Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Jane of Dear Author has skewered the latest attempt at marketing by Harlequin.

Hahahahaha. Also: OW. I haven’t read the report in its entirety yet, but the few bits I’ve skimmed through have had my brain cells weeping for mercy.

Poor, poor Nora. Just when she thought it was safe to visit us, that we’d turned our snark attentions to Fabio or Changeling or even vintage Harlequins, along comes the genius and above-and-beyond dedication of Evil Auntie Peril, who found, assembled, and sent us images of the Czech and Russian covers for most of the In Death series. Forget adult beverage. Psychotropic drugs might be in order before ye enter here.

Poor Nora. Poor Eve. Europe has not been kind.

Betrayal in Death

Sarah: It’s the long lost Escher work, “Tempest in a Teacup,” right? Or can Eve make tea with people’s faces? Did someone cross Eve with Anita Blake? Mess with me? Bitch, I will Earl Grey Your ASS!

Candy: Amusement Park Ride Ideas That Never Quite Made It: “OK, so I have this GREAT new idea for a ride, right? So it’s these spinning teacups, like in the Tea Party ride? Except there are these faces of drowned women painted on the inside, right? And the cups on the ride keep spinning faster and faster and faster, until they break free from their moorings and crash on the floor, spilling the riders onto the ground and shattering the faces of the drowned women. It can serve as a third-wave feminist critique of the essentialist flaws in...hey, guys? Where you going? I’m not done with the pitch yet? Guys? I haven’t even gotten to the part where the teacups represent second-wave radical feminism and how the whole ride ties in with 21st-century conceptualizations of queer theory!”

Also, and not really a cover snark so much as a demonstration of how my brain goes to Very Silly Places at the slightest provocation: I looked at the cover and initially read ”Bubba Ho-Tep.” I don’t know why I did, because the name really doesn’t look much like Bubba Ho-Tep. I think my Bruce Campbell fetish was just making itself known.

Sarah: Now that’s subtle. A sideways mullet. A Flashdance pose. And the certain knowledge that after she styles her hair, and does a little jig, she will munch on the cranium of her mate.

Candy: That’s some eerie juxtaposition, there--I mean, as if 80s hair and off-the-shoulder sweaters weren’t creepy enough. It also makes me view the Flashdance song with new eyes: She’s a maniac on the floor? And it cuts like a knife? Hell yeah it cuts like a freakin’ knife; how else do you think she gets the head off before she eats it?

Ceremony in Death

Sarah: She’s a ninja! With a crystal ball! And some pagan ritual-esque candles. And wax ear candling sticks! And some...nail files? Oh, forget it. I give up.

Candy: Mamas, don’t let your daughters grow up to be Raistlin Majere fanfic writers. Behold the dreadful fate that awaits those so accursed.

Today marks the second year Smart Bitches has been in operation. Crazy, but also crazy delicious!

In honor of this occasion, I’d like to invite you, the Bitchery, to reminisce on Awesome Bitchfights Past. They don’t have to have taken place on this blog; in fact, most of my favorites of the past several years took place on AAR. Like this kerfuffle about sex scenes (man, back then, I was excruciatingly polite to so many people I just wanted to rip into--but then I didn’t want to be banned from the boards). And then there was the Robin Lee Hatcher interview that became this Huge Thing about religion and ROMANCE = OMGCRACK. And then there was the RWA cover and website standards thing. And the defining romance dust-up, with attendant flapping and fussing about OH NOES WHERE ARE OUR STANDARDS? And the 2005 RWA Rita awards trainwreck. And then Jan Butler. Oh lordy, the Jan Butler.

A big round of squishy hugs to you, my lovelies. We couldn’t have snipped and sniped without you. And special props to Sarah, the Smartest Bitch, who is Made of Awesome, and the best writing/blogging partner a girl could wish for. We made it for the second year, baby. Woo!

One of Freebird’s new words is, “Twoooooo.” He tries to hold up two fingers, but hasn’t quite mastered the coordination needed. But “Two little kittens and a pair of mittens?” The Bird chimes in with, “TWOOOOOO!” It’s very cool, and amazing that he’s getting verbal.

Good things come in twos. Man titties! Titties in general, I suppose.

And Smart Bitches - and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Today marks the 2nd anniversary of our site. So, if I could be given a moment of sappy crap, Candy: you’re awesome. There’s nothing better than being a Smart Bitch with you. 

