Rainbow County and Other Stories

Rating:
Summary: God forgive me, I didn't know I'd get turned on by this!
Review: I like erotica, but this book pushed the meaning of erotica into territory I never knew could be a turn on. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that this old dog learned some new tricks. The writing is way better done than writing in mainstream books. Erotica when it's good becomes so believeable that you... Can John Grisham make you do that?

Rating:
Summary: Winner Small Press Book Award & A Different Light pick
Review: The title story "Rainbow county" is amazing in this book that was a "Staff Recommendation" at A Different LIght Bookstore when it came out. I remember. I worked there then. I recommended it. And time proves me right. Muscle stories, soldiers, you name it. Some stories you forget. Some stick in your head. This book took me over the rainbow!

Rating:
Summary: A Five Star Bedside Read
Review: You could read through all 12 of the selections and never guess they were written by the same man. The going is rough and rugged in "Rainbow County," one of the many anthologies of Jack Fritscher's work. I will pay a very high compliment to "[e-mail]." This story shocked me so much that I had to put the book down and catch my breath. I won't give the details, but you'll never again think of [certain phrases] in the same light after reading this story.

At the same time, the over the top brutality of "RoughNight" rests in such a sharp comparison to the book's titular story, that Frtischer's genius as an erotic writer is stunning. On one hand, you have a William Gibson/James Cameron sadistic future gone berserk, on the other, a slow, brutal, circling of wolves. It's sadistic without a single blow being struck, frightening without a single threat uttered, and tensely sexual in a manner that echoes "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?." Two men locked in a dance around the other, a barber from the old days of San Francisco and a rough young buck on his mission to find the face of God. There are no razors, but each cuts the other, penetration but no rape. Just long slow sexual burn.

That story, like this book, encapsulates masculine writing in a timeless form. A far cry from most hard core SM writing that loses itself in meaningless genital tossing and faceless back alley crotch mauling. Allow yourself the time to read, absorb and savor each of these stories. From the startling wartime cruelty that opens the book with a torturous breaking of "The Shadow Soldiers," to the final Eros of "Sleep In Heavenly Peace," this is too fine a vintage to pilfer away quickly.