ... gay!

Alyson Publications put out this volume in 1989, and I do not know why a raft of others answering the same description didn't follow it. They didn't all have to be historicals, like M.S. Hunter's The Buccaneer. They didn't have to be "gay pirate novels," like this one. So long as they delivered the goods according to the short list above, I'd have been happy to keep buying books as long as Alyson kept putting them out!

An exciting gay adventure romance that's well researched and written, at least 250pp long, and fun. What was so hard about that? Apparently it wasn't just hard, it was completely impossible. There's a handful of gay novels that I'd group in the same part of the bookshelf as The Buccaneer ... and I think most of them have been penned by Mel Keegan! I'm thinking about Fortunes of War, Dangerous Moonlight, The Swordsman, The Deceivers ...! They're all Keegans, and shelved with Keegan.

Now, MK didn't start publishing with GMP, and (you're going to shriek when you hear this) I missed the first few books entirely, they just blew by me. I used to get my books out of the Bulldog Books mailorder catalog in those days and my brain must have been out for pizza, because the first Mel Keegan book I saw, bought, read and fell in love with, was Fortunes of War -- which is a tale of gay buccaneers in the Elizabethan era, same time and location as the Errol Flynn movie, The Seahawk. (Oh ... joy of joys! Because Fortunes of War could easily have been a project written for Errol Flynn who would be playing Dermot Channon, and I still have endless fun trying to "cast the part" of Robin Armagh.)

But -- enough about Aricia and Mel and Errol Flynn.

Suffice to say, M.S. Hunter's The Buccaneer came along like a life-saver. I got this one when it was hot off the press and just arrived in Australia, late '89 or early '90 ... I remember it being hot weather, which to us means Christmas plus or minus a couple of months. It was love at first sight. First, I was enthralled by the fact that one of the characters in the main romantic pair was African.

(Do you want to "cast the part?" You couldn't go past Will Smith ... and I'm being wicked here; and I admit it; but with Ewan McGregor and Jim Carrey on the big screen in a gay movie right now, I can't resist "seeing" movie versions of the really great gay novels!)

The romantic aspect is between Ozei (known as Ozzie) and Tommy Cutler (known as The Cutlass), and there are some steamy scenes as well as the romantic. The supporting cast in the novel is huge, and most of the characters are very well drawn, which is unusual in many adventure books. The novel is long, at 316pp of smallish type, and M.S. Hunter wrote extremely well.

Sadly, you'll notice the past tense there. M.S. Hunter is another loss to the art form of gay literature. He passed away some time ago, after having written only a little gay fiction ... and after a lot of digging to try to find some info on him, much less an obituary, I came up empty handed.

The Buccaneer is therefore his legacy to this art form, and I can only recommend it. The story is huge, and a bit rambling. It centers on Tommy and is told in the first person with Tommy as the narrator. It's a tough act, but Hunter makes it work superbly. You like the characters in this book, and the story of ambition, desire, derring-do, hazard and sensuality will keep you turning pages. Sometimes the plotline is a little bit easy to predict, but when you've read upwards of five hundred books, very little is going to take you totally by surprise, and that's not the writer's fault! What should amaze you is the research that went into this.

Does the novel have a downside? Well ... a little one, maybe. The author keeps butting in with short "documentary" segments, which you might find make it hard for you to keep your disbelief suspended. The first time I read this, I just skipped over them, didn't read them at all. The second time, the same -- but when I was done I went back and read the documentary parts separately. Nothing wrong with this, and you actually get two reads for the price of one here. The doco segments are set off into arial or some plain font, and are ostensibly about Hunter's personal experiences while researching the book. In fact, they're very interesting, it was just the interruption to the flow of the fiction that didn't quite work for me the first time through.

Highly recommended! AG's rating, 5 out of 5 stars. The Buccaneer is long out of print (god knows why) but you can get it from Amazon, and ... please do!



If you're into gay pitate novels don't miss Fortunes of War by Mel Keegan, and also have a look at this article: Were the Pirates Gay? by W. A. Hoffman, who's written a gay pirate novel called Raised by Wolves. I haven't read the novel, but I was impressed by the article, and will get to the novel in due course.

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Adrien English takes on The Dark Side: Josh Lanyon's The Hell You Say

I know, I know, I've been promising for weeks to get to my favorite of the Adrien English novels ... life has been "interesting" this month, which means blogging time has been hard to find. But here I am, and here's Adrien -- back in style, in the third of the novels, The Hell You Say.