I finished Meljean Brook’s Demon Angel last night, and I agree wholeheartedly with Robin’s review and her grade. Here are some other thoughts about the book, most of them rather silly nitpicks and things I liked. I initially thought I’d stick all of this into the comments section of the review, but writing it sparked some other thoughts that I’d like to share with the audience-at-large. So here goes:

1. Brook snuck in an All Your Base joke in the book. Holy shit, I love this woman.

2. I was heartily sick of the word “arousal” by the end of the book. I never thought I’d be so happy to see the word “erection” in a book, but oh dear sweet lord I was heartily sick of Hugh’s never-ending pants-tenting arousal that I would’ve settled for ANY other euphemism, up to and including “purple-helmeted soldier of love” and “quivering arrow of passion.”

On a related note: the passion Hugh and Lilith felt for each other once they started bumping formerly-supernatural uglies was so constant, so over the top, so out-of-control that it felt...silly. There was an oppressive air of arousal (gaaah, that word!) that hung around them, and even in the midst of life and death events, they couldn’t stop thinking about each other’s fiddly bits. Really, at that point, I wanted to smack them a little for being Too Horny To Live.

3. Dorian Gray references = WIN. But then I’m an Oscar Wilde dork.

4. The dialogue was weirdly clunky in a lot of spots. I understood she was going for an archaic, old-fashioned feel with Hugh’s speech, but it only worked half the time.

5. This is perhaps the first instance in which I’ve read a book marketed as a romance novel that contains world-building on par with some of the best fantasy novels. There are all sorts of nifty details in here, such as the deal with Colin’s blood (and why he covers all his mirrors), the different realms of Hell and the ongoing civil war between Lucifer and Belial. I closed the book feeling impatient for more, but especially for Michael’s story and the Further Adventures of His Sword (in all senses of the word, heh heh).

6. As Robin noted in the review, Brook over-explains certain aspects of the story; as I read it, my fingers itched for a red pen to strip away the unnecessary sentences. This is a problem many romance novelists have, however, and I’m not sure if it’s a tendency in the authors themselves or if the editors are the ones pushing them to signal things like HAY GUYZ THEIR REALLY IN LURVE OK AND LOOK OMG HE’S CRYING NOW louder and ever louder.

7. Conversely, Brook doesn’t really spoonfeed the world-building, the plot or the setting. For example: I’ve never taken a class in English history, so my knowledge is fuzzy at best, but I managed to figure out from context that the very first part of the book concerned the events surrounding the Magna Carta and King John’s turbulent relationship with his barons, even though Brook never mentions either by name. That’s some serious skill there.

I also appreciated that Brook didn’t infodump as soon as some new aspect of the world showed up or some reference was made (though she came close a couple of times), and that she didn’t bother to over-explain the plot, such as how Our Daring Heroes managed to wriggle themselves out of the tangles of wagers and bargains they’d gotten themselves into.

I did e-mail Brook afterwards, asking her “OK, this one aspect confused me, and does it mean what I think it means?” and she wrote back and said “No, Lilith was doing THIS” and I was all “OH, that’s right, never mind then.” And Brook apologized for not being clear enough, but I brushed away the apology, because seriously, it was all quite clearly there; I’d just missed it because I wasn’t reading carefully enough.

And this got me thinking about how very lazy and impatient I’ve become as a romance reader. Romance novels do a lot of things really well, but they’re not particularly subtle, and many seem to assume that the reader knows little to nothing. Romances tend towards clarifying everything, which sometimes leads to awkward, infodumpy clumps or (sometimes this is worst of all) the ruin of a wonderful set-up or joke with over-explanation.

This difference was underscored recently when I re-read the beginning of Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth, one of my favorite books. (I love it so much, I gave it as a Valentine’s Day gift once, because hey, what’s more romantic than slavery, torture, death, insanity, social ruin, megalomania and bankruptcy?) The book proper begins:

The ship he meant was the Liverpool Merchant, Captain Saul Thurso, and he had never seen her, though she carried the seeds of all his dreams in her hold.

She carried death for the cotton broker who owned her, or so at least his son believed. For Erasmus Kemp it was always to seem that the ship had killed his father, and the thought poisoned his memories. Grief works its own perversions and betrayals; the shape of what we have lost is as subject to corruption as the mortal body, and Erasmus could never afterwards escape the idea that his father had been scenting his own death that drab afternoon in the timber yard on the banks of the Mersey when, amid colors of mud and saffron, he had lowered himself rather awkwardly down to sniff at the newly cut sections of mast for his ship. Not odours of embalmment, nothing sacramental; the reek of his own death.

