pornokitsch

Friday Five: Gateway Smut

With one notable exception, we've never actually written about porn on Pornokitsch. Or erotica. Or any other sort of sexually-charged literature. And, all joking aside, this is a huge and diverse genre, and, to an outsider, more than a little intimidating. What's it about? What's good? What are the classics? Where do we start?

Fortunately, we've got Tiffani Angus, here to explain where smut begins...

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I read erotica. I write erotica. But as a young reader, I didn’t jump right in and start with Anais Nin. I built up to it, reading things that didn’t seem like smut. Gateway smut, if you will, where the sex scenes weren’t the most important parts of the book … but those few pages were always the most handled.

The summer I turned thirteen, my best friend and I spent hours lounging around on the couch, scanning through her mom’s stacks of Harlequin paperbacks to find the dirty goods. This was the early ’80s, when the Harlequin status quo of virginal heroine gave way to new imprints that allowed the girl to have ‘done it’ already. Sadly, my friend’s mom didn’t read those, so we were left with vague (and much too short) sex scenes. Still, it was a start, albeit a disappointing one.

No Fifty Shades of Grey back then, being read openly on the bus. Your smut was either out there, in the form of Playboy, or it was buried beneath glossy dust jackets of ‘women’s lit’. But life finds a way, and the smut got found.

Here are five novels that that taught me about smut, and will probably continue to teach others as well...

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews: Children hidden away in the attic of a mansion, two generations of incest, and filicide. The spawn of several sequels (the final one finished by a ghostwriter after Andrews’ death), Flowers was popular among my young teenage friends and me because the narrator is a teenage girl like us... only trapped in an attic with her handsome, sensitive, strong older brother. Hey, he wasn’t our brother, so we could understand the attraction. With each page the adult characters’ actions became more reprehensible — and unrealistic — but we couldn’t look away. We knew the incest was taboo, but that’s part of what made it so hot  since the scenes weren’t terribly explicit.

Friday Five: Winning with Webcomics

Last Friday, Jenni and Stefan swung by to inspire us with some of the hottest new and ongoing comic books... this week we're going digital. This whole Internet thing, not just a passing phase. The tubes are busier than ever with creators making brilliant webcomics. But... there are so many! 

Fortunately, Laura "Lor" Graham and Sara Westrop are some ideas where new webcomics readers can start. Lor is a writer, brassist (I made up that term) and provides an extremely soothing Twitter presence at @LorGraham. [Also, we published her first, so ha! Wait for 1853.]

Sara writes and edits comics for a living with Markosia. Her new webcomic, FANGIRLS, is out now (and whole-heartedly recommended). You can hassle her for updates at @sarawezzie. This is Sara's second Friday Five. If she does three, she wins a toaster.

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Lor:

1. The Darwin Faeries

This got pitched to me by a friend with the following: “there’s a loud, brash, ginger Scottish faerie in this. I didn’t know you had wings.” Charming friends I have. The story follows a group of tartan-wearing faeries punishing a male human who has spilled the blood of one of their own. It is in its second issue at the moment, and as a Scot I find it entertaining.

2. Supernormal Step

This probably my favourite webcomic at the moment, the tattoo of one of the featured “Tiny Fairy” on my left forearm will testify to that. Drawn and written by the very talented Mike Lunsford, and follows the story of Fiona Dae, sucked out of our world into one that is one above normal step to the left. She discovers magic, creepy security guards, and teams up with a reformed dark mage and a guy who turns into a bunny every time he does something wrong. Highly entertaining.

Friday Five: Comic Books You Should Be Reading

Comics. Where to start, right? There's always a cross-over multi-crisis on infinite shelves and, honestly, if you aren't up on the adventures of ultimate secret santa, there's no point in starting now anyway, you have to go back to the spin-off series that... etc. etc. And, hey, that just got cancelled. Oops.

Here to help are Stefan of Civilian Reader and Jenni of, well, many, many things (not the least of is her series of urban fantasy vignettes for Pandemonium). They're both people that capital-k-Know their comics so we've asked them to recommend five series that they're "following compulsively". How else would we know which bandwagon upon which to leap?

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Stefan: Jared and Anne gave me the brief – “5 comics I’m following compulsively” – and… I completely blanked.

Not because there aren’t series I am addicted to, but I don’t actually follow many on an issue-by-issue basis. Instead, I’m mostly addicted to collected editions.

So, here are five series that I am either still following and collecting, or obsessively read while it was ongoing.

1. Fables (Vertigo) - Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham

I only tried Fables after I read the first couple of issues of Fairest, its latest spin-off series. Since then, and in very quick order, I read the first five Deluxe Editions, and I’m absolutely hooked. Willingham has drawn together some of literature’s and fairy tales’ best-loved characters, brought them into a contemporary setting, and made them wholly his own. He has created his own modern mythology for these characters – everyone from Big Bad Wolf, Cinderella, the Frog Prince and so many more. This is, without a doubt, one of the best comic series ever published. The wonderful thing? It’s still running, and has thus-far not lost any steam in the story-telling.

