Mancandy Monday: Swedish Viking Vampires

Somehow, for me, the word "Swedish" in there makes the whole concept of Viking Vampires even hotter than it was before. Though I'm sure Alexander Skarsgard as a vampire has a lot to do with that. Behold, Eric Northman:

And also this:

And here's his hot Dad as a Viking, too:

Not a vampire one, but even so.

.

I've never been a big fan of Vikings in that Romancelandia sort of way, I have to say. I don't see the title: "The Very Virile Viking" and immediatly go oh, ho-OT! Auto-buy in my Amazon basket etc etc. But the idea of a modern day vamp who was once a Viking...yeah, that's hot. That way, you get all of the seething swarthy pillage and rapey-ness, only under the surface.

And you know me and under the surface-is-ity. Cry, cry your bloody tears Eric Northman. And then boil all over me like a raging man-cano.

Review: I Kissed A Girl, ed. Regina Perry

I like erotic anthologies. I like erotic anthologies by certain editors, because you know you're going to get a good one. Rachel Kramer Bussel, any Black Lace antho (and therefore either Kerri Sharp or Adam Nevill), Regina Perry, Alison Tyler...you can't go far wrong with any of those peeps.

And so it is with this anthology:

http://www.ravenousromance.com/lesbian/i-kissed-a-girl.php

Even though it's about girl love, and I'm big into the man ogling.

But I like stuff about girl love, too. I'm not one of those readers who gets all squicked and ew vaginas about FF in my smut. I like my vagina. Vaginas are nice. It's still two people getting it on, so get over it. Etc.

And they get it on very nicely in this anthology. Particularly in Lady's Maid, by K Ann Karlsson. Which is awesome. It kind of reminded me of Sarah Waters' I'm a loveable Cockney/Irish etc working class gel type of things, only really, really horny. Excellent stuff.

I also appreciated Get Thee To A Nunnery by Samantha Jones (?!), which has a lovely cheeky turnabout playfulness that I thoroughly enjoyed. I get so tired of of innocent prudish women being led astray by giant hairy men, so this was a nice surprise on many levels.

And finally, another of my faves: Show Me Yours, by Lucy Felthouse. In fact, I liked it so much that at the end, I was flicking through pages trying to find more of it. It has the same quality I always appreciate in stories by Ms Felthouse- that of reality, of something that really happened. She makes you believe in the scenario utterly, which is something sorely lacking in much of today's erotic/erotic romance fiction.

Of course, there were other stories in this antho that I liked. Just because I've chosen to mention these three as the standouts, doesn't mean I hated all the rest. Quite the contrary- it's a solid set of stories and I hope that Ravenous Romance continues to put out anthologies by such well thought of editors, filled with much respected writers. It's the way forward for them, I feel.

Mancandy Tuesday: Sharlto Copley

What do you mean, you don't know who he is? You should- he's only in the best fookin' film of the year, District 9. And not only is he in it, but he carries the entire thing on his manager-of-Tescos shoulders, like an ant carrying a 30 million dollar Peter Jackson produced planet on its back.

.

For that alone he deserves my love, even if he's playing perhaps the most excrutiating middle manager dorkus creep ever seen on a movie screen. Observe:

And that's not even the dorkiest he looks in the movie. I couldn't find any pics of him wearing his olive green knitted tank top- probably because everyone else is sanely not fancying him.

.

And yet, I luff him. I even love his side-parting and his moustache and his tank top. The whole film is like watching Michael Scott (Wikus is not quite as unbearable as David Brent) being turned into an alien and forced to shoot things against his will. Just think about that, for a second. We live in a world where we can actually go to the movies and see a film about a guy like Michael Scott or a manager of Tescos or summat being body shocked like in The Fly. And then doing a bunch of other stuff that by the end has you clutching your chest for him.
.

There's something about such a thing that I find astonishing.
.

And the fact that he looks a lot like Hart Bochner after being squeezed through a nerdinator doesn't hurt. For the record here is Hart Bochner:

And here is Sharlto Copley:

But I'll take Wikus Van Der Merwe over either of them any day, just for his constant fookins and his glorious accent and that game of catch he plays. And for the one alien eye, of course:

Reviewing

Okay, so, I've decided that I'm going to do a weekly review on my blog. Partly because I was asked by someone if I'd possibly do a review of something, and partly because I love talking about great books.