Now that I’ve read the book three times, the introduction makes complete sense to me, but I remember feeling confused yet excited the first time I read the first chapter. Who were these people? How did the ship kill Erasmus’s father? How did all of this tie in with the introduction? But slowly, organically, the gaps were filled in, just as new mysteries sprang to fill their place and were in turn resolved.

Science fiction and fantasy do the same thing, too--good science fiction and fantasy, that is. I much prefer to figure out aspects of the alien culture from context rather than having somebody sit down and go “Oh, you know very well what the fibbertigoo is, young Snikersnak, but once again, I will explain to you what it does...” This sort of exposition style bothers me so much, it’s part of the reason I set down Sharon Shinn’s Mystic and Rider. It was truly a disappointment after the way she set up the world in the Samaria series, when she revealed the nature of the god Jovah over the course of three books and gave no real inkling in the first book as to what was really going on vs. what the settlers believed in.

But back to Demon Angel.

When I read Brook’s first foray into the Demon Angel universe, i.e., “Falling for Anthony,” I experienced moments of impatience. She’d introduce new terminology without explaining what she meant, and I’d feel mildly indignant. “The Doyen? Who’s that? And what the hell are the Scrolls?” I caught myself, though and realized that if I’d been reading any other sort of story, I’d have faith in the author and wait for her to show me what these things meant down the road. And Brook did. The explanations sometimes creaked and clanked instead of flowing smoothly, but it all worked out quite well.

Demon Angel utilizes a similar worldbuilding/storytelling method, but I knew what to expect and didn’t balk this time. One of the more consistent complaints I’ve heard about this book is that it’s confusing, but I didn’t find it that way until the very end, when I had difficulty keeping track of which parties had bargains and wagers with the other, not to mention the assorted possible outcomes. However, this wasn’t necessarily a flaw on Brook’s part; it was more a mark of how lazy I’d become as a reader. Demon Angel forced me to keep track of events a lot more closely than I normally do with a romance novel, and really, that’s a good thing.

So what do you think? Have you noticed a tendency towards impatience or laziness in yourself when you’re reading romance novels? Do you have different expectations regarding infodumpiness and the obliqueness with which information is delivered in romance vs. other genres? Do you hate being spoonfed, or does it peeve you when authors make references or quote bits of foreign text without bothering to explain them within the story itself?

I don’t have as much time to do my blog rounds nowadays as I’d like to, so I’m somewhat behind on Awesomeness in Romance Blogolandia nowadays. But I just have to say: if you haven’t read EvilAuntiePeril’s screamingly hilarious holiday message from assorted cover models (they love you! Their hair loves you! And so do their oiled abs!), please go read it now. You will not regret it.

Also, Bam notified me of an interesting new blog: The Dean’s Desk. The description of the JAK error made me LOL like I was on AOL.

Bitchery reader Dalia sent us the following email:

I’m looking to read up on romance novels containing a certain storyline and I was wondering if you could help me by (if you’re interested yourself in finding out, I know this could come across as presumptuous!) putting the question up on your site?

I’m looking for romances with a side story line featuring either the heroine or the hero with serious relationship issues with either one or both their parents. Not salad dressing sort of issues like Penelope Featherington & her obnoxious mother dressing her in green (Julia Quinn in whichever Bridgerton series instalment that was). More in line with Kevin’s tv star mother giving him up when he was a baby in SEP’s ‘Heart of Mine’ in terms of ‘seriousness’, for example.

Thanks a lot if you can help me.

Parental dysfunction?! Mega Angst Dysfunction of parental origin!? Oooh, there’s hardly ANY of that in Romancelandia! *snort*

So what do I do when someone says, “Got any romances like this?” I think of, like, two or three, then ask Candy, whose brain flies through the data like one of those rotating shirt hangers at the dry cleaners on high speed and comes up with fifteen thousand examples. And then, as usual, we start talking about WHY this subset exists, and how it came to be:

This is the second installment of capsule reviews of romance novels written by Laura Kinsale. Read Part I first, if you’re so inclined.

