TITLE:
WheelsAUTHOR: Vic Winter
PUBLISHER:
Torquere PressLENGTH: Short story (roughly 13k)
GENRE: Contemporary gay erotic romance
COST: $2.25
Online, they’re HammerDude and Wheels95. Offline, they’re Gordy and Brian. Online, they’ve been best friends for months. Offline, they’re about to have their first date.
Gordy is a clumsy, computer geek meeting his online best friend for the first time. He’s nervous about the first date anyway, but when he discovers that Brian is in a wheelchair, his nerves go into doubletime. In spite of a rocky start, the date goes off brilliantly, leaving these two trying to figure out where to take it next. The online world doesn’t seem quite enough anymore…
The best way for me to not be quite as bothered by technical mistakes is for me to be charmed by other aspects of a story. The narrator in this particular short is not your typical romance hero. He’s clumsy, a self-professed geek, and an e-mail addict who spends most of his time on the computer because frankly, it’s easier and more fun than most real life stuff. He has a self-deprecating sense of humor that attracted me from the beginning, and the prose is written in a third person, stream of consciousness style that’s just fun to read for a change.
For a little while. The one disadvantage to stream of consciousness is that people are creatures of habit. We do the same things, say the same things. Well, so does Gordy. By 2/3’s of the way through the story, I rolled my eyes every time he said “wow.” Seriously. I counted. The word “wow” comes up 31 times in the story, and 23 of those come after they’ve left the restaurant from their date. Which happens 5k into the story. Can we say overkill?
What that’s indicative, however, is an editor not having a tight enough control on the story. There are technical issues scattered throughout – passed for past, for instance – but not enough that I would have singled them out, if it wasn’t for the repetition in the stream of consciousness aspect. I understand that this is probably explained away as a Gordy quirk, but it’s the author’s job to keep it fresh. And the editor’s job to point it out to the author when he doesn’t.
Since so much attention is focused on Gordy, Brian ends up being shortchanged in the characterization department. I’m sure he’s solid and interesting enough, but with all of Gordy’s wows and breathless adulation, he’s not the most reliable of witnesses. I would have much preferred breaking it up to get Brian’s POV at some point. That would have given me a better handle on him, while also providing an outside perspective on Gordy. Is he really as geeky as he proclaims? Is his clumsiness a magnification of his insecurity issues or something real? These are questions I would have loved to get the answers to, but the way it’s currently written, those are denied me.
Still, it’s nice reading about real guys falling in love for a change. The sex is pleasant enough, the emotion seems mostly real, and best of all, I’d probably try this author again. That’s one of my real measuring sticks. A lot of authors don’t make that cut.
| Readability | 6/10 – A fresh voice gets held back by loose editing and repetition |
| Hero #1 | 7/10 – Quirky and likable, though it gets tiring reading in his voice |
| Hero #2 | 6/10 – Suffers from not being as well characterized since it feels like the author is spending too much time making Gordy quirky |
| Entertainment value | 6/10 – In spite of technical issues, I liked this for the new kind of heroes it presented and for having a sense of humor |
| World building | 8/10 – Brian’s disability is treated intelligently and realistically, and I’d buy Gordy’s world without blinking |
| TOTAL: | 33/50 |
