Erastes

The historical writers at Carina Press have a blog – Romancing the Past and we are doing a Round Robin story – where each one of us posts, seven parts in all. 

Part Five has now been posted and can be found here:

http://romancingthepast.blogspot.com/2011/12/romancing-christmas-past-part-5.html

You’ll need to read the (short) previous chapters to have any kind of clue of what is going on, but it’s actually quite good. Or was, until I got my corrupting influence all over it. Bwahahahaha. It’s gone from a fairly normal Regency ball to gay intrigue, french spies, government intrigue and homosexual blackmail!

Hope you enjoy it. There’s a competition running in it as well, if you spot all the Christmas Carols mentioned in the seven parts, you are in the running for seven of Carinas historical titles by the authors involved including my Muffled Drum (unless you want to wait for A Brush With Darkness)

OK this is getting embarrassing now. but so lovely!

Alan Chin reviews for the Examiner:

The plot is a simple one, without any subplots to cloud the water. But there is something to be said for a simple story told well, and this story is told extremely well. Erastes has obviously worked hard to improve her writing style and voice, and it shines here.

Book Binge:

Edward’s story was fascinating and heartbreaking. I can’t even imagine what to grade it. The writing was great. But the story…I was unprepared for the way it went down. Don’t go into this thinking you’re getting a romance. There was a story about two people falling love, yes, but sometimes you fall in love with the wrong person…
But in the end, I have to give Junction X a 5 out of 5. It was compelling as hell and to be so wrapped up in a book that it breaks your heart? That’s talent.

One of my favourite pieces of classical music ever. Sarabande by Handel – used as the main theme for Kubrik’s Barry Lyndon, one of the most beautiful films that no-ones ever seen. (also the theme music to Standish, as keen eared people will know)

And THIS! I cannot believe I’ve never heard this Abba song before.

Where have I been?

I got unnecessarily excited and bunnied listening to this. I’ve listened to it about 20 times today and it gives me goosebumps every single time. Brilliance.

Romancing the Blog is doing a Round Robin Romance story (thank goodness I don’t have to wrap it up) over the month of December. Every couple of days a chapter is posted and then the next writer takes up the reins and runs with the story. it’s changed in tone already which was a neat twist—and now SOMEHOW by crikey, I’ve got to post a chapter on the 12th and no—I’m not going to go with the whole “everyone’s het” theme that’s going on!

Will Lord Ambry be hiding a monster cock and a penchant for footmen under that urbane exterior? (you won’t find out about the cock-monster, because it’s got to be suitable for all…) Is Amelia hiding more than her nationality under her frock? Will Louisa be duped into become a Regency Beard?  What is Thomas’s game?

Read the Blog and FIND OUT!

1. I have got the cover for “A Brush With Darkness” which will be out with Carina in March next year. It’s not as gorgeous as “Muffled Drum” as that would be a hard number to beat, but it’s not bad. I don’t like the naked figures, either for their nakedness or for their ugly faces—I have never really cared if cover figures look like my vision of the characters because everyone might have a different view of them, but they are a bit ugly, it has to be said. See what you think. It’s not like it is going to be on physical shelves, after all, I suppose. But there’s references to artists, and a nice cityscape of Firenze, so that’s all relevant!

In other news – I had some great news this morning, Mere Mortals came third in Elisa Rolle’s book awards in the historical category, and Last Gasp got an honourable mention in the same category. The great news here is that I didn’t know I was even nominated and so the votes were cast on the books alone and not because I went around to every group in the world begging for votes. Hurrah! Thank you so much to anyone that did vote for me.

I’m stunned – really stunned. I think I started to feel a sense of unreality when Rick Reed’s review came in and was good. Since then the reviews have just continued to come in. I know I shouldn’t stress the “gay male reviews” because it isn’t right to do so—but the fact that that faction is enjoying the book so much pleases me more than I can say. I didn’t write this for them, or for women—I never, ever do that, no matter what people say (why limit yourself to only 50% of your potential readership?) but I was rather sitting on the edge of my seat as to what they might think—even though my publisher and my agent are both male and both had unlimited support for the book.

