The Longmire of Fantasy

Yeah, I know. It's been a geological age since I updated this blog. Blame Twitter. On the other hand, the coolness of this discovery more than makes up for my lack of diligence, I think. For those of you who get a kick out of Longmire's romance novel re-edits, I give you the sci-fi/fantasy genre equivalent....and more! Behold master wordsmith R.L. McSterlingthong, fantasist extraordinaire! You won't regret paying a visit to his site.

Endless Love Puppies

Today's Engrish reads like the tagline from a really bad weeper. Or is it a suspense film? I don't know. I'm trying to escape the happiness but it's gaining!

Highlander Untamed

As I typed in the title of this book in the "title" window for this blog post, it suddenly dawned on me that I have no idea in the world what that title has to do with the story I just read. Somehow, I'm guessing the publisher came up with it, since it was going to be a trilogy (I assume this was part of the book deal) and wanted something they could repeat. The other two books are "Unchained" and "Unmasked". Anyway, "untamed" implies a descent into barbarism or something, I guess, and that's hardly what happens in the story. "Unclothed" or "uncovered" might make more sense, but that's just my observation.

Moving right along...

When my Mr. Nitpicky met the lovely author of this spicy tale at the recent Romance Writers of America conference in San Francisco, the first thing she did was apologize for the cover(s). Writers usually don't get to pick their covers, and romance novels have some doozies. It is totally not her fault that the publishers decided to put a hairless (he's supposed to be Scots?!), shirtless haircut-needing chap in a rug on the cover. Unfortunately, that's part of the Highlander mystique, and I'm sure it's what RN readers expect, so there it lies.

The author did her homework on this one. The principal characters are all plucked from history. The major incidents actually happened. The details are lost to time, and so have been creatively filled-in. Makes perfect sense, but there are ways and ways of doing this. The story wasn't awful. I never had the urge to throw the book across the room, but I probably wouldn't have finished it had it not been a) a gift from Mr. Nitpick and b) purchased directly from the hand of the author. It's just one of those "I prefer apples and this is an orange" type things. If it's a historical setting, I want to feel transported to that time period. This is why I didn't finish Loving Scoundrel (which was much, much worse). This story had so many things right about it, that I could almost forgive the things that were wrong.

First of all, I really like the heroine, to the point that she's the kind of person I could stand to be around in real life (folks who know me will appreciate the level of praise in that comment). She comes across as a real person, very nicely developed, with a plausible back story and mostly realistic reactions to various situations. The hero didn't quite come alive for me, and seemed more of an over-sexed, over-muscled, bi-polar sort of fellow. Sometimes he's a grunting barbarian, sometimes he's a tortured academic. Mostly he plants his feet and glowers and forbids the heroine to do things.

The political details of the plot ring true, but so many details of daily life were just "off" enough to jar me out of the story. The "filmy" and "clinging" gowns of the heroine were utter Renaissance Faire fantasy. The descriptions of them had me all agog. This is 1601: anybody leaving their bed-chamber in a slinky, curve-revealing gown is on her way to the guardarobe (WC). Again: t's supposed to be 1601. Our Hero is an important guy in the political scene, not a country bumpkin. Despite this, the men all wear kilts, never mind the fact that any Scotsman who wanted to be taken seriously would have been wearing doublet & hose for at least formal occasions.

At one point our girl teases our hero with the threat of decorating their rooms in "floral fabrics and lace". Ouch. Suddenly it's the 19thc century. Are we talking chintz? Also, maybe the author doesn't know how precious lace was at the time. We're talking "weight in gold" value, here. Fabrics were expensive to begin with, and lace was even more so. Is this guy the King of Spain?! Oh, and don't get me started on the sheer number of books in this castle in the North. Yes, the printing press had been invented, but books are still very, very valuable. It's a minor point, and I'm sure it could be debated.

Then there's hair. This is a hobby horse in books and films for me. In visual media, the hair of the principal characters is usually the worst. In printed media, the principals are usually the only ones worthy of description, and they set the tone for your mind's eye. Of course our Hero has "flowing locks". Of course that bugs me. I know, he's a "barbaric Highlander", but he's also nobility, not a sheep herder. Men wore their hair short in the 16th c. This stereotype fits expectations for RN readers, but it's still cliche. The Heroine and the other principal woman in the story always seem to have loose or barely contained hair, which is even worse. Hair was dressed with pins and nets, and covered with caps and hats. This girl spends so much time "tucking a lock of hair behind her ear" (even when out of doors), that she comes across as undressed and/unkempt to me, which I'm pretty sure is not the writer's intention. It would be so refreshing to have a hero gasp in awe of his new bride's mane of (insert color here) tresses on their wedding night! So far, I've yet to read that scene in any Romance Novel.

I'm not going to whinge any more. As I said, it wasn't awful, and I liked the heroine. There was way too much steamy sex going on, albeit married sex (technically), but I guess that's part and parcel of this sub-genre. There was a huge "reality check" moment when the heroine arrives after a non-stop four day horseback journey and ends up in the sack with our Hero after a few minutes. How about a hot bath to remove the trail crud, a bowl of broth and some crusty bread, into bed to rest aching muscles, and then...oops! Hormone attack! Oh, well, that's me wishing an apple to be an orange. Where do you draw the line between stylistic choice and verisimilitude? Not sure I have the answer to that.

