Museum of Deviant Desires reviewed

Cover image, The Museum of Deviant Desires

Just found this on Amazon.com, posted today. Me, ‘meta-sexual’? There’s a thought…

“What I need” the narrator of Fulani’s “Burnout” tells us, “is some startling image that comes from nowhere and burns itself into my brain, my desires, causes instant addiction. What I need is a new mythos of erotica. . .”

I love the way this guy thinks!

Fulani is one of that rare, as yet officially unclassified species of erotic writer, the “meta-sexual;” a delightfully self-referential species noted for its uncanny ability to pleasure open-minded readers with intense multiple “brain-gasms.” And there are many to be enjoyed in this collection of short BDSM-centered fiction, informed by everything from Roland Barthes and Stanislaw Lem to Nu Fetish, industrial bondage; flash fiction and on-line piracy; underground music festivals, and those pulpy sexploitation magazines of the 50s and 60s with their lurid cover paintings and thick black “censor bars” redacting all the naughty bits in the grainy photos accompanying the articles.

The eleven very-short stories in this collection are sexy and cerebral; breezy, thought-provoking, laugh-out-loud funny and utterly addictive. Like a big heaping bowl of literary-erotic Lucky Charms; you can’t get enough. The multi-colored marshmallow shapes are irresistibly delicious, but the oat-cereal part is actually good for you–who knew? Fulani strikes just the right balance between light fluffy diversion and crunchy intellectual substance, letting his horny inner nerd come out to play the most scintilatingly kinky games; whimsically creating new words and worlds even as he establishes fascinating new paradigms for the next generation of erotic fiction.

There’s beauty here, however unexpected; the language can be lyrical even as it educes degradation and pain; the poetry of domination and submission set amid dystopian landscapes of industrial decay and urban blight. We wonder if this is what sex will be like in the future. But as the narrator of “Something Different” reminds us;

“Once you know it consciously, it’s impossible not to see how the whole of society, economy, psychology is a dense network of sexual signifiers.”

It’s true. Fulani’s stories draw their inspiration from an astonishingly diverse cosmos of commonplace artifacts; vacuum cleaners, toasters, plumbing supplies, burned out autos, melted plastic forms, all weirdly apt when turned to the author’s singularly amusing purpose.

Entertaining, sexy, hilarious, often self-effacing, “The Museum of Deviant Desires” is a trenchant critique of contemporary erotic literature with its finger firmly on the g-spot of popular culture; a tasty treat, not to be missed.

Published by 1001 Nights Press. It’s available on Amazon.com (you’ll see the review there as well), Amazon.co.uk, and if you go back to this blog post from April 27 it lists all the other places you can get it.

Edited to add: looking at clicks out of this blog, one or two people haven’t picked up the reminder that Erotica-Romance-Ebooks no longer operates. It was a website run by Xcite for the sale of third-party books along with their own. It  now redirects to the front page of the main Xcite.com website.

Vampire Skye review, and something strange for you

The Vampire Skye – cover

We’ve not posted anything for a while because, basically, other projects took up a lot of time. There should be news of several new publications soon. Meanwhile, you may recall Fulani’s novella The Vampire Skye came out at the back end of last year and it’s just been reviewed on The Romance Reviews under their GBLT topic heading (unsurprisingly because its a lesbian story). The reviewer, Book Addict, says:

It exceeded my expectations in world building, hot characters and erotic sex scenes. I look forward to reading more from this talented author. I recommend this to Sapphic readers who enjoy a paranormal story dominated by a sexy female vampire.

The reviewer appears to have assumed or imagined that Fulani is female, but more importantly that  Fulani is an actual individual rather than the assumed name of a secretive cabal of revolutionaries whose erotic writings are in fact coded critiques of contemporary society. That said, The Vampire Skye is available in ebook and other electronic formats from Xcite Books, from Amazon.co.uk, from Amazon.com, from Barnes and Noble in Nook format and probably from other places as well.

While we’re on the subject of reviews, prolific erotica author M. Christian has gone a little further in his quest for publicity for his recent book, Finger’s Breadth. The plot concerns a spate of attacks in the San Francisco gay community in which a psycho aumputates a section of a finger from his victims. It’s won excellent reviews as being a ‘gay erotic science fiction horror’ and a ‘scary but enlightening ride through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche’ (this last from Lisabet Sarai, herself a well-known erotic author).

