Bing bang a bong

[erastes]

Requesting reviews is hard blooming work. Real solid GRAFT. I have a list of over 200 review sites and I've hardly scratched the surface:

Things I've discovered:

There are a lot of review sites
Some of them won't touch gay fiction (eww cooties)
Some are impossible to work out e.g. where to request a review
Some don't accept review requests
Some only review for pay or for advertising
Some won't accept PDF

It's tough! I guess this is the first time I've worked quite this hard sending to review sites. When Standish was released I was a complete newbie and didn't have the tools of the trade as it were, simply didn't know the existence of most of these places.

Anyway, that's dull. I want to talk about this new book I'm reading! It's called The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan and I've just read this review of it and brother! - you'd think it was another book entirely. This reviewer loves it as well (and shamingly knows of Morgan when I've not heard of him...)

What I'm loving (and granted I'm only into chapter 7) is that so far it's very fantasy (fuck-off big swords, mud, leather waistcoats, barbarians, yurts and the like) but the main protag is gay and it affects his life in the hundreds of ways that you'd expect it to, particularly as it's punishable by death (unsurprisingly) in his neck of the woods, and his big beefy barbarian buddies are generally not of the gay persuasion. I had to blink when words like faggot and queer were bandied around, but then I thought "why on earth not?" if we are calling all these other things by the same words, sword, yurt, demon, and the book IS in English - then there's no need to invent new words and insults for gay terms.

The other reviewer's review is far more intellectual than anything I'd ever come up with, but I think just sliding in the words "sexual repression" into a review doesn't exactly sum up the main character as "loving to suck men's cocks" as he crudely says (to his very disapproving father) himself.

I think the author's summing up on that review is just about perfect: "Look - it's like this: if you really, really love Tolkein with a firmly burning uncritical passion, then there's a good chance The Steel Remains is going to upset you. If you really, really love all those stories about simple, good-hearted farm-boys becoming princes or wizards, then there's a good chance The Steel Remains is going to upset you as well. And if you like your heroes masculine, muscular and morally upright, well, then you could be in serious trouble here."

That alone would have made me pick this book up. Although I can't agree with him when he says that his hero isn't masculine. Aside for a concern that he's developing a paunch he's very masculine. Just because he's gay doesn't mean he doesn't have to be, either! More when I've finished it!!

Eurovision tonight. We don't have a chance in hell of winning it, our song is rubbish as usual but I shall still be watching. *goes to search for a Eurovision LJ Comm* there must be one....

Comments

[eledhwenlin]

Every time you talk about a book I end up putting that book on my Amazon wishlist (they'll make a fortune of me). *sigh* ;)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Ooops. Sorry about that, hun. Hold fire until I've finished it, it might turn out to be pants, but I don't think so.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Hm, but I do love Tolkien with a (not uncritical) firmly burning passion. Not so much the rest of it, though. I'll wait and see what you think when you've finished it :)

Speaking of reviews, do you have anything you need reviewing for SiN?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Yes! Have emailed you!

[m-barnette.livejournal.com]

A few gay friendly review sites, all are easy to contact, accept pdf and usually manage timely reviews:

http://rainbow-reviews.com/

http://www.loveromancesandmore.com/

http://fallenangelreviews.com/

Those are my top picks.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Aw thats kind of you. RR already has a copy, and I have the others, it's just a case of wading through the other 200 or so on this huge list I've compiled. It shook me when I started getting getting "we only do het" emails back from people. I guess I live in another world!!

[mongrelheart.livejournal.com]

I just ordered his first book Altered Carbon from Amazon. Didn't know he wrote sword type fantasy as well. From the review it sounds pretty awesome.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Let me know what you think of it. The Steel Remains (I found out last night) is not an easy read at all, there was just a horrible execution, but still absorbing. He goes one step further in gore than GRRM, it seems.

[megleigh.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in your list. Do you have it posted anywhere? I have a het romance releasing in July, you see. ;)

Also, the book sounds interesting so far. I will wait and see what you think when you've finished it, though.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I haven't yet - when I've been through it completely and have weeded out the dead lists, I'm going to post it on the EAA so if you are not a member, join before the end of the month!

[semioticwarrior.livejournal.com]

One of the things I love about your blog is that you share your efforts in promoting your work. Getting the book contract sounds like just the beginning! Thanks for giving the rest of us an idea about what *else* "being a writer" involves.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I think that it's important to share info. I wish that I'd had some pointers when I was just starting out, and frankly if there's anything I can do to encourage others to make the leap I will.

[liebesdammerung.livejournal.com]

Just because he's gay doesn't mean he doesn't have to be, either!

Hear, hear! I don't like it when people assume that all gay people are extremely feminine. Or when people assume that every gay couple has a "masculine" and a "feminine" partner. I consider myself a pretty masculine guy, and I am attracted to very masculine guys. But no, that's not possible, according to some people. Sheesh.

[liebesdammerung.livejournal.com]

Agh, I probably shouldn't leave random rants on your journal. :/

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Quite the reverse. My LJ is a safe place to rant about anything. I have my flist whipped into behaving. Argue politely all you like!

Exactly, and I agree with you. I know many very campy couples, but I know couples that you wouldn't have the smallest clue that either of them were gay. I don't know much about bears for example, but surely some bears are attracted to other bears. Shared hiking and shooting of many innocent creatures. I just annoyed with anyone who says "[x] group are like this" because that's just daft.

I remember someone saying a while back that he didn't agree with the way that X writer wrote their gay characters as it didn't resonate with his experience. Another of my flist pointed out that no-one's story was the same, and especially within time and space. A gay man in modern California will have a different story to one in Victorian Britain, or modern gay Greece.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh and there are little touches which I liked, like being pissed off that he ruined a perfectly good leather waistcoat during a battle with monsters and being a little vain about a paunch that is encroaching "his slender and ridged hips"

:)

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Oh God! I'm going to have to avoid this until I've finished my WIP about gay Scythians.

It can still go on the wish list though.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

It's certainly a refreshing read. It's good to just have a character who happens to be gay rather than having a romance slant to it.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Hmm, might move it further up the old wish list then. Thanks for the review. I take for more notice of my flist than publishers blurbs.