Rating: 
Summary: Okay...
Review: I was excited to read this book because it sounded so different but after finishing it I feel I must take a mental shower! This book was total trash! I've read most of the reviews about this novel beforehand thinking that I didn't want to be one of those easily offended, shallow person that would not understand or enjoy the paradox or humor of this story. I am very open minded and grasp anything different. This story was just plain stupid after awhile. While reading I was thinking to myself, Jeez who's going to have sex with whom now? So & So with So & So? Then sure enough!
The author was obviously in dire need of some. I would not recommend this book. I gave it 1 star just for originality.
Rating: 
Summary: This edition of SANTA STEPS OUT is all one could wish for!
Review: I wrote the first version of SANTA STEPS OUT ten years ago. In the decade since, it has had many champions, saints and angels all, among professionals in the publishing industry. Because it embroils childhood fantasy figures in explicitly amorous adventures, it has also twice come close to publication by major houses only to be turned away in the final hour. In my afterword, I document the book's odd journey on the way to publication. But I'm very happy indeed that SANTA has achieved its first incarnation in this graphically stunning limited hardback edition from Dark Highway Press. I have numbered and signed each of the 1000 copies. Award-winning artist Alan Clark has provided six amazing illustrations and a full-color cover. The font choices and layout are done with an artist's eye. I'm grateful too to David G. Hartwell and Patrick LoBrutto for their enticing introductions. Be warned. SANTA STEPS OUT, my fondest brainchild, is an intensely irreverent book. As such, its readers tend to react strongly, typically with either sharp dismay or great glee. I urge you to seek out Dark Highway Press's website for some tantalizing blurbs and an excerpt from the opening pages. For those of you who decide to buy SANTA STEPS OUT, I would love to hear from you via email, regardless of what your reaction is. And please keep this book in mind as a holiday gift for your more . . . um, daring friends and relatives.
Rating: 
Summary: Mr. Devereaux might find himself on someone's naughty list!
Review: If "Santa Steps Out" isn't nominated for this year's Bram Stoker Award, it will certainly be a crime! This is this year's winner, hands down! Robert Devereaux does a fiendishly wicked job of casting a new, albeit perverse, light on some old friends from our childhood. Know from the get-go that this novel is not for everyone! But overall, it is a very good read! Just when you think ol' Claus can't possibly sink any lower, we see that he can. Norman Rockwell would have had a grabber if this novel had been around when he was alive. "Santa Steps Out" is very much like a Salvador Dali painting that has been interpreted by Larry Flynt. It's wicked, raunchy and in some areas truly repulsive. What better compliment can one offer for this unique piece of work? If you're going to read this novel, one mustn't be shy or timid. If you can make it through the beginning, you will be compelled to finish. And finish you must! For Mr. Devereaux's "Afterward" is worth reading as well. This is a novel you won't soon forget.
Rating:
Summary: Holy Disturbing Book.
Review: If you are going to read this book, sit down, crack your knuckles, roll your head around your shoulders a few times, and take a really deep breath. You're going to need it. This is one of the most DISTURBING books I have ever read. Robert Devereaux manages to take our childhood stories/myths and distort them until they make your eyes burn. Santa Steps Out is the "real-life" tale of Santa Claus, Anya (Mrs. Claus), the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. Where did they really come from? What did they do before becoming the entities they are known as today? Why are they associated with their particular niches in life? What do they do in their spare time? What would happen if Santa Claus went BAD? Devereaux takes each of these questions and answers them in a way that makes you wish you had never ASKED in the first place. (shiver) What I liked about this book: COMPLETELY original material here. I have never read anything like this before . . . I commend Mr. Devereaux for his imaginative approach. I also have to give him major kudos for making me balk - I never balk. This book, well . . . it made me balk. Wow. A truly well-written tumultuous ride. What I disliked about this book: lots of gratuitous, graphic, overly descriptive sex simply written to incite. I really don't want to think about the Easter Bunny that way, and telling us as much about the Bunny-man and his sexuality as you did is overkill. I'm already horrified enough that you've destroyed the sanctity of my childhood heroes (Claus, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny), but to be so liberal with your pen when discussing their sex lives is like using a rocket launcher on an anthill - WAY TOO MUCH. If you're looking for a solid read that will make you feel all icky and weirded out, this is the book for you. I couldn't put it down(whether that's good or bad in some parts, I'm still not sure). This is very different, twisted material, but it's well-written and well executed. Mr. Devereaux definitely has flair . . . As a potential reader, best of luck to you - you may need it. This is a lot of book to handle. And if holidays don't seem the same after you finish this book, don't say you were never warned. Other than that, Happy Reading!
Rating:
Summary: Holy Disturbing Book.
