A.R. Jarvis's Blog, page 7

Love’s Landscapes #9

Heeeey, how ’bout that National Novel Writing Week? How did that go? Me? I did swell, just swell, for that week. And then I forgot it was November. And then I broke up with my boyfriend of three years (no sympathy needed), and then there were holidays. Well. There was a holiday.

I got about 6k or 7k words written, terribly impressive, I know. But I got some reading done. Some. Actually, I’m not sure where most of the month went–perhaps my cat hid it under the couch with all the rest of her toys?

Anyway, here’s a partial list of the Love’s Landscape stories I’ve read this month. I found lots of them to not be worth finishing, which was not true before, so I don’t know if I’ve hit a clutch of dull ones, or if my tolerance for mediocre has simply been overcome. Here’s the link, and here are my comments:

We the Calari or Calar III by Wart Hill: a weird little sci-fi vignette. Tentacles and dub-con.

The Hate Game by Hennessee Andrews: the tags told me it would be enemies to rivals, witty banter, male models. I guess technically they were all there (if you lower expectations of ‘witty banter’ a whole lot), but it was also boring and poorly written. Which is a horrible pity because those are some of my favs. DNF

Gravitational Force by C.M. Walker: A sweet tale of two college roommates dealing with the heavy side of life. I didn’t know if I should be turned on or crying for most of it.

The Archers of Kynthos by KM Harry: a fucked up tale if e’er I read one. Must go find a palette cleanser now.

High Five Dive by Adrien Fridge: Another sci-fi one, but this a really good enemies-to-lovers tale. Writing was a bit scattered, and it doesn’t do sci-fi much better than the Jetsons, but it was a fun read.

No Enemy But Time by Angel Martinez: a fascinating paranormal (but with Greek gods rather than vampires n’shit) story. It did suffer from being some sort of sequel or ‘from the world of’ story, but since my feels is that I want to read the other stories, I guess that’s okay.

Geeking Out on 11C by L.L. Bucknor: A solid tale of a geek crushing on his neighbor. Bit heavy on the HE SO HOT stuff, but good nonetheless.

Marketing Beef by Rick Bettencourt: I did read the whole of this story, and I don’t regret doing so, but it is full of errors. Mainly tons and tons of minor inconsistencies, but also weird time-jumps that were all the stranger because what was there was obsessive details (waaaay too many details). The UST was really electric, and that’s one of my favs, but otherwise it wasn’t great.

To You I am Bound by Cam Kennedy: A dystopian future sort of story where the world is split along open-minded side vs. closed-minded, and one guy has to go from the open side to the closed side, only he’s gay, and they test for that sort of thing over there. There’s some plot and a lot of character development. Some of the resolution was on the “too easy” side, but overall it was good.

Dance with Me by Suzanne Simon: A moderate story of a guy who is mysteriously bought dancing lessons. Short.

A Million Truths by M.C. Houle: A short tale of a college kid coming out, and the troubles and tribulations that brings.

Gravitational Pull by Jill Prand: Some nice sexual tension in this little friends-to-lovers story. Not too happy with how the female character is dealt with, although it’s not so bad considering the low end of the spectrum. Probably I was just upset because they gave her my name, and then stuck her in a relationship place similar to where mine had been, had the guys talk dismissively about her, and then despite her being a very chill character at the beginning, turned her into a jealous bitch. So it was like they wrote me, and then made me a bitch. Probably why I’m a bit unhappy with it. If you’re not named Amy (and there are high chances you are) it’s probably a non-issue for you.

What Family is For by T.T. Kove: The letter (I must learn not to read those) is a set-up for a wacky family reunion of insanity and overwhelmingness. The story itself is a family reunion of hard truths and distances. It’s good enough, and sweet at times.

Because of You by Penny Brandon: A guy asks his friend to be his gay experiment. I didn’t finish it, because it was really obvious in direction, but what I read was okay.