Anyway, before I get all weepy – here’s the three reviews that popped up over night

Alan Chin  ….If you are searching for a typical romance that will steam your glasses and make you feel good in the end, keep looking. If you enjoy a serious story of how mistakes cause pain, how passion can injure as well as please, then by all means, give Junction X a read.

Gerry Burnie  …. this is a brave new frontier, sensitively and superbly written, and begging to be read both for enjoyment and contemplation. Five bees.

Amos Lassen   ….Erastes use of the English language is an exercise in subtlety. She seems to handpick every word and when all is taken together, we get sublime gorgeous prose. When you take that prose and put it to a wonderful plot, you get magic and that magic is a trademark of Erastes.

www.cheyennepublishing.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Cheyenne Publishing to reprint 1979 historical gay romance novel, Wingmen, by Ensan Case

Camas, WA, USA – December 1st, 2011 – In 1979 Avon Books took a risk by publishing a gay romance novel about two Navy flying aces who managed to find love in the midst of their bombing raids in the Pacific during World War II. While many breakthrough, gay-themed novels of the 1970s did get recognition and are fondly remembered by LGBT readers, Wingmen somehow slipped though the cracks, partly because the traditional romance readers who made up Avon’s customer base weren’t yet ready to embrace gay love.

In February 2012, Cheyenne Publishing will reprint this authentic wartime romance in paperback and for the first time in the eBook format.

Ensan Case was only 28 years old when he wrote Wingmen in 1978. Discouraged by its less-than-stellar reception, he gave up writing and turned to other pursuits. Recently, on a whim he did a Google search and was amazed to discover that there was new interest in the long out-of-print book. He decided to shop it around to some independent publishers and ultimately accepted an offer from Cheyenne Publishing.

Cheyenne Publishing is an independent press founded in 2007, and specializes in LGBT historical novels as well as LGBT-themed young adult books. Last May Cheyenne Publishing’s Normal Miguel by Erik Orrantia won a Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Romance for 2010.

Contact:
Mark Probst
webmaster@cheyennepublishing.com
PO Box 872412
Vancouver, WA 98687-2412

Hmmm….

I love this series. I do. Partly because it’s been filled with games that I not only finish but am actually pretty damned good at (apart from roof chases, where fall off, wobble around on the edges, go the wrong way and generally panic or behave like a drunken fool). I have really appreciated the way the games have grown, expanded, added elements and got swiftly away from the “do three things to get to the boss section” rigidity of the first game.

But with this game, I really felt that the developers had listened to one person too many, and had done so much to make it as accessible as possible that they had made it too damned accessible and it was so blooming easy that I breezed through it as if… I was going to put “it was SuperMarioLand” here but then realised that I really struggled with that game and it was a hell of lot harder.

Due to the size of the city (Constantinople) I thought I was really going to have an epic game in front of me, so I was disappointed only to have 9 sequences to start with, and the dungeons were laughably simple. (I assume that Ubisoft will want MORE money and produce Download Content in short order to give us more quests and we will pay like idiots) I remember screaming and pulling my hair out with some of the dungeons in previous games, having to do sections over and over again to get the acrobatics right, but although the dungeons were mind-bogglingly-eye-wateringly beautiful in ACR, they again–were far too simple. I actually did the “Chase the Templars in the boat” section in one swift uninterrupted run which is Not Like Me, I assure you.  One reviewer I saw on Youtube said it was probably because in previous games the dungeons were optional quests, whereas in this game they are part of the story and have to be done. But all the same, was that any reason to make them so bloody easy?

The balance of the game was off, WAY off. I finished the game but found that I still had one den to free, and I had only converted a fraction of shops – hadn’t bought any landmarks. I never had enough money, to buy anything much – not even weapons or upgraded pouched. I never bought the crossbow (which was hugely expensive) and I LOVE the crossbow, as I never had the dosh in my pocket long enough. In Ac2 and in Brotherhood I had time enough and money enough to do this as I went along. I didn’t really feel like going back and doing it all AFTER the story had finished, because Ezio was no longer there, and had in fact been banished.