Review: If you are going to read this book, sit down, crack your knuckles, roll your head around your shoulders a few times, and take a really deep breath. You're going to need it. This is one of the most DISTURBING books I have ever read. Robert Devereaux manages to take our childhood stories/myths and distort them until they make your eyes burn. Santa Steps Out is the "real-life" tale of Santa Claus, Anya (Mrs. Claus), the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. Where did they really come from? What did they do before becoming the entities they are known as today? Why are they associated with their particular niches in life? What do they do in their spare time? What would happen if Santa Claus went BAD? Devereaux takes each of these questions and answers them in a way that makes you wish you had never ASKED in the first place. (shiver) What I liked about this book: COMPLETELY original material here. I have never read anything like this before . . . I commend Mr. Devereaux for his imaginative approach. I also have to give him major kudos for making me balk - I never balk. This book, well . . . it made me balk. Wow. A truly well-written tumultuous ride. What I disliked about this book: lots of gratuitous, graphic, overly descriptive sex simply written to incite. I really don't want to think about the Easter Bunny that way, and telling us as much about the Bunny-man and his sexuality as you did is overkill. I'm already horrified enough that you've destroyed the sanctity of my childhood heroes (Claus, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny), but to be so liberal with your pen when discussing their sex lives is like using a rocket launcher on an anthill - WAY TOO MUCH. If you're looking for a solid read that will make you feel all icky and weirded out, this is the book for you. I couldn't put it down(whether that's good or bad in some parts, I'm still not sure). This is very different, twisted material, but it's well-written and well executed. Mr. Devereaux definitely has flair . . . As a potential reader, best of luck to you - you may need it. This is a lot of book to handle. And if holidays don't seem the same after you finish this book, don't say you were never warned. Other than that, Happy Reading!
Rating: 
Summary: Bizarre!
Review: Never before in my life have I read anything even remotely similar to this. That being said, I am none too sure I would ever want to read anything similar to this again. This was one strange read. Recasting our familiar beloved Santa, Tooth Fairy & Easter Bunny as strange sex fiends was a bit much for me to handle. I anticipated this to be much more of fairy tale than the raunchy read that it was. I have to say it, I was dissappointed.
Rating:
Summary: You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll eat ham sandwiches...
Review: Robert Devereaux, Santa Steps Out (Leisure, 1998) My reverence of Robert Devereaux's first novel, Deadweight, borders on the worshipful. After recently re-reviewing it, both one of my best friends and Devereaux himself e-mailed me and told me exactly the same thing: to get my hands on Santa Steps Out pronto. So I did (well, a little less pronto than I should have). They were both absolutely correct. Make no mistake, this book will offend you. Any book containing scenes where Santa Claus cheats on his wife with the Tooth Fairy in the bed of a six-year-old (who's presently sleeping in it) while a voyeuristic Easter Bunny watches is bound to find some way to offend everyone. Most who brave the uproariously funny goings-on between the mythical creatures will probably end up offended by the moral to the story, as well; sometimes the truth hurts, eh? However, as should be obvious from Devereaux's afterword, "Making Light of Santa Claus," the various publishing renegades who championed this book from the completion of its final draft until its publication eight years later didn't show up just for the beer. Devereaux shows, once again, his ability to take the looniest possible situations, things so over the top they make scenes in Dan O'Bannon-scripted films look like documentaries, and still connive the reader into forming bonds. In Deadweight, we found ourselves empathizing with a corpse; here, we commiserate with Santa Claus. Think about it. You may think I'm stressing this point a little hard, but, well, I am. This book is not for the weak of heart, stomach, eyes, arches, or any other body part. It's the literary equivalent of Peter Jackson's outrageously funny movie Dead Alive, but with far more emotional depth sprung upon the unsuspecting reader. Those intrepid few who find themselves at its gates and make it past the first fifty or so pages are in for a fantastic ride, and the rest are missing out. Certainly in the running for my top 25 (thank you, Amazon, for expanding the lists!) reads of 2002. ****
Rating:
Summary: Really Mr. Devereaux, Santa?? or Satan!!!
Review: This book is gratuitous and purile at best. It is not in the least surprising the lengths to which this author had to go to get this swill published. The only impressive aspect of the novel is the author's grasp of the English language; he is actually able to find new ways to express a redundantly carnal plot. I am too embarrassed to admit that I read this book, and have asked to remain anonymous.
Rating:
Summary: I Want to See This in Claymation
Review: This book IS over the top, and will easily offend those who offend easily. That's fine. But the pleasures of this book don't stop at its provocative nature. It's also a genuinely creative, nigh brilliant, meditation on human sexual/romantic relationships, through a lense of cunning myth and trounced commercial archetypes. At the heart of the book, even at its most horrifying, is a nearly spiritual regard for the place of the carnal in our lives, and the spiritual enrichment that comes from the joys of the flesh...however you might find those joys. I highly recommend this. It'll crack you up, it'll keep your attention, and it might even stir your mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Bizarre! Perverse! Twisted! I loved it!
Review: This is a Christmas book unlike any that have come before it, I'm sure. It's part erotica, part comedy, part horror/fantasy and easily the most original novel I've read in quite a while, as well as an interesting look at modern myths and their pagan roots. If the idea of Santa Claus having a lusty affair with the Tooth Fairy shocks or offends you, don't read this book because that's only the beginning, and you surely won't want to be around for all the things that happen afterward. But if you're open-minded and have a healthy, irreverent sense of humor and an appreciation for the absurd, I can't recommend this book highly enough. I'm going to have to read Mr. Devereaux's other books, because he is a wonderful storyteller!
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