For My Lady’s Heart: Hot damn. Dialogue in Middle English. A story based inspired by Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. A relentlessly honorable and completely adorable hero who hasn’t had any nookie in 13 years. A dangerous, scheming princess who doesn’t know how to trust anyone, doesn’t want to trust anyone, but is thrown for a loop by a knight who refuses to let her push him away. Kinsale once again busts through romance conventions (when people make fun of romance novels as being brainless and predictable, I like to tell them about this book) and makes her characters real to you in a way nobody else can. A

The Dream Hunter: This is the only book of Kinsale’s I don’t love. I don’t hate it, but it didn’t grab me the way her other books did. Arden, the hero, is wonderful. He’s shy yet courageous, and very, very sweet. The heroine…. Oy. I don’t know, I found it hard to like her. Kinsale says that Zenia presents a role reversal (usually the hero is the one being the demanding, tormented brat, not the heroine) that few readers are comfortable with. She may be right, but I don’t know. I liked Zenia by the end of the book, but the way she treats Arden during much of the book is almost too much for me to take, and I think that if the roles were reversed, if Arden had been the one pulling all that crap on Zenia, I think I would’ve disliked him too. In fact, I know I would’ve, because my dislike of heroes who mistreat heroines too badly is legendary, and a big big part of the reason why I’m not particularly fond of romances from the 70s and 80s. I’ll try re-reading it soon and see if my opinion of the story holds. B-

My Sweet Folly: Folie is quite possibly my favorite heroine of all time. She’s no raving beauty, but she’s full of love, integrity, common sense and the most wonderfully droll sense of humor. I re-read this book just to enjoy her various quips and to see her relate to different people in the book. The hero, Robert, is a rather interesting mixed bag. Some of the shit he pulls on Folie is almost as bad as what Zenia does to Arden in The Dream Hunter, and his character (or rather our expectations of what his character should be) go through a couple of abrupt about-faces. But overall, he’s really hot, he doesn’t mistreat Folie too badly for too long, and he has pretty good reasons for being an asshead. Some people thought the external plot was tiresome and that the rest of the book didn’t match the wonderful first chapter, but personally, I really liked the book as a whole. A-, but Folie is A+

Shadowheart: The sequel to For My Lady’s Heart, it features Allegretto, the boy-assassin who was assigned to “guard” Melanthe in the first book. Kinsale does a great job of portraying so many different aspects of medieval Italy: the importance and power of the Church in people’s lives, the intense rivalries that would erupt between city-states, the non-stop plotting and scheming and skullduggery. The love story isn’t too shabby either. It’s a coming-of-age tale for Elena, the heroine, and Allegretto achieves redemption, so hooray all around. And the love scenes… people bitched about how disturbed they were by them, but you know what? I liked ‘em. I don’t normally enjoy BDSM sex scenes, but I thought the ones in Shadowheart were really hot and completely in keeping with Allegretto and Elena’s characters. The only small peeve I have with the book: Not enough scenes from Allegretto’s viewpoint. A-

In this month’s Wired Magazine is a very prescient feature on the top fashions to adorn Sci-Fi characters. Thankfully, it’s not just women, but alas, Linnea Sinclair’s heroines might still have these folks beat. The best of the top 10?

Queen Amidala’s royal gowns
STAR WARS: EPISODES I, II & III
Stitch together all the scenes in which Amidala wears vaguely Japanese haute couture and you get a new edit: Star Wars: Episode III.I Memoirs of a Padmé.

It is true - the costuming in the whole series was an exercise in how luminous they could make Natalie Portman appear.

Khan’s suede vest
START TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN
Mr. Roarke trades his white suit for a dingy suede wraparound number and brings Kirk’s worst nightmares to life. Nothing says wrath like man-cleavage. Well, that and a stellar mullet.

So true - Candy and I can personally attest to that! There is no wrath like man-titty with a mullet.

Feyd-Rautha’s winged Speedo
DUNE
When Sting’s character appears wearing nothing but a blue art deco-style Speedo barely big enough to cover his stinger, the Baron Harkonnen isn’t the only one mesmerized.

You know, the only other Speedo that stopped me hot and cold was the glimpse of Mulder in the infamous red Speedo scene. Man.

Zhora’s peekaboo raincoat
BLADE RUNNER
Every stripper knows that clear gets you noticed, so it’s no surprise Zhora’s see-through raincoat doesn’t help her flee Deckard. She gives a whole new meaning to the term fashion victim.

Barbarella’s white go-go boots
BARBARELLA
Before Jane taught us how to work out, she showed us how to work it in thigh-high boots. If only space were filled with randy go-gonauts, pointless sexual adventures, and erotic torture devices. Feel the burn.

You know, maybe Gillaine and Sinclair’s other cover-hoes are carrying on a fine Sci-Fi babealicious tradition, and we’re too narrow minded to see it? Nah.  I’ll bet you a whole crisp U.S. dollar bill that the next Sinclair cover features white go-go boots, a clear raincoat, or both. 