Friday Five: Five books that should win the Hugo (but probably won't)

Our first Friday Five for 2013 is a doozy, with two of the interweb's more thoughtful genre reviewers swinging by to chat about the Hugo Awards. As you may have noticed from the recent inundation of "'I'm eligible!" posts, nominations for Science Fiction's Most Biggest Award are open. Anyone attending the 2012, 2013 or 2014 WorldCons can (and should) nominate their favourite works of the year. 

Alas, even the Most Biggest Award can't catch everything. We challenged Justin (Staffer's Book Review) and Glen (here, there and everywhere) to come up with the titles that should win a Hugo... but probably won't.

Justin:

#1) The Troupe by Robert Jackson Bennett

There isn't a better writer in genre fiction right now than Robert Jackson Bennett. He's smart, funny, and meaningful. I put The Troupe first on this list not just because it's the best book I read this year, but because Bennett the obvious choice last year to win the "Not a Hugo" (John W. Campbell Award) and he didn't even make the short list. This leads me to believe that given the same pool of nominators he will be forgotten again in 2013. I'm sure The Troupe will win other awards, namely those that aren't trafficked by genre super fans, but it really deserves to win something of a higher profile. The Troupe, and all of Bennett's novels, deserve a wider readership.

#2) Sharps by KJ Parker

Sharps isn't one of the five best books I've read this year. I put it on this list though to emphasize how bad the Hugo voting pool can be. KJ Parker's books are brilliant. The writing is understated and efficient, with plots that are tragic and heart breaking. But, KJ Parker doesn't really do fantasy. At least not in a traditional sense. A Parker novel is always obviously set in a second world, but like Earth insofar as that there is little to no evidence of the arcane or impossible. Instead, the novels are always grounded and, dare I say, authentic. Parker has never been nominated for a best novel Hugo and I would be stunned if that ever changed. Sharps isn't her best work, but it is a very good one and is certainly better than many novels that have been nominated in recent years.

Friday Five - Book Porn Edition

Nothing too saucy, but we were doing some cleaning, and thought we'd capture shots of a few of the more unconventionally beautiful books on our shelves.

What eclectic treasures do you have lurking on your bookcases? Please share!

John Ruskin's Mornings in Florence - Bernard Tauchnitz, Leipzig (1907). This has a crazy cover with etched leather and (broken) metal clasps. I'm a little disappointed that it isn't a bit Ye Olde Demonologie, but I suppose Ruskin rambling about art is a close second.

Five. Friday Five.

Hi! Gosh, it's been a while, hasn't it? To make up for having left everyone dangling for months, I'm doing my very own Friday Five, all by myself. And my subject, of course, is James Bond. Because if there's one subject I can carry on (and on... and on) about, it's James Bond.

Also, the Bond film franchise is fifty years old.

Favorite Bond films:

5. License to Kill
4. Goldfinger
3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
2. Casino Royale
1. Thunderball

I expect you might be surprised by License to Kill above; it's a deeply flawed film, but I appreciate that it was an effort to make Bond more brutal and violent and thoughtful. Thunderball remains my favorite because it is monumentally insane, and because that extraordinary underwater battle is utterly hypnotic.

More after the jump!

Friday Five(ish): Strange Stories of the Apocalypse

Two days left for Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse! We love all our print & digital children, but Apocalypse was our first book, and will always hold a special place in our hearts. 

Here's ten sneaky secrets and fun facts about Stories of the Apocalypse:

1) Extra limited. Apocalypse is ostensibly a 100 copy hardcover... but the print run was five copies short (Tip to budding publishers: check contracts carefully). A 95-copy limited edition doesn't have the same ring to it. Despite being a numbered edition, we're not sure which 5 numbers don't exist - something in the 70s, we think...

2) Rebecca Levene is not in this book. But we can understand the confusion. For some reason, one of the editors (cough) got it into his head that Rebecca Levene had a story in Apocalypse. So all the publicity material - the first website, the postcards, a few A3 posters - had her name on it. (We finally got her for Smoke.) (Other name goofs: the mysterious "Louise 'K.' Morgan"...)

3) First print appearances. Lou Morgan, Tom Pollock, Archie Black, Oz Vance and Den Patrick. Lou and Tom had their book deals already. Den's came this year. Archie and Oz have both since sold stories to other publishers. Like a reverse-curse! (Fun facts: although not the first short from either Louis Greenberg or Sarah Lotz, it is the first S.L. Grey short story. Also the first prose fiction from Chrysanthy Balis.)

4) London burning, America flooding. The London riots appear (or inspire) the stories by Lauren Beukes and Scott Andrews - possibly Andy Remic's, as well. And the US goes under (literally) in stories by Kim Lakin-Smith and Archie Black. Other parts of the US, UK and South Africa are destroyed in the other stories. (The suburbs are particularly lethal - they're singled out for special attention by Lauren Beukes, Magnus Anderson and Chrysanthy Balis.) The only story to take place wholly off Earth? Jon Courtenay Grimwood's "The Last Man". 