M. Christian is threatening, though, to amputate a segment of one of his own fingers to gain additional publicity. He did tell us about this in advance and our advice was not to go there, because every author of erotica will now be expected to do something similar, and probably post the clip on YouTube… You should however note that M. Christian does admit that his track record for honesty in publicity campaigns ‘isn’t the best’… At any rate, you can judge the book for yourself by buying it on Amazon.com.

Sharazade and the 1001 Nights

A friend of ours recently decided to ‘experiment’ with self-publishing. The result is, in her own words, ‘A Short-Favored Thing, But Mine Own’ – and considering her online name and pen-name, Sharazade, are you really surprised she’s called it the 1001 Nights Press?

She has three books out to date, all of them relatively short – around 9000 words, so longer than most short stories but shorter than novella length. One, Good Girl, is her own (it’s also on Amazon.com, Amazon UK and some other places, and includes a second short story with it); the other two, Sharing Lucy and Taking Jennifer, are by James Wood. They’re all e-book only, and  Smashwords offers 10 different formats.

Good Girl appears to be trending rather well at the moment and Sharazade is already known for her book of stories, Transported, as well as contributions to other collections.

James Wood is newly-published, having been writing erotica for quite a while but not putting it out to a paying public. We’ve read Sharing Lucy, which is about a young freelancer who’s pressured by her manager (and lover) to make a business presentation ahead of schedule. However, when she arrives at his office to find him with a good-looking guy who turns out to be the client, she discovers it’s not so much a case of making a “presentation” as being the presentation. Some light bondage and heavy sex with both men follows…

Wood’s writing is, let’s say, rooted in the tropes of erotica from 20-30 years ago. It’s the kind of style that will be familiar to those who read Erotic Review magazine. But that’s not a criticism, and nor is it to say it’s outdated, really. Erotic Review has been undergoing a renaissance recently, since its re-launch as online-only; and anyway, Fulani writes for it. As a story, it has male characters whose attitudes and behaviours are somewhere between cavalier and chauvinist, but that’s perfectly acceptable for a good fantasy. It’s one of the best stories out there of its type and in that kind of style. Wood is certainly someone to watch for in the future.

And if that’s not your thing… well, there’s always M. Christian, with his generally more surreal and outlandish fantasies such as Love Without Gun Control.

So there you go – a heads-up on a new press, a short book review and namechecks for some other writers all rolled into one post.

‘Lust Bites’ and ‘Sex at Work’ reviews!

The Xcite ‘Lust Bites’ collection, with one story by me (Fulani) and one by Velvet Tripp came out a while back, but we’ve just heard it’s been reviewed over at Coffeetime Romance.

They say of Velvet’s story, ‘Tooth Fairy’:

Megan is helping her friend at a convention when an author comes up to her and starts a conversation. After a night of intense pleasure with the vampire, Megan finds she has not had enough and must find the vampire to get her kink fix once again.

Ms. Tripp knows how to keep the reader craving more. The way the story bounces from Megan herself to what she was reading in the novel was great. It adds moments of extra eroticism to this spicy tale. I enjoyed reading it immensely.

And on my story, ‘Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know’:

Sasha is surprised when the stranger comes up to her and tells her he likes her poetry. Somehow she ends up following Byron home and gets to know the real man himself very intimately.

This is a sexy read. I did feel as if it were a little stranger than what I like, but it really seemed to add to the overall element of the story. Fulani makes vampirism seem elegant and wordy and bold and romantic.

So we both feel pretty good about those kind words.

Since then, Velvet contributed a story to another collection, ‘Sex at Work’, which was reviewed by Sizzling Hot Books. While not specifically mentioning her (the review focuses mainly on the lead story), the reviewer did like the collection as a whole: ‘I would recommend Sex at Work anthology to anyone who has fantasies about sex at work, or who likes to read about those.’

I’d put proper links to the books in this post but it’s late and they’re on the ‘Our Publications’ page anyway!

Jane’s Guide says we’re quality!

We’re extraordinarily pleased to announce that Jane’s Guide, one of the best known and most respected guides to the ‘adult’ web, has reviewed us and thinks we’re quality. You can see their review here, and we’re pleased Jane thinks we’re a ‘nice author site that has the definite possibility of growing into a really lovely BDSM resource’. We’ll do our best to fulfill that prediction!

You’ll also see our badge of pride, the clickable ‘Jane’s Guide’ logo, in the left sidebar of this page.