AUTHOR: Shayne Carmichael
PUBLISHER: Phaze
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 17k)
GENRE: Gay paranormal erotic romance
COST: $2.00
In
For a long time, I didn’t buy anything from Phaze. If I wanted a Phaze book, I had to go to Fictionwise and look at it there, because Phaze didn’t have excerpts on their site. Well, a little while ago, they added excerpts to their sales pages so I started checking out the site on Sunday nights when they posted their new releases. I sincerely hope this title isn’t indicative of their overall quality.
It’s hard to say which is worse – the poor editing or the quality of the writing. There are mistakes galore – possessives out of place, more than a handful tense shifts, even prostrate for prostate once. Muddling through those is difficult enough, but the prose also has a tendency to be simplistic and repetitive, with little fresh detail and clumsy dialogue. The characters offer a lot in the context of so-called conversations, and frankly, it was hard not to laugh at the absurdity of Jake telling Les in the middle of Les’ job interview, “I’m partial to men myself…” A job interview. Where they’ve only just met. But really, this kind of oversharing is indicative of the whole story. It definitely doesn’t help to make the already shallow writing any more enjoyable.
What isn’t overshared is any detail on what kind of paranormal world this is. The vampire who sires Jake disappears without telling him what exactly is going on, leaving behind only a note with the scantiest of details. Apparently, however, Jake can move about in the sunshine all he wants, and there are no hints as to what might actually kill him. The only change that appears to happen is now he has to drink blood to survive, and oh yeah, added bonus of living forever if he’s careful. Without specific details or depth, the entire paranormal aspect of this story feels tacked on, used as a device to make Jake just a little bit more exotic.
Being a vampire is really the only interesting thing I know about Jake. Oh, and he likes to embroider, which I’ll admit was another moment where I snorted in disbelief. I know even less about Les. Other than the biographical details he gives in extensive detail during his interview, I don’t know what makes him tick. I couldn’t tell you how he’d react to certain situations because I never got to know him as a person. Added in to the other problems I had with the story and I can’t say I’ll be jumping through hoops to try this author again. I have a feeling, too, I’ll be a little more choosy about what might interest me from Phaze as well.
| Readability | 3/10 – Chronic technical issues added to a plodding style makes this a chore to read |
| Hero #1 | 4/10 – There are flashes of being interesting, but the shallow writing quickly douses those |
| Hero #2 | 2/10 – Just an adoring body, willing to be whatever the plagued hero needs. |
| Entertainment value | 2/10 – Bored and annoyed probably wasn’t the response this author wanted to get from me. |
| World building | 4/10 – The entire paranormal angle feels tacked on, with little to no explanation, and can’t save the few Old West details that are tossed in |
| TOTAL: | 15/50 |
5 comments:
Heh, heh, heh.
I believe there is such a demand for gay romances nowadays that most publishers aren't too choosy about what they put out to meet the demand. Like menage stories, gay romances are now on my list of themes that I go out of my way to avoid unless I am familiar with the author or I hear good buzz about that particular story. Too much half-hearted and slipshod stories out there for my liking.
Yeah, I'd buy that. Which is really a shame for some of the stronger authors out there, who don't even have the same advantage as some of the het authors in turning to the print world, since it's a lot harder to get an erotic gay romance out there than in the e-world.
A majority of the gay material Phaze puts out is bad. Their editing is also substandard. The only good author writing for Phaze is L.E. Bryce. Her style doesn't work for everyone, but I think it's unique. Unfortunately, her books are also victims of bad editing.
I haven't read Bryce, though I've seen her around. And I actually stopped looking at Phaze's site altogether because they stopped doing excerpts. The only way for me to even consider a Phaze story anymore is if I happen to see it at FW or ARe, but I don't go to either place very often.
The same thing annoys me. Excerpts are important to me because if a blurb is interesting enough, or even if it's not that interesting, looking at an excerpt gives me a feel for what the story's going to be like.
As for L.E. Bryce, the reactions to her books have been pretty strong, at least with other reviewers. They either really like her work, or really hate it. I really like it; she "tells" more than she "shows" but that style seems to work for her stories.
She writes series, though, so it might be kind of confusing as to where to start. If you're thinking about trying her, the series follow this order.
Dead to the World splits off into two series.
Series 1: Water Lovers
- Ki'iri
- Becoming
Series 2: Tajhaan Courtesans
- The Golden Lotus
- Concubinage
They're in the same world and the only difference is that one series takes place in Sirilon and the other takes place in Tajhaan. Before reading either series, you have to read Dead to the World first. It's about a Water Lover from Sirilon who's kidnapped and taken to Tajhaan to be a slave (or "courtesan"). I actually follow both series religiously :)
She also has a stand-alone called My Sun and Stars but she's coming out with a sequel for that in April/May called A Crown of Stars. I don't know anything about this series because I haven't read it yet.
Hope that helps!
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