Charity Sunday: More free reading to keep you sane #freebooks #ProjectGutenberg #CharitySunday

As the COVID-19 epidemic continues to spread, people around the world are adjusting to new constraints on their movements. Many of us are more or less stuck in our homes, with little to do but worry about the future.

Worry is not healthy. Stress undermines your immune system. Instead of worrying, why not curl up with a good book?

Books can be expensive, though. And these days, many of us are facing serious financial concerns.

So, do you know about Project Gutenberg?

Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort that digitizes and distributes free ebooks, in English and other languages. You can read about its history here. Founded by author Michael S. Hart in 1971, it is the world’s oldest digital library. The goal of the project is to make public domain works, especially literary classics, available to as wide an audience as possible. Currently the project offers more than 60,000 titles. You can search by author or title, go see the recently added books, or use the categorized listing.

Browsing the catalog can be great fun. You never know what gems you will discover. It’s also a great source for classic books you somehow never read. Recently, for instance, I saw a review on Goodreads for Anne Brontë’s classic The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were among my favorite titles during my youth, but I’d never sampled anything by the third Brontë sister. I have now remedied that omission! (Review coming soon...)

If you’re not in the mood for a classic, you can also find contemporary titles, donated by the authors. I just finished Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, a rather prescient science fiction novel by Cory Doctorow.

You can download books in many formats - not only PDF, EPUB and Kindle formats but in many cases, plain HTML and text versions as well. So you don’t need an ereader to take advantage of its riches.

In short, if you’ve got reading time on your hands these days, but you’re short on cash, you might want to explore their excellent website.

Project Gutenberg is staffed by volunteers, but needs funds for computing resources, professional services and so on. So today I’m running a Charity Sunday for the project. If you love reading, leave me a comment. I’ll donate $2 to the project for each comment I receive.

Meanwhile, I have an excerpt for you from another “bookish” title of mine. This is a bit from Damned If You Do. The main character is an author of erotic romance who’s struggling to make a living through her writing. (Sound familiar, anyone?)

Excerpt

Her four dollar cup of Americano, now cold, tasted like muddy pond water. With a bitter sigh, Wendy Dennison, aka romance stalwart Gwen Diamante, iconized her browser and popped up her work in progress. The word count in the bottom status bar accused her of sloth and incompetence. She should know better than to check her sales stats and reviews before she’d produced at least a couple thousand words. Nothing sapped her motivation for writing a new book as much as surveying the tepid response to her last one.

Maybe another coffee would help. Extravagant, yes, but she needed a kick in the butt to get her out of her slump. She signaled to the cute college guy behind the counter, pointing to her cup. “Can I get another hit, Eric?”

The gangly kid grinned at her. “Coming right up, Wendy.” A mass communications major at the University of Pittsburgh, he treated her like minor royalty. Clearly he thought it was the ultimate in cool to be serving a real live published author. If he only knew the truth.

Wendy typed a four line sentence and scowled at her laptop screen. She highlighted the second clause and swapped it with the first. After staring at the page for a few minutes, she hit “Undo”. She turned the first clause into a participle instead, then tried replacing a pronoun with the character’s name. That didn’t really help either.

Eric removed the stale cup to her left and set down a steaming, fragrant mug in its place. “Two sugars, right?”

Still wrestling with her recalcitrant prose, Wendy gave him a cursory nod. Then she realized how impolite that must seem. “You’re a darling. Thanks so much!” The barista pushed his shaggy brown hair off his forehead and beamed at her. Wendy’s black mood brightened a bit.

With pierced earlobes, Black Sabbath tee shirts, and artfully threadbare denims, Eric had a sort of punk sex appeal. Wendy let herself imagine how he’d look naked—all wiry limbs and pale skin, with a bushy nest around his cock, which would be long and slender, like his tall, lanky, not-quite-mature body. Hard, of course. Young guys always were.

He’d be willing to wait though, to give her pleasure before taking his own. She saw him kneeling between her spread thighs, wearing a worshipful expression. He leaned in to flick at her clit before running his tongue firmly along the cleft between her swollen lower lips. Oh my God! Did he have a stud embedded in his tongue?