Of all the series (there are four titles to date), why is The Hell... my favorite? To begin with, it has the paranormal plot line. The story involves a connection to a satanic cult, and I love this kind of thing ... the touch of the exotic, the creep-out aspect of "black magic." This installment in the series is also extremely funny, which gives the book a kind of "three pronged assault" on the reader. There's its dark occult side, its cuttingly witty side, and also the gay theme. All of which makes the novel irresistible.

As you'd expect, there's a killer on the loose, and he seems to be after a weird young man called Angus who works for Adrien at the bookstore. Angus is being threatened via the phone, and Adrien helps him get out of harm's way -- which may or may not be a good thing, because Jake Reardon (the LA cop with whom Adrien has a sometime and stormy relationship) is also being haunted by a serial killer with satanic-cult connections. Very dead bodies being found, and they are "marked" in ritualistic ways ... and now I have to be very careful what I say about the plot, or I'll be into spoilers!

This book is full of moments that are fascinating and amusing, emotional, even disturbing. Josh Lanyon writes a sparkling first-person narrative tying everything together with the personal observations and thoughts of Adrien, who is witty and smart, with a razor-sharp tongue.

And especially in this book, Adrien is a fully-developed personality. He's "off the leash" for the first time. This is actually very true in another way, because this book marks the start of Josh Lanyon self-publishing his novels -- a road he's sharing with top-name writers from Mel Keegan to Storm Constantine. (Readers need to get past the "stigma" and find out, and then admit, that great writers can publish their own work with tip-top results. The fact is, this book, The Hell You Say, was only going to be published if JL did it himself -- and it's better than the first two which went out under the GMP label! Time to get past the "vanity publishing stigma" thing, people. The industry's changed. When great writers get stuck on a sandbank, they rescue themselves and all of us profit from their courage).

During the course of a real page-turner of a plot, Josh Lanyon has Adrien interact with a cast of characters ranging right across the spectrum. There's the gorgeous detective boyfriend Jake, who is deeply "challenged" and breaking Adrien's heart. There's Adrien's mother (!) who is deliciously batty, getting married again, and presenting Adrien with not one but three step-sisters. Eegad. And there's also the Wiccan-pagan guru who appears late in the book ... and I'm so very pleased to be able to relate that this writer knows what Wicca is all about. It's such a relief when a writer possesses the facts and not the prejudices.

If you've collected all the Adrian English books, it's great to be able to watch Josh Lanyon mature, as well as his character. From the first book through to this one, the style, the storytelling, everything "fleshes out." Also, The Hell... is 230pp, a longer book with a lot more to get your teeth into.

Does the novel have a downside? Weeeeeell, maybe, if you were waiting for Jake to get his act together and figure out that he belongs with Adrien. Plot spoiler: not in this book, guys. In fact (stop reading right now if you don't want to know!!) Jake is getting married to his rather pregnant girlfriend, leaving Adrian high and dry. Hey, there's always a fourth book...

Highly recommended! AG's rating: 5 out of 5 stars. You can read this one first if you're on a tight budget, but I think Amazon will combine shipping for you -- which is especially important, if you're in the South Pacific region. Give them a try, and see...

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Gay vampires -- as you never saw vampires before: Mel Keegan style

If you think you know a thing or two about vampires ... how they sleep in earth-filled coffins, hang out in creepy old houses festooned with webs, can't see their reflections in mirrors, have giant canine teeth and rip the throats out of virgin girls in graveyards in the wee small hours of the morning ... think again. Mel Keegan's vampire (or vampyre, as it's spelt in these books) are different. Very different.

These people are immortals ... but they come in two kinds, or races, or strains. First, there's the vampire themselves. who are mostly thousands of years old -- these are the individuals who've managed to survive since the time of the Battle of Troy, against at least two thousand years of persecution. They're a gentle people, old, wise, and sad, because only a handful of them have survived. They live a different lifestyle; they do sustain themselves with blood; they do fear the daylight for medical reasons ...

Leave it to Mel Keegan to think the whole thing through and diagnose an ancient virus, transmitted exactly the same way as HIV, that makes people turn into vampires -- and this is where you get your second race. The vampires are an ancient race of humans who carry the virus, and when it's transmitted to normal humans, the human mutates, or changes, over the space of months, and becomes a changeling. The changelings also become immortal but they're sterile; they carry the virus and can pass it on to other humans if they're not damned careful, like HIV. What the virus does to them is, it makes them shun the daylight the same as the elder vampire, and makes it impossible for them to digest anything but ... you got it. Blood.

