Midnight Thirsts

Rating:
Summary: A Need for a More Nutritional Book Diet
Review:
I imagine it must be hard to be a "gay fiction" author. You seem to have to force yourself into one of four sub categories to be successful: Horror (Read: Vampire) Novel, Trashy General Fiction (featuring some faceless torso on the cover), Erotic (featuring some young blond Romanian on the cover), or some kind of Medieval Sci-Fi affair.

There doesn't seem to be much success if you deviate from the norm with "gay fiction". I can hardly blame the contributors to the Short story collection "Midnight Kisses" for trying to mix things up a bit and blend the Horror/Erotic sub genres together, creating something perhaps a little more interesting than the standard fair, but their efforts have fallen a bit short.

First off: A very simple request. To who ever wrote the summaries of the stories on the back of the book: Please read the book. The summaries for the stories are off, expecially the summary for the story "The Nightwatchers" by Greg Herren. Phillip is not an actor, he's a hooker. Er...I'm sorry, escort. There is no one named Kevin in the story, unless by Kevin, you meant Gunther. (I'm sure Kevin would have made a very interesting character though.) This leads me to wonder how much the publishing company really cares about this short story collection if they can't even be bothered to have the correct information on the book.

"The Nightwatchers," first of the four stories seems to have some trouble finding pacing. I enjoyed Greg Herren sneaking in a lesbian character to the story, and I found her plot to be much more interesting than the main character Phillip's. Phillip, as a character, never amounts too much more than a blithering stereotype. Phillip is every character in every erotic story that ISN'T a character, right down to the explicit moans and sexual thoughts. The worst part is the story finds its footing just as it ends. It seems to me like Mr. Herren could have done better writing a novel on his own so he could flesh things out a bit. Maybe give Phillip the escort/coffee guy a personality to go with his sex drive.

The second story, "Carnival " suffers from the same symptoms as the first. The story finally finds it's mark just as it's ending. It's as if the author, Michael Thomas Ford, didn't realize that his story was going to have to end so quickly. He wrote the story as if he was anticipating a grander finish...he wrote as if he was hoping to be given another ten chapters to fill if he made his given pages interesting enough. In honesty, if he did add another ten chapters to the story of Joe, Derry, Emma, and Mr. Star, I would be curious to see what he did with the characters. I was able to stomach Mr. Ford's story in one sitting, which is more than I can say for the others.

Next up? "The Vampire Stone," by Timothy Ridge. Confusing characters that act with out logic in their intentions marred the story, but I will give Mr. Ridge credit for actually writing eroticism that was arousing. In the end, the stories main character left me with one important question: Just how many times can a guy get off in one session? Three? Four? There was a three page session where every page featured protaganist Roland "bursting" in a new position or location. Go Roland.

At least the last story pulls it together marginally. "Vampire Inc." by Sean Wolfe had enough bite to keep me interested, but lacked punch in the end. I'm not going to go into details as to exactly how his story ends, but it's about as far fetched and out of place as me in a dress. Mr. Wolfe's characters were at least genuine characters, and his story had a great flow. Five less pages Mr. Wolfe, and the story would have been flawless. If this story is any indication of Mr. Wolfe's writing style, I would recommend investigating his solo efforts.

So, what's left to say? A bunch of unsatisfying stories that I had to push myself to finish didn't leave me feeling satisfied. It left me hungry for a more wholesome experience.
Why couldn't Kurt Vonnegut have written us a collection of homoerotic vampire stories before he stopped writing? Now that would have been an interesting read.


Rating:
Summary: Sexy vampires get blood flowing
Review: I haven't read many vampire stories beyond Anne Rice (and one of the characters in this collection jokingly gives his name as "Lestat" in tribute to the quintessential vampire). Each of these novellas offers a new twist on vampire lore and takes Rice's homoerotic vampire theme to a new level.

Herren's concept of the "nightwatcher" is a fresh look at vampires who protect mortals even as they feed on them. The story provides a delicious sexual tension and could easily be developed into an entire vampire book with its three protagonists. The New Orleans setting itself is almost a character in the story and Herren uses it well.