“Can I get you anything else?”

Eric’s voice hauled her back to reality.

“Oh—um— ” Blood heated her cheeks, especially when she realized how damp her panties had become. What was she thinking? He was young enough to be her son!

“We’ve got a special on cream cheese brownies. Two for one.” He lowered his voice to a seductive purr, apparently aware he was tempting her.

Wendy recalled both her financial constraints and her depressingly accurate digital bathroom scale. “I really shouldn’t,” she replied, determined to do the right thing.

“C’mon. You need the energy to fuel your creativity! Eat one now, and take one home for later.”

“Well…” Saliva pooled in her mouth as her resolve wavered. She could always skip dinner. “I did have a salad for lunch…”

“Two sinfully rich double fudge cream cheese brownies, coming up.” Her youthful admirer gave her another grin. “Don’t worry. They’re small.”

She turned back to the computer, scrolling back to read the previous few paragraphs. The tension between her heroine and her hero sizzled, but somehow she couldn’t get them out of flirting mode and into bed together. They resisted her every attempt to move them in the directions prescribed by her outline.

Maybe she should switch genres. Try some sweet romance for a change. Or a cozy mystery. Those seem to be selling pretty well these days.

She knew from experience, though, that she’d never succeed in keeping the sex out of her books. Her imagination naturally flowed in carnal directions.

Please don’t forget to leave a comment! Every one is a contribution to the world’s biggest library of free digital books.

And if you want some of my books free, check out my post from yesterday. I’ll be announcing more free Lisabet Sarai titles later this week.

Review Tuesday: Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs -- #ReviewTuesday #stereotypes #tragichero

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

A few months ago I had the opportunity to see the 1934 blockbuster Tarzan and His Mate at a local film club. This classic movie, which stars Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, is particularly famous for its implied sexuality and its nudity, so I figured that as an erotic author it was my duty to check it out. ;^)

In fact, I felt the film left a lot to be desired. Maureen O’Sullivan is lovely as Jane, but Weissmuller makes a rather skinny and anemic-looking ape man, in my opinion. The characters are stereotyped and the treatment of black-skinned people is appalling.

However, the experience made me curious about the original story, so I downloaded the book from the Gutenberg Project. This is a non-profit organization devoted to digitizing and distributing books that are out of copyright. Their website offers thousands of ebooks in a variety of formats, including (I discovered) Epub. 

 

I found that Burroughs’ Tarzan has little in common with the popular movie versions. He is a natural gentleman, with a powerful sense of morality, despite having grown to maturity in the jungle. His parents, members of the English nobility, are abandoned on an uninhabited African beach by mutineers and eventually killed by the wild apes, one of whom takes their infant to her breast after her own child is slaughtered by her jealous mate. She raises the boy to manhood. Although he cannot compete physically with the male apes, Tarzan triumphs to become the leader of the tribe due to his superior intelligence. However, he eventually finds himself dissatisfied with the society of the apes. When he enters the world of men, he’s dismayed to realize he does not belong there either.

In Burroughs’ novel, Tarzan laboriously teaches himself to read and write English by studying books, including children’s primers, he finds in the hut his parents built. When Jane Porter and her entourage arrive (similarly abandoned by greedy and murderous seamen), he communicates with them by writing notes, but cannot understand their spoken language at all. When he does learn to speak, there’s none of the “Me Tarzan, you Jane” nonsense we’ve been fed over the years by the popular adaptations.In fact, his first spoken language is French!

I was very much caught up by Burroughs’ adventure, despite its occasionally racist tone and its confused notions about Africa. (As far as I know, lions do not inhabit the jungle, only the plains.) I read the whole book in a couple of hours, and truly enjoyed it. The author does a remarkable job capturing Tarzan’s concurrent civility and savagery. I couldn’t help fall in love with him, right along with Jane.