Beefcake!

Wow, two posts in one week: I'm on a roll!

Just discovered the Cakewrecks site a few weeks ago, and as a closet cake decorator I can't get enough of the bizarre, inexplicable, and unfortunate decorating endeavors that people have paid actual money for. Today, I logged on and laughed out loud:


Oh...my...word. Now this would be kind of funny for a grown woman's birthday. You know the kind of gal: funny, bawdy, cheerful, and not afraid to nudge you in the ribs and say "Check out Mr. Studly over there...oooweee!" However, this was for a 14 YEAR OLD girl! Either this child is a raging nympho, or some little girl was mighty embarrassed when this thing hit the table.

Can something be tasty AND tasteless at once? I guess so!

PS Doesn't he just look like that cover guy who was meant to be the new (brunette) Fabio back in the late 90s? Guys, here's a tip: get a hair cut. This is a prime example of a guy going for the "sexy flowing locks" thing who just looks like a male model in a drag queen wig.

Loving Scoundrel

Maybe I'm just getting old and crotchety, but I gave up on this one about 1/4 of the way in. I risk the ire of this author's legion of fans (apparently she's quite popular), but I just couldn't take the anachronisms and predictability after awhile. At no point was I sure exactly what time period was supposed to be represented by this story. It's billed as a "Regency" novel, but there is nothing in the story (as far as I read, anyway) to indicate a firm placement in the Regency, Victorian, or Edwardian era. Everything is vaguely "olde tyme", with a hodgepodge of standard Regency romance novel jargon thrown in at random points. Unfortunately, there is so much 21st century slang that it feels more like a trip to Fantasy Island than actual time travel.

Biggest costume faux pas: the men in this story all wear "pants". This is very jarring to the historically minded individual. The term "pants" (for trousers) is short for "pantaloons", and not used for "trousers" until well into the 20th century. Not only that, only fashion-forward seafaring gentlemen would be wearing trousers in the early 1800s, knee breeches being still de-rigeur. At one point the Love Interest is described as wearing "buff-colored breeches", but all other mentions of bifurcated garments refer to "pants". Oh, and in the "breeches" scene, the writer notes that the hero's shirt is "unbuttoned halfway down his torso". So what? Until the turn of the 20th century, shirts were all "pull-overs" that only opened part-way down, anyway.

The heroine, who spends the first part of the story dressed as a man, finally acquires women's clothing, and the description sounds like a checklist from any bad Romance Novel cover. In other words: generically old-fashioned, vague, and completely ridiculous. A "blouse" and skirt? OK, are we in the late 90s, now? 1910? Even then, a "blouse" refers to a soldier's jacket, not a bodice or shirtwaist. The hero is supposed to be the son of a pirate, so it really is supposed to be a Regency story, so NO SHIRTWAISTS! Where is her GOWN? I could go on and on, but I'll stop with the costume criticism.

As mentioned above, the verbage doesn't help evoke a sense of time period, either. Random jargon from Regency standards, expressions discussing "the ton" or commenting on a drunk person being "foxed" are utterly undermined when an angry person is described as being "pissed" (yes!) and the heroine constantly thinks of the hero as "sexy" (no lie!). As far as I'm concerned, they might as well be speaking jive at that point, because all historical ambience is lost.

I suppose I might have toughed it out, because I kind of liked the plucky heroine, but the "hero" was another womanizing Don Juan type. Yuck. Sorry, that's not a sympathetic character in my book. I don't care how "sexy" he is, he jumps in to bed with anything with a skirt and makes it plain to our heroine that he just wants her body from the get-go. Not exactly somebody to respect and admire. I gave up.

Tissue of Love

I know it's been a long time since the last entry. Just saw this at Engrish.com and had to share. Also: hubby just returned from speaking at the annual Romance Writers of America conference in San Francisco, and brought me back some paperbacks. Now, since he actually met these authors, I'm hoping they're really, really good so I can say nice things about them. If they're not my cup of tea, I'll try to be nice.

A Civil Contract

Time for another Georgette Heyer! An impoverished lord, home from the wars. A plain (yes, truly plain, not just "unbloomed potential") heiress and her scheming daddy. A thwarted passion...but was it really love? Nice and complex. Lovely characters. Believable dialogue. Needless to say, I'm enjoying myself!

My only criticism? The usually awful cover on this edition from Chivers Audio, 1989. Yawnn...!

How about this one? Um, outerwear, anyone?
Cloaks, coats, pellisses, spencers....hats? Hello? And what's with evening dress (on the woman) in broad daylight? Also, our heroine, Jenny, is plump and plain, not a statuesque stunner like the model here. Another case of the artist not reading the story?


This one is quite attractive. My only beef here is that I assume this to be our heroine again, "plain and plump" gal, not this dishy dame. Still, a very elegant cover.

Is it just me, or does it seem that romance novel covers underwent an "ugly" period from about 1955 to, oh, 1990 or so? The cheesy Fabio-esque covers are still around, but lovely designs like the last one here, especially for historical books, seems to be more common.