Where were all the side quests?  I am assuming they were to be found in the Faction houses or HQs or something, but I never found them—once again the map was very difficult to read unless you blew it up every time and then the directions/distance were hard to judge. There was what looked like an interesting sub-sub-quest where you had to blow open the locked wells so you could use them as hiding places, but you only found them by accident and it was far far easy to escape from any guards who were chasing you and once again you could call in the assassins you had trained to take out anyone who was after you anyway.

I hated that concept, and wish that it was an “opt in” choice. In the first and second game it was all down to you. Finding the right spot, choosing your route, staying out of site, out of trouble, out of the eyeline of the guards and then right at the crucial moment you would strike, change direction and walk away and no-one would be any the wiser. Now all you have to do was find your target then press one button and the assassins do the hard work, I mean – where’s the bloody challenge in that? That’s like getting Solid Snake to sneak into an armed encampment, hide under a truck, press L2 and then the SAS turn up and kill everyone in the vicinity while Snake has a crafty wank. I mean fag.

I also felt – repeating what I said above about the developers listening to everyone – that the Den Defence mini game was irritating in the extreme. It was purely a very pretty “defend the tower” desktop game and I never found the right way to kill the armoured machine things. So what I did was let all the rampaging Templars run past me, screaming and waving their big swords, go “la la la” for a few moments while the required number entered the den (and oddly set fire to it while they were in there) and the den and area fell to Templars.  All I had to do then was find the Den Captain, whistle for the Assassins and the area was mine again without all that mucking about with protecting the tower. BORING.

I was surprised there wasn’t a version of Angry Birds, to be honest. Throwing pigs at Templars. Now that could have been fun.

As for the ending, I was pretty annoyed about it. When are we going to get ANY answers? All Zeus (or whoever it was) told us was more of What We Already Knew.

Beautiful, fun to play, but far too easy (why can’t we have difficulty levels?) and far too short, too.

Or nothing major anyway, there was a bit of tidying up and some cursory editing on I Knew Him, taking words from various word docs and putting them all in the main document so I’m satisfied that I’ve got all the story in one place. Then I sent to someone for safe keeping—I’ve lost the bloody thing once, don’t want that to happen again.

I didn’t manage to Write or Die today, I absolutely meant to from the very moment that I arrived at Dad’s but he was quite attention taking –and so was Sasha, so the best laid plans gang oft agly and all that. Day off tomorrow, and I’ll see if I can WoD in 500 word bursts.

I do like the idea that it prevents me from looking things up—which is one of my biggest “there goes the rest of the day” problems—so I just type “LOOK THIS UP” and that’s the end of it. 

I had the most wonderful present today which had me all moisty eyed. The magnificent moody and manfully mushy Teddypig sent me the Game Guide for Skyrim (he’s also treating me to the game as well, I believe which is far too generous but I’m never going to say no to kindness) and I fell about laughing with the Guide. Have you SEEN it?  It’s ENORMOUS!!! Its 700 pages, SEVEN HUNDRED!!!! and weighs a fucking TON. It would take me longer to read the thing that it would to play Assassin’s Creed Revelations!  Just mindboggling!  Ok, enough exclamation points…

But thanks, Teddypig. It makes what I’m sending you look a bit weak, but I hope you enjoy it, all the same. *smooch*

Well it worked for me! I was going to go for 1000 words over 2 hours but I ran out of time at Dad’s due to lunch taking an age to cook, and programmed it for 500 words in half an hour and did it easily in 20 minutes. Hurrah! I did go wrong and try and close it down when my screen froze and it shouted at me which made me laugh, but then I got a fanfare when I did the required amount!

As I’ve mentioned before, when I learned to walk I refused to walk unless people applauded which probably explains much of my funk this year, as I don’t have the cheering squad I used to have – they are all too busy and good for them, so there’s no problem, but if I can use a programme that will kick me and applaud when I do good then that’s good enough for me.

I can’t believe how much more cheerful I feel that I’VE WRITTEN!!!!!!