And then it starts to get complicated. Changelings are caught between two worlds -- the crass, callow human world they were born in, and the elegant, glittering, ancient world they aspire to ... but the humans hunt them down and the vampire (vampyre) won't accept them, because --

Hey, read the book. I have to stop right now, because if I even try to explain, the plot spoilers will be coming thick and fast. The story focuses on two gorgeous characters. The changeling is Michael Flynn, who's a "young" Irishman, an occultist and Tarot reader who's passing himself off in London high society in 1893 as the sufferer of a rare blood disease. He's also gay, by the way ... and beautiful. (Beauty is key to the plot of Nocturne ... like I said, read the book.) At a party one night he meets Captain Vincent Bantry, an army officer who was just retired from the service, badly injured. He's spent years in the Far East and seen all kinds of strange, weird things -- but nothing that prepares him for falling in love with Michael and stumbling into the vampyre world, and wanting desperately to become part of that world. The vampire characters are amazing. I absolutely fell in love with the vampire Chabrier, and the changeling Mario/Maria. The main romance is between Michael and Vincent. It will stand your hair on end. Trust me. The combination of the occult and the spice of a gay romance can't be resisted.

The story is set in England, France, Italy ... London, Paris, the Camargue ... and, well, the book makes you shiver, just thinking about it. It's 450pp of smallish type -- a huge book -- and you won't be able to get it out of your memory for weeks. You're going to want the second book (MK says there are more to come), and I'm going to do something I don't usually do. I'm going to continue right here and review the second book at the same time -- for a good reason. If you'll just trust me enough on this to get both at one time, you can combine postage at Amazon and save yourself some money!

(Incidentally, you can also throw in other MK books from DreamCraft on the same postage bill, because they're made and shipped by CreateSpace, which is one of Amazon's own companies. I looked into how much the postage is for folks downunder -- like self -- and it comes to a big saving. It costs $16.04 to ship one book, but only $32.10 to ship THREE. Every book you add to your order, they add $8.04, so if you can ship, say, four at a time instead of four separate packages, you just saved $24.12. That's nice. We like that.)

So, here we go with the second Keegan vampire book:

This story takes place about 12 years later than the first one and it's like an "episode" ... fully self-contained, no ends left dangling, has its own guest stars and all.

(I can give you a bit of insider information here. Being a proofie at DreamCraft, I've chatted with MK enough to know that Twilight certainly is an episode. There's another episode after the First World War, and another one in the 1930s (the Indiana Jones era), and then one in the 1960s, and one in the 1990s -- one in about 2030, and one in about 2050. The series has a plan to work to, it's going somewhere. All MK needs is the time to devote to writing the stories.)

Twilight takes place in 1905 ... automobiles and telephones and the police starting to get much more scientific in their approach to detective work and forensics. The vampire are up against a tougher world now. They have to get smarter if they're going to survive and stay hidden in a world that's getting technological. But all the same old "drives" are still working, which makes life more and more complicated. Just before Twilight opens, there's been a series of murders out in the west of England ... or has there? Looking at the details of the crimes, in the newspaper, Vince and Michael think they can see a vampire or changeling at work, and people are dying out there. They go out to Devonshire and take on the investigation ...

And now, I'm about out of things I can tell you about the plot! Like any Mel Keegan book, it gets very complicated, very fast. It'll also keep you turning pages till four o'clock in the morning if you start reading too late, so -- consider yourself warned. Twilight is only about half as long as Nocturne, and it can afford to be shorter. The first book had to set up the whole world, backstory all the characters, and so on. This book is definitely an episode in the lives of Michael and Vince and Chabrier and the others. I loved it as much as the first.

Is there a downside to these books? Only the fact I wish Mel Keegan would get on and write the others. But I also understand that working a job takes time away from writing, and the books will come out when they come out. (They'd come out a lot faster if a major publisher picked up the contract and offered decent printruns and advances ... but that's every writer's dream.)

Right now, you can get these two books in one package from Amazon.com (not dot-co-dot-uk, though) for $16.04 on shipping to Aust and NZ (a lot less for shipping to US and UK obviously). And if you were interested, you can also chuck in The Swordsman for an extra eight bucks postage, and something like the new DreamCraft edition of Fortunes of War or Aquamarine for another eight bucks shipping.

Nocturne and Twilight are highly recommended. AG's rating: 5 out of 5 stars on each one, and if you add them together, I'd award a 6 if I could.




And, in case you're building a parcel to save postage (esp. to Australasia region):

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