Ford's story, well-written as it is, is less about vampires and more about being an "other," as it presents the lives of people who live outside the boundaries of normalcy and acceptance in its Midwestern 1940s setting. The exploitative villain truly is one and deserves his fate at the hands of Ford's vampire.

Ridge's story is the most densely textured of the four. The shifts in time provide the origin of vampires, and this story's vampire in particular, without the vampire having to tell the tale to the modern-day protagonist. Ridge provides plenty of vampire sex (indeed, the vampires in all of these stories are capable of doing much more than drinking blood, and they do a lot of it). Again, this is a story that could be developed into a full-length novel and offers a couple of unexpected twists in the art of vampire deception.

I'd have enjoyed Wolfe's story more if his vampire's lost love hadn't been glossed over. I like a haunted vampire (Rice is a genius at providing this), and the vampire here acts out of rage and heartbreak, but it's often directed in unnecessarily cruel ways toward undeserving victims. Wolfe redeems him in the end, when he grants one important victim's request, but in getting to that point, the story was less erotic than violent.

The collection should offer something for anyone who's interested in gay vampires--plenty of sex, plenty of blood, and all of the stories have benefited from good editing.

Rating:
Summary: Great Read - Timothy Ridge is an author to watch
Review: I really enjoyed this book and was tempted to read some of it again."The Vampire Stone" by Timothy Ridge is by far the best written. It's filled with great details about the locations and characters.
So descript, you actually feel like you're right there in this sleepy Hudson River village. Articulate and exciting, the Vampire Stone's character Roceres, is devilish and sometimes frightening to the point of feeling real chills. The wooden box's contents keep you reading and the sex leaves you wondering, who is this guy and where did he learn to do that?...Mr. Ridge is an accomplished writer and I'll be looking out for him in bookstores more. The other stories were also great reads, which is why I gave Midnight Thirsts 2 fangs up!


Rating:
Summary: Creative, erotic "gay vampire" collection
Review: I'll admit I first added this book to my Amazon "wish list" shortly after its announcement, thinking it was the latest in Herren's mystery tales. Since I am not usually a fan of the "vampire" fiction genre, I usually would not have chosen this book, a 321-page compilation of four erotic short stories about gay vampires. In retrospect, I'm glad I did.

Of the four stories, my least favorite was Timothy Ridge's "The Vampire Stone," simply because it had a rather convoluted plot, bouncing back and forth between modern and ancient times It is, however, a well written tale about an antiques dealer who comes across a mysterious wooden box from the 16th century, which changes his life forever.

I enjoyed Herren's "The Nightwatchers", which, like his novels, is based in New Orleans. Phillip is a 20-something would-be-actor working as a waiter and moonlighting as a male escort. After Phillip first spots the aluring and seductive Kevin Lockhart in a contest at a gay bar, his best friend Rachel finds herself working with a mysterious old man to save him from the consequences of his lust.

Michael Thomas Ford's "Carnival" brings us to the dark side of the lives of those who left their rural homes to tour with the carnival, as reclusive lifetime midway handyman Joe Flanagan finds his soulmate in Derry, a young man who is a new addition to their traveling show. He is warned to stay away from Derry by Mr. Star, the curator of the "freak show" wing of the carnival, and he finds himself caught up in a coverup of a series of murders.

My favorite out of the four was the very creative and entertaining "Vampire, Inc." by Sean Wolfe, which brings a "Vampires are people too!"-type vibe to the book. We meet notorious vampire Christo, still bitter over the death of his lover centuries ago, as he arrives in Denver CO, and takes in the local bar scene looking to "feed." Having been to Denver, I know at least two of the bars mentioned are real, as is his description of the gay scene there. But we learn of a "private club" that caters to kind of a gay circuit crowd into vampires, and we learn that politics and backbiting (taken a bit more literal in the context of vampires) is pretty much universal even in such circles.

All four are generally gay-positive, well written and quite erotic, and recommended for those who want "something different" in their reading.