Clicking by Alex Gale: Another that was too obvious in direction to keep reading. The Love Interest also went from “not noticing him” to “blurting out his life-story and darkest secrets” in about three pages, and those secrets were told through dull exposition.

Mating Balance by Gina A. Rogers and Kyle Adams: A cougar-shifter with a heavy past must find his mate before he’s cursed with insanity. Better than it sounds, but spent lots of time info-dumping and blathering on about ferrets.

A Thoreau Affair by Hunter Frost: An ex-professor who’s moved to the woods meets up unexpectedly with his favorite ex-student. Obvious, but okay.

The Scent of Hope by Summer Devon: A man convicted of a crime that he did commit writes a letter to his sister, but it ends up with the wrong person. This one was good. Slightly odd, but really good. Plot, tension, characterization, unexpected events; and a period piece. Wonderful, really.

Kiss of Truth by Ash Jay: A guy in a band gets kidnapped from the BDSM club he …preforms at? His bandmate is secretly in love with him, and does what he can to find him again. I read the whole thing, but it’s not all that great, honestly.

Sugar and Sawdust by Debbie McGowan: an odd tale of a porn star and the guy he picks up. It lingered in my mind, which is unusual for a story that is more odd than good.

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Plus there were a bunch of stories that I didn’t finish which I will not subject you to summaries of. And I only have 120+ stories to finish! Yay! …I better go get started on that.

Danish Folk Tales

Troutie, Troutie, in the well Who’s the fairest that here doth dwell?

A moderate while ago, I found a book of Danish Folk Tales collected by M. Winther at the library books sale (which I had to miss today because of a conference! Tragedy!). The publisher seems to be my local university, so it might have been put together for a class, anyway, but that just means I’m jealous of whomever got to take that class.

The preface of the book was pretty informative. Apparently the author had heard about the trend of copying down local stories (the Grimm’s book had already been published), but had not actually (as far as anyone could tell) read any of those, and thus went out and copied down a bunch of local fairy tales, which he then compiled into this book. HC Andersen’s stuff came after this (although those barely qualify as fairy tales, honestly).

What the book contains is a nice spread of fairly typical fairy tales. They are of moderate quality, and seem to occasionally be missing key facts or plot explanations (which is how I can tell a “real” book of fairy tales from a “polished” one). For many of the tales I knew (or anticipated) the endings, but I couldn’t believe we’d get through all of that in just two paragraphs…but we did! So, pretty short versions of things.

And I have to admit that I’ve done an injustice with my opening picture; the story is Snow White in this volume, not Gold Tree and Silver Tree, and I just double-checked, but I was completely confused.

There are some very strange tales in here. Like The Two Princesses, which is basically Cinderella, except that she forgets the warning on the third night, runs home, and has to remain a kitchen maid forever. Happy times! There was another story with the shoe-fitting motif (The Little Kitchenmaid), but that’s actually Deerskin… it’s all rather a jumble in there. An interesting jumble, but still a jumble.

Oh, and I found it curious that instead of going to a ball, in almost every story where the girl goes somewhere, she’s going to church. Here’s a pretty dress, go to church, but just wait outside the door, and flee before anyone can catch you! I don’t really understand why it wasn’t a ball; were balls socially unacceptable? non-existent in Denmark? Marks of low-society? Simply something that should not be encouraged among the fairy-tale reading set? And how did one hook-up — I mean, meet their future spouse at church? Yeah, there’s the obvious answer there, but she couldn’t even go inside.

“Hey, look at the hot girl in the pretty dress refusing to come into the church! I find nothing suspicious about that; no way she could be a demon. And the fact that she flees before I can so much as say hello? That’s super attractive in a spouse. I’m going to disengage her sister so I can marry her instead.” Makes total sense. Wait, sorry, mistyped that. I meant makes scents, as in it stinks.

But overall I enjoyed having read the book, and if you can get your hands on it, it’s good for an old-fashioned fairy-tale romp, even if it’s not the best writing or story-telling or…anything else.

Celtic Folk and Fairy Tales

Possibly relevant.