Sam Wilson's Personal Apocalypses

Rather than going for a broad, cracked.com-style top five list for my Pandemonium guest post, I’m going to do something a little smaller and more philosophical. I’m not enough of an Armageddon expert to be able to proclaim a top five with square-jawed authority, but there’s something about apocalyptic fiction that drives it straight into the territory of the Big Questions.

Of course, just because a story can get there, it doesn’t mean it’ll have convincing answers. Some of the books and films on this list get right to the edge of significance and then fuck it up, like a tourist at the Grand Canyon taking blurry photos of the tour bus. But even these disasters can be educational. So the apocalypses below aren’t necessarily my favourites. They’re just the ones that, intentionally or unintentionally, have made me wonder what’s really going on with post-apocalyptic fiction.

WORLD WAR Z

I might as well start with something I can recommend pretty much without reservation.

Max Brooks’ World War Z tells the story of a global zombie apocalypse through interviews with survivors over a decade later. What makes it particularly interesting is the detailed way it depicts the zombie infection spreading and society collapsing, aided by profiteering corporations, inept military strategy, bureaucratic bungling and short-sighted self-interest. It also speculates on the ways that different countries might deal with an extreme threat, recognising the plurality of human cultures. Rather than just saying “the world ends” it takes it apart piece by piece, laying out the parts like a technical diagram. It’s a thoughtful and engaging strategy, and reading the book made me realise something important about apocalyptic fiction: It’s almost impossible to create a story of the world falling apart without revealing, on a fairly deep level, how you see it right now.

Science fiction is mostly about the present to begin with, but apocalyptic fiction takes it a step further. It removes a fundamental part of our lives – civilisation – and then asks what’s left. It’s a great opportunity to reveal the world in a fresh way, and it’s pretty obvious when a post-apocalyptic writer is unable or unwilling to do that.

Contrast the clear-eyed detail of World War Z with…

Charlie Human on Five Memes that Deserve to be Novelised

This week's Friday Five is very special.

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Writing is hard and the Internet makes it even harder. So with NaNoWriMo around the corner I thought I’d throw out some writing ideas that actually channel the urge to procrastinate and further evade putting something down on the blank page.

Hipster Cop

Genre: Nu Post-Scandinavian Crime Fiction
Writer: David Eggers

Hipster Cop only investigates old cases; 1973-1978 was totally the best time for crime. But when the lead singer of an Icelandic band you’ve probably never heard of is killed, Hipster Cop faces his toughest challenge yet when he is forced to go undercover in the mainstream. Will he survive or will his craving for craft beer become too much for him?

What the critics will say: “I’m not an author, just an avid reader of novels, mostly anything by Stephen Leather. This book is terrible. The worst book ever written. Rather try something by Stephen Leather. Seriously. He’s awesome. Wait, which account am I posting this from?” – User Sockpuppet648 on Amazon.com

Friday Five: Killer Crime Series by Female Authors

What happened to Friday Five? We suspect Professor Plum, in the library, with a wrench. Plum's always seemed like the dodgy one, but maybe that's our latent anti-intellectualism at work.

This week, Friday Five returns, aided by the mojo of Lavie Tidhar - one of the great cross-genre, cross-over (and occasionally just cross) authors, BFS winner for his short fiction and a Red Tentacle, BSFA and WFA finalist for his exceptional Osama (out now in paperback, hint!).

His topic of choice? Crime series by female authors. Lavie's joined by Anne, Bex and me for this one - we all wanted to chip in...

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Lavie: Carol O’Connell’s Kathy Mallory novels are some of my favourite ever crime novels. Kathy is a wonderful creation – she was obviously an influence on Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander and, in a less multimillion-dollar international franchise, also on my own Milady de Winter in Camera Obscura. Kathy is complex, possibly sociopathic, with a strong sense of justice and a need to understand her own troubling childhood. It’s hard to pick favourites in this series. I have a soft spot for Shell Game, which features magicians (a personal favourite!) but the two highlights of the series are Flight of the Stone Angel – a powerful Southern Gothic in which Kathy discovers the truth about her mother’s death – and Find Me, which brings Kathy’s personal story to a conclusion when she discovers her father’s diary.

Who doesn’t like Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael? The gentle hero of 21 novels set in 12th century Shrewsbury, Cadfael is a monk and ex-crusader who now happily serves as a herbalist in the Benedictine order. Cadfael just happens to fall into murders committed around him – usually while helping a couple of young lovers on their way. Gentle, unhurried and gripping, the series follows Cadfael’s life as the war for the kingdom rages around Britain, and introduces his fellow brothers, his changing but always hapless assistants, and eventually the son he never knew he had.