So before I get to the actual reviewing, some rambling thoughts:

I'm not going to always be a pussycat about things, but I'm not going to be a brute. I think that's the kind of creative writing teacher I am, and it seems to have turned out all right for me in that area. I've never had someone beat me up, at any rate- touch wood.

I think I'll mostly stick to books I really love - especially ones that have influenced me, erotica-wise - but if anyone else out there would like me to review something, ask away! I'd love to review anything and everything, including "Great Knitting Patterns of Europe" and "Garden Gnomes: A History". And my blog has had a thousand visitors (ZOMG!), so it's possible someone will see my review of your awesome book/story/knitting pattern treatise.

Of course, those thousand visitors are all probably just two people visiting me a thousand times, but even so! Two whole people! Yeah!

Mancandy Monday: Sam Rockwell

Yes, Sam Rockwell falls into the "some weirdo" category. But he deserves his own Mancandy Monday, I feel. Because I first loved him in the awful Charlie's Angels movie, which I came out of all those years ago saying: who was that guy?

I still remember that feeling of who was that guy. I wish he was more than who was that guy, now, but he's still the quirky indie kid who never does what you expect him to. He plays psychotic funny and funny psychotic and then BAM! Is suddenly in a sci-fi movie.

I wish he was in more sci-fi. His two best movies, Galaxy Quest and Moon, are sci-fi. I think he's just too weird and quirky to be contained in serious dramas. He needs otherworldly, he needs to advise people to make rudimentary lathes, he needs to be scared and desperate and running away from xenomorphs, maybe.

While looking like this:



Or this:



What? Don't look at me like that. Just trust me: with Sam Rockwell, the bigger the moustache and the wilder the hair, the more aliens he's saved you from and the better the crazy sex is going to be.

Or at least, that's the way it always is, in my head.

On Demand

You want to know why Justine Elyot is great? Because she wrote Advanced Corsetry, The Number, Office Sex and The Interview, all awesome stories that feature in Black Lace anthologies. She is a fresh and exciting new voice in erotica, and I find it amazing that I can say that without feeling like I'm delivering an insincere soundbite. Not only are her stories really well written, interesting and layered, they're also horny.

So you'll forgive me for getting excited because her own collection of short stories, On Demand, comes out in December. Or at least, I hope it does. Currently, Amazon seems to be dickering about with the date, which displeases me greatly.

I want On Demand now, dammit. Heh. No pun intended.

But anyway, support my sister in Black Lace and pre-order her fabulous book here: http://http://www.amazon.co.uk/Demand-Justine-Elyot/dp/0352345438/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

Mancandy Monday: Some Weirdo

If you regularly read this blog - as I know you do, Bertha - you'll be aware that I like weird men. Men that only a select number of women like. Though I know the number of those women is growing.

Because women, I feel, sometimes find it easier to like weird men. As opposed to men, who even when they're weird often prefer babelicious women.

Though there's nothing wrong with that. I can understand why some weird men would like to be surrounded by hot babes. Sometimes I would like to be surrounded by Alexander Skarsgards.

Though the fact that I like Alexander Skarsgard because he is Swedish seems a bit odd, I have to say. Even the handsome men I like, I usually like because there's something weird about them. I prefer George Clooney when he's fat. Billy Zane when he's balding and also kind of fat. I would rather Sam Rockwell have a slight gut and that straggly moustache he sometimes wears, so that he looks like he just fell out of a trailer park somewhere at three o'clock in the morning, with no pants on.

I always like it when my dudes are playing some weirdo.

Of course the epitome of weird-cool at the moment is probably Jemaine Clement:

But maybe he's so weird that I can no longer like him. He's gone all the way around the scale and back into normal again. It would be too generic to surround myself with a gaggle of hims. Maybe if I surrounded myself with Rhys Darbys, who plays the even weirder band manager of Flight of the Conchords:

That would be weird enough?

I'm not sure. But here is another picture of Jemaine looking even weirder than he did in that other pic, to help me make up my mind:

I can definitely see him burning my heroine's name into a lawn somewhere, but leaving the last letter off because he didn't have enough gasoline: Popp.

Yeah, I can see that. I wish I could shake this feeling of helpless nothingness in order to write it. But then, it's even weirder than the other stuff I've written, so what's the use? You do me no favours, weird men. No favours at all.