Why, hello there. How are you? Fascinating. I’m doing okay, but I haven’t been reading. Well, I have been reading, but not so much Love’s Landscapes, because I am trying to do NaNoWriMo (after a fashion), so I’ve decided that it’s safer not to read other people’s gay romances while trying to write my own, you know? I did/will read a few here and there, but basically there won’t be a Love’s Landscapes update until December. But I’m still reading fairy tales, so here I am.

Celtic Folk and Fairy Tales (on Amazon) is a volume of Celtic tales selected and edited by John Jacobs. It’s a pretty solid little volume, with a few good tales, and a few weird tales…you know, the usual.

Some interesting things were…there’s this one story that I’ve read elsewhere, and the King gets a fairy wife, but only on the condition that he never hit or strike her–for the third time he hits her in anger, she’s going to disappear forever. Honestly, three is awfully tolerant if you ask me, but that was a different time. But, the reason I bring this up is not because of the domestic abuse in this story, but rather it’s odd lack in this version of the story. Instead of getting mad and beating her, the King just…taps her on the shoulder. Like, “hey, why are you laughing at this funeral?” It wasn’t even forceful, and the king wasn’t written as particularly angry, either. So I don’t know how to take this. It’s clear that the whole story is lacking if he doesn’t hit his wife, but spousal abuse is a terrible thing, and should not be perpetuated.

So a tap on the shoulder is not enough, but a full-out beating is too much. Is there a middle ground? If I read a yet more modern version of the tale will it be that he cannot raise his voice to her? or cannot question her in front of guests? And does that continue to change things, does it put too much of the power into the woman’s hand–she already has quite a lot, but if a man cannot even argue with his wife… I don’t know. It’s just a curious little cultural observation tidbit from my wanderings in fairyland.

There was another story I wanted to talk–oh! I know. Gold Tree and Silver Tree, which is definitely now my favorite version of Snow-White (and similar tales), and is quickly becoming my favorite fairy tale (of the season, at least). I’ve summarized it before; there’s a good princess and a bad queen, and the queen asks a trout who’s the fairest in the land, gets told it’s Gold Tree the Princess, which upsets Silver Tree the Queen, so the Queen tells the king she wants Gold Tree dead, but the king marries her off instead (and tells the Queen she’s dead). Queen talks to the trout, yaddayaddayadda, Gold Tree ends up dead-ish. And the prince she married is distraught, but ends up marrying again, and that princess (unnamed) awakes Gold Tree, and then they save her one last time from Silver Tree. In the last version I read the Prince said he couldn’t keep both wives and tried to return the second, but she said she and GT were now great friends, and so she’d stay.

In this version, the new wife offers to leave, but the prince says, “No, I will have both of you!” and they all live happily ever after.

My conclusions from this volume are as follows: Wife-beating, NOT OKAY. Polygamy? OKAY.

As a wrap-up, I’m going to admit that I actually finished this last weekend, and started a new fairy tale book last week (which was a super-short paper one, and I’d be finished with it, but I forgot it at work on Friday…), so I’m a little confused between the two right now (which had a Snow-White variation that was about half-way between Snow-White and Gold-Tree!). I think it’s safe to say that this was a decent volume of tales and worth reading, but part of my brain keeps insisting that it wasn’t that great? Certainly I believe there are even better books of Celtic and similar tales out there, if only because there are so many.

Love’s Landscapes #8

Here’s this week’s reading. And here’s the link to find the ones I didn’t link for you.

A Dark Love Story by Jonathan Treadway: A supposedly dark tale of a couple going through a tough time. I guess I’m unclear on what would entail a ‘dark’ love story, but this sure isn’t full of daisies and sunshine.

Window by Ali MacLagan: This was good. It wasn’t as dark as the summary letter seemed to want, and I called the twist from the get-go, but it was well-written and worth a few hours’ time.

The Raven’s Luck by Laylah Hunter: Pretty straight forward tale of a pair of assassins with a…workplace rivalry that might also be a bit more.