Burroughs portrays Tarzan as something of a tragic hero, a man of great promise who will always be an outsider. Much to my surprise, this first book ended not with him claiming Jane as his mate, but on the contrary, sacrificing his own desires because he believed she would be happier with someone else.

This was definitely not what I expected. I immediately downloaded the next volume in the series, The Return of Tarzan – hoping for a happier and more romantic ending!

Review Tuesday: The Marketplace by Laura Antoniou

The Marketplace by Laura Antoniou

Luster Editions, Circlet Press, 2010

If you had a friend who was interested in BDSM, but who didn't have much experience, what fiction would you advise her to read? What books belong to the BDSM canon? The Story of O, certainly. Maybe A.N. Roquelaure's Beauty trilogy (although if the real author were not Anne Rice, I wonder if those books would get as much attention as they do). Perhaps Molly Weatherfield's Safe Word and definitely a couple of Rachel Kramer Bussel's D/s-themed anthologies such as He's on Top, She's on Top, Yes, Sir or Yes, Ma'am.

One book that would make almost everyone's list, I think, is Laura Antoniou's The Marketplace and its sequels. I've been hearing about these books for years – no, decades – ever since I joined the ranks of BDSM readers and authors. Although I'm a devotee of D/s fiction and to some extent practice, somehow I never got the opportunity to read any of the series. One reason was the fact that despite their acclaim they have received, the books keep going out of print. The Marketplace was originally published by Masquerade Books in 1993. A new edition was released by Mystic Rose Books (also responsible for the wonderful primer Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns) in 2000. Now Circlet Books, renowned for speculative and scifi erotica, has created a new imprint call Luster Editions to bring The Marketplace books back for today's readers. When I was offered the opportunity to review the first volume, I jumped at the chance.

The Marketplace introduces a world where an elite cadre of dominants train, sell and buy willing slaves. The secrets of the Marketplace members are jealously guarded. In the everyday clubs and dungeons, BDSM afficionados trade rumors about the shadowy cabal of slave owners and their human property: the rigors the slaves must undergo, the enormous sums of money exchanged, the contracts, the collars, the decadent resorts, the beauty and the power of the masters and mistresses.

The Marketplace introduces Grendel and Alexandra, traders and trainers of premium slaves. Both are expert dominants. The book is deliberately vague about their relationship. Four would-be slaves apply to undergo the Marketplace training regimen at the hands of Grendel and Alex and their major domo Chris. None is a true amateur. In fact, all four consider themselves to be accomplished submissives. Almost immediately, the dominants strip the four of their illusions and show them how far they are from being Marketplace material.

Brian is a gay bottom who loves to be beaten and “forced” to suck cock. Despite his claims to being submissive, he is manipulative, sarcastic, cynical, rebellious and far too garrulous to be a good slave.

Sharon is used to holding men in thrall as she eagerly offers herself as a sexual object. Like Brian, she believes that being a slave is all about sex.

Robert has been feminized by his former mistress to the point that he has no self-confidence and hates his own penis. Although he is intelligent and well-educated, he becomes helpless and incompetent under pressure.

Finally, shy, virginal Claudia can act the part of the sweet, submissive French maid to absolute perfection, but that is the limits of her repertoire. Her mistress offers her to Alex and Grendel out of frustration and boredom, hoping that they can make her braver and more sensual.

Grendel and Alexandra devise customized lessons and trials for each of the aspirants, seeking to teach them the reality of being a slave in the Marketplace world. Sharon is assigned to muck out the stables and study diction and opera. Brian is made to wear ribbons and bells and deprived of sexual satisfaction. Robert studies martial arts and is forbidden to shave his hated body hair. Shrinking violet Claudia is required to take responsibility for the entire household while the normal housekeeper is on vacation and to severely discipline the other aspirants.

Although many of the stereotypes in BDSM erotica may have started with The Marketplace, the book itself is fresh, original and engrossing. It considers the nature of D/s relationships with rare depth and insight. In the Marketplace world, submission (and in fact, dominance) is about far more than sex. For the first half of the book, few of the lessons imposed on the would-be slaves involve sex at all. They learn to obey without thinking, to take responsibility for their successes and their mistakes, to trust their masters and each other. Over the course of the novel, each one changes, approaching the perfection required of Marketplace slaves – though how that is defined will vary for each one.