Displaced by Sofia Grey: Awwwww. An almost typical tale of a mythical guardian and his human lover. But so good and wonderful beyond that, too.

To the End by Kathleen Hayes: An odd little assassin love story, of which there seem to be a lot this year.

My African Prince by Bona Logan: Lion/big cat shifters. Homophobic ones. Um…I only understood half of what the prelude was trying to get at–there was one Zulu warrior who got turned into a shifter…and then…a lion cub who turned black? I don’t know, but I got tired of beating the dead “I defy everything to be gay with my Soul Mate ™” horse and gave up about half-way, so perhaps revelations were yet to come.

Five Dates by Amy Jo Cousins: Despite (or perhaps because of) its ridiculous premise, this was a wonderful and steamy little number. Much love to this name-twin.

Love’s Landscapes #7

And then several hours later I realized I didn’t put the random babblings here at the beginning. I didn’t even give you a link where you can find the stories. *headdesk* Guess it’s just been that sort of a week.

Wrecking Ball by Elin Austen: A rather charming tale of legalizing gay marriage in Utah, or at least how that affected one fictional couple. Some explanations (the political or legal stuff especially) could have been more clear, and the Evil Mom was Evil, but it was an enjoyable read.

This Too by Isla James: a mildly heartwrenching tale of two BFFs and some unrequited love. It wasn’t quite the typical story, but then suddenly it was. Not a disappointment, but nothing ultimately genre-breaking, either.

The Arroyo by M. Caspian: This one is a tough read, and not for the faint of heart. You really need to have a specific kink for it to really appeal, though I read the whole thing, so maybe not. It was pretty intense.

Love’s First Kiss by Jambrea Jo Jones: Simple, short and sweet.

Guarding Dizzy by Casey K. Cox: I liked this one, but it was another where the relationship is borderline abuse, although it was much less distinct than the last one I spoke of, and it went both ways, with each character sort-of fighting against the dominance of the other and sort-of welcoming it. Yet if it had been either one of those guys in a relationship with another person, I wouldn’t put money on it being healthy.

Dreaming of Fire by J.J. Cassidy: A fairly typical fantasy genre story. It…meandered on about things occasionally, and the Hidden Identities didn’t matter a whole lot beyond setting up for the presumed sequel, plus a lot of things could have been explained better, but it was a decent read nonetheless.

Shosetsu Bang*Bang #51: Under the Sea

Proof that I actually saw an ocean at least once.

Hooray, the newest SSBB is out! This issue’s theme was Under the Sea, which led to a number of aquatic adventures! And a few that weren’t quite.

They were all very short stories (none more than one part!), and thus I read through them very fast. They were also fairly good as a whole.

Ship in a Bottle, by Hyakunichisou 13: A cute and sweet tale of a young man who finds something unexpected, and another who ends up in a place he doesn’t understand. Not particularly related to the theme, but that’s okay.

The Selkie and the Bear, by Kimyō Tabibito: The tale of a selkie who seems to like land better. He likes milkshakes, and modern fashion, and rough hook-ups.

The Siren of Titan, by shukyou: This one pushed all my creeeepy buttons. Astronauts seek out the answer to the mystery of a vanished colony ship on Titan, and find most of my worst nightmares on the way.

Lands of Green in Days of White, by Iron Eater: This is a sequel to one awhile back where a Skraeling finds a Norseman in the ocean, and saves him. It’s about how they are getting along together one year on, with a blizzard on the way.

In Your Wake, by Indi Latrani: Another selkie who does one-night stands, but this one far less content with his lot in life (at least according to his friends), and how he finds his own way out of that situation.

Subarashii, by Matsu Kasumi: A submarine with some guys who wanted to go to space instead of undersea. The sub is sent to secure a sunken spaceship, and an R rating is attained.

Oh, Freedom, by Hiwaru Kibi: A young man and his merman boyfriend, probably. Also, public sex.

There was also an unusually high number of stand-alone images (6), which I suppose makes up for the low number of stories (7)? Anyway, the pictures were pretty neat, especially if tentacles are your Thing.

Anyway, if you have a few hours, I recommend checking this issue out, and if you don’t have a few hours, then I recommend acquiring some so that you can read this issue. And if you some how have lots of hours, then you can either sell a few off to people who’d like to read this issue, or you can check out the SSBB backlog as well; this is Issue 51, after all.

Loves landscapes #6

More Love’s Landscapes this week! Because I found time to read! Imagine that! And you’ll be happy to know that I only have 160-odd stories left, I’m sure. That means I’ve read 50 or so stories in two months. Which I suppose isn’t bad, but it does mean I’ll have enough stories for another six months. So much for reading other things, I guess. Oh, and I’ll mention that I’ve started leaving the longer stories for later. I hadn’t planned to, but when I try to insist to myself that I read them as they come, I get a little stressed, so I’m giving up on that (and believe me when I say I know how much you care).

Cup of Tea and a Few Broken Rules by C.C. Jaz: Good. A sweet, lingering tale of two social antagonists ending up realistically in a relationship. Light on explicit sex, heavy on being amazeballs.

In the Flesh by Jae T Jaggart: What the fuck did I just read??! Uh…shifters missing a friend…um. This is why I don’t read the story descriptions/letters; since they weren’t written by the actual author, they have little to no barring on the ultimate sorry. In this case I thought it would be college students in a threesome, and it was anything but. ANYTHING BUT.

Adam’s Flight by Penny Wilder: Bit clunky around the edges, but a decent fantasy tale nonetheless. Though, the tags claimed it was steampunk, and I could hardly see it.

The Other Side by MA Jackson: Teases right on the edge of preachy, but very sweet. I liked that the two boys decided they were going to step up their friendship, but then went and thought about it for a few weeks. That sort of rational thought is hard to come by in gay fic.

A Heart of Klondike Gold by Gabbo de la Parra: This was a neat period piece set in the Alaskan gold rush. It’s got the feel/reality of actual historical research, but without that thing some authors do where they end up writing a history book that maybe has some plot, you know? It was a pair of bears, which isn’t usually my Thing, and wasn’t in the tags, but it was just sweet and fun nonetheless.

Cenotaph by E. Davies: This was a odd one. Generally I really liked it, there were just two happenstances that felt…undeveloped, which I would like to address. The first was the switch from “no sex before marriage!” to “I made your favorite dinner, and drank two beers for courage, now fuck me.” I mean, that was pretty much the whole switch, right there. There was a certain something that one character was asked to do, which might have catalyzed the change, but we saw not a goddamn thing of his inner thoughts or why or if this might have caused the change, not fron his POV (which we did read in the story) or the other guy, who thought maybe it was a one-off thing, and then remarked next chapter that they were acting like newlyweds about it. The guy just…changed his mind.

The other sticking point was the end. The story-requester asked for it not to be a Happily Ever After, so I was expecting it to be …not one, and it wasn’t, but it…was like the story was written with a HEA, and then the author remembered that it shouldn’t be, and so went and cut off the last 600 words, added a “we should just bury our love in this grave” line, and called it a day. So a little weirdly unfinished in places, but a curious and intriguing world-setting and story nonetheless.

The Boy with the Painful Tattoo

In addition to the Legends book, I also read The Boy with the Painful Tattoo by Josh Lanyon.

I feel like I’ve read enough of his books that they’ve all become a bit the same. Not quite predictable in the details (though I’m getting there), but very similar nonetheless. To the point where there isn’t even much to review about them.

So instead of commenting on the specifics, I’d like to ask if anyone else reads his stuff, and wonders how the hell his characters afford to live/eat in the ways and places they do? I mean, I grew up in a middle-middle class family, and we couldn’t possibly have afforded half of the places that his characters live, let alone several people to do yard-work stuff like the one guy was talking about in this book.