I loved this book. For one thing, despite its fantasy premise, it has a realistic, down-to-earth feel. The characters are complex and their interactions nuanced and believable. The Marketplace is the exact opposite of the kinky fairy tale world of the Beauty books – even though they share activities and physical elements.

I also appreciated the recognition of the deep sense in which the slaves' servitude is consensual. The aspirants' most cherished desire is to be accepted as worthy by the Marketplace. The most terrible punishment that can be threatened is for them to be sent away, to be released from the training and set adrift in the shallow world of BDSM “play”.

Finally, I resonate with the view of D/s as something more than just a game, as something that can transform one's soul. To quote one of my favorite passages:

To be thrilled by the touch of leather, aroused by harsh words, or satisfied by the security of rigid bondage is the mark of a lover.

To be thrilled at the opportunity to provide useful service, aroused by a pleased nod, and satisfied by the proverbial job well done, is the mark of a slave.

It may sound severe. Almost anti-erotic. Until you see two people, owner and owned, existing in a complementary relationship where each suits the other like balances on a delicate scale. Until you feel the energy of their rapport, you cannot understand how they fulfill each other, take and give in ways no negotiation could possibly express.

Then you will understand the singular intimacy that drives such people on their search for perfection. It is beyond orgasm. Beyond love. It can almost be called rapture.

If these words speak to you the way they do to me, you must read this book.

Ephermal

A couple of days ago, I read a blog post by romance author Melodee Aaron, entitled "Writing for the Future".

http://melodeeaaron.com/blog/2013/04/23/writing-for-the-future/

Melodee's thesis was that our writing is important, because the books we write today may become the classic literature of tomorrow. Where would our civilization be, she argues, without Shakespeare, Dickens, Jane Austen, Jules Verne? Our cultural achievements - literature, art, music - are every bit as valuable as our scientific ones.

Now, I'm always delighted to see someone defending the significance of fiction. However, the post left me in serious doubt. Perhaps her thesis holds true for authors a century - even a few decade - ago. With the advent of ebooks and the explosion of publishing, though, I think books have become ephemeral.

Will my work survive me? Of course I'd like to believe what I've written will still be read twenty, fifty, a hundred years in the future, because I've poured my heart and soul into my books. But what are the chances?

Electronic formats and media are subject to rapid change. Can you play a VHS video tape today? Can you read a 3 inch floppy disk? Some of my younger readers might never have even seen one. PDF, Epub, Mobi - I'll bet that ten years from now, nobody will use those file formats for books. Titles published in these formats will be orphaned, unless someone takes the time and effort to convert the content to whatever format replaces them. And let's be honest. Who's going to convert hundreds of thousands of stories about vampires and werewolves getting it on with one another?

What about print? That's how authors in the current canon have survived, their books physical artifacts to be treasured from one generation to the next. Indeed, one never knows where a hard copy volume will turn up. Someone is sell a first edition of Raw Silk (Black Lace, 1999) on Amazon for almost two hundred dollars, and a Blue Moon edition (2002) for nearly four hundred dollars. (Of course, if these volumes sell, I won't see a penny...!) So perhaps a few copies of my work will be preserved into the future, especially in a world where paper books have become rare and precious as the forests are destroyed. This doesn't give me much comfort, though, when I walk into a bookstore and see piles of brand new books discounted to nearly nothing because they haven't really sold.   

Due to ease of digital publishing, the number of books released annually has grown by orders of magnitude - and continues to increase as everyone and his brother tries to cash in on the ebook revolution. The odds that my books will remain available and popular become smaller every day.

I'd like to imagine I'll have readers in the future, but if I am honest with myself, I have to admit that the chances are slim. I need to focus on gaining readers now, today. Change is the only constant. Our books, like our lives, might disappear tomorrow.