Sure, maybe all that stuff is cheaper than I expected, and a few of his characters were trust-fund babies of some sort, so that probably helps, but geeze. I only wish I could afford a $500 hotel stay because I was distraught over finding a corpse in the basement. Especially on top of moving expenses. More likely I’d have to go cry in a corner from the shock to both my nerves and my pocketbook. Then I’d end up at a Motel 8 (do those still exist?).

And all that on an author’s salary, too.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s all beautiful and wonderful and described so well, I’m not really complaining. I’m just befuddled that money in the Josh Lanyon version of the contemporary world seems to have a different value than it does in mine.

Thy Boy with the Painful Tattoo

In addition to the Legends book, I also read The Boy with the Painful Tattoo by Josh Lanyon.

I feel like I’ve read enough of his books that they’ve all become a bit the same. Not quite predictable in the details (though I’m getting there), but very similar nonetheless. To the point where there isn’t even much to review about them.

So instead of commenting on the specifics, I’d like to ask if anyone else reads his stuff, and wonders how the hell his characters afford to live/eat in the ways and places they do? I mean, I grew up in a middle-middle class family, and we couldn’t possibly have afforded half of the places that his characters live, let alone several people to do yard-work stuff like the one guy was talking about in this book.

Sure, maybe all that stuff is cheaper than I expected, and a few of his characters were trust-fund babies of some sort, so that probably helps, but geeze. I only wish I could afford a $500 hotel stay because I was distraught over finding a corpse in the basement. Especially on top of moving expenses. More likely I’d have to go cry in a corner from the shock to both my nerves and my pocketbook. Then I’d end up at a Motel 8 (do those still exist?).

And all that on an author’s salary, too.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s all beautiful and wonderful and described so well, I’m not really complaining. I’m just befuddled that money in the Josh Lanyon version of the contemporary world seems to have a different value than it does in mine.

Legends That Every Child Should Know

So snuggly! Yet so hard to read!

I didn’t read any Love’s Landscape stories this week. There are many reasons for that, reason one being I got a cat. She’s a really snuggly tortiseshell cat cat cat cat cat cat catcatcatcatcat cat cat CAT… OMG KITTY!!!!

*ahem* Sorry, got a little off topic. I also didn’t get any LL stories read because I’ve been trying to finish Legends That Every Child Should Know; a Selection of the Great Legends of All Times for Young People by Hamilton Wright Mabie.

It’s (as you could guess from the title) a selection of great legends from around the world (mostly Eurasia). I found a few of the stories to be very dull, and a few to be very interesting, and a few to be badly-formatted verse.

I think that overall I read it in skim-mode, but sometimes it was deep skim-mode than others.

Rustem and Sohrab was probably the most interesting story; it’s a middle-eastern tale (I think, certainly not from Western Europe), and begins with a man’s horse being stolen, but written in such a way that we’re supposed to already be familiar with the guy (and the horse, who’s named more than referred to as a horse). Anyway, it’s ultimately a story of a son seeking his Hero father, and the shenanigans of their enemies which  cause the story to end as a tragedy. It was interesting both because I don’t find as many non-Western/non-Indian stories like that, and because here was a tale full of all sorts of battles, but without either side actually being the Enemy, you know? As the reader, you want the two sides to meet, but you don’t want them to fight, and it all seemed so senseless, and yet with a hint of realism, because how many battles in the real world are fought for the prevention/causation of World Destruction, versus how many have been fought because of a selection of politicking assholes and poor communication?

Someone needs to make that into a movie.

And the other stories of note were Rip Van Winkle, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I’ve read the former before, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t read the latter. And I grouped them together because holy hell they were the most horribly boring tales ever. I must have read a different version of Rip Van, because it was…gah. They both got into long descriptive tangents and broke all sorts of ‘telling not showing’ rules and could probably been summarized in two sentences. Or paraphrased into something worthwhile in three pages.

I know there are better Rip Van Winkle stories out there, and I hope the same is true of Sleepy Hollow.