Damn, I can’t believe I haven’t done one of these yet for Laura Kinsale. (Or Patricia Gaffney. Or Loretta Chase. Oh, my review backlog weeps, weeps, I tells ye.) Anyway, be prepared for an ungodly number of As in a row. And maybe this can be a harbinger of good news, i.e. SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME THE LUCKY ONE HAS FINALLY BEEN PICKED UP KTHXBYE.

Hanyway. First up: The Early Years, Replete with Avon Ribbons

The Hidden Heart: This is Laura’s debut novel and holy crap, she does a great job. The hero, Gryphon, has suffered some pretty horrendous emotional trauma and is terrified of loving anyone again. Tess, the heroine, is one of the best Kinsale has created: strong without being annoyingly feisty, sweet, but not sickeningly so, and kind of an outsider because of her eccentric upbringing. It’s an old-school romance in that the hero and heroine are together--no, they have to separate!--no, they’re together--no, they have to separate!--no, they’re together again--but most of the other earmarks of old-school romances like purple prose and the hero raping the heroine are mercifully absent. The book’s dark core is lightened up considerably by flashes of humor. It should be illegal for an author to write this well for a debut effort. A-

Uncertain Magic: Roddy can hear the thoughts of people and animals, a trait that can make being around crowds an excruciating experience. People can sense that she’s different and are uncomfortable in her presence, and even those who love her and know her secret find it difficult to be with her. Then she meets Faelan, an impecunious Irish lord with a very dark reputation, and she finds to her surprise that his thoughts are completely closed to her. And what should an innocent young miss do when she meets a man with a reputation for rape, seduction and murder whom she cannot read at all, even a little? Why, she marries him, of course. Pff. This is, after all, Romancelandia.

Ah, pay my snarking no mind; I love this book with a muchness. I missed having Faelan’s perspective, but because of the way the story is structured and because so much of the plot hinges on solving the enigma of why Faelan’s mind is closed off, it has to be told only from Roddy’s POV. Now, if Kinsale would write the same story, only told entirely from Faelan’s perspective.... A-

Midsummer Moon: I love this book so much, it was the first Desert Isle Keeper review I wrote for All About Romance. It has two elements I normally hate in a romance novel: a really absent-minded heroine, and a tremendously autocratic, high-handed hero. But Kinsale makes it work beautifully. It’s a gorgeous, charming book about a duke trying to work with a brilliant scientist on an invention that may potentially win the war against Napoleon. The problem is, he falls in love with her along the way. And the other problem is, she can’t seem to remember what his name is half the time, much less take notice of him long enough to love him back. Also, lots of other things, including The Best Goddamn Hedgehog Sidekick Ever in the History of Ever, all of which Beth goes into quite nicely. See all that stuff she says about that book? Pretend I said it, only with more cussing, and less eloquently.A+

Seize the Fire: In this book, Kinsale takes every romance convention, stands them on their heads, makes ‘em do the Macarena and then blows them up (which is what should rightly be done to anyone or anything doing the Macarena). Sheridan isn’t noble, he’s a self-proclaimed coward, and he cheerfully and charmingly lies, manipulates and scams his way through much of the book. Olympia isn’t svelte and feisty, she’s overweight, shy and almost painfully naïve. You get to watch both characters transform each other through a series of wacky adventures--I want to use the word “Quixotic,” which would fit the heroine, but “picaresque” would definitely suit the hero and the overall tone much better. Kinsale pulls off the difficult feat of making the hero utterly sympathetic while having him perform unheroic deeds over and over again.

The ending is very unusual (no, the protagonists don’t die, so rest easy on that score). It’ll make you cry, and then when you read the dedication at the end of the book, you’ll cry even harder. This is the book I always recommend to people who claim they don’t like romance novels. Not that many people have ever taken me up the offer, probably because of the book’s Orgasm in Pink cover. A

* * * * *

Thus ends a particular era of Kinsale; the next one is even more auspicious, because from there we move into some of her very best work, work I tend to think of (despite myself) as The Fabio Years.

The Prince of Midnight: Ahhh, the first of Kinsale’s Fabio books. Not that the stories were inspired by Fabio or anything, but the first edition features him on the cover. But even that monstrosity can’t dim the pleasure of a Kinsale novel. The hero this time is a retired highwayman with inner-ear damage, and the heroine is a woman seeking revenge for the death of her family at the hands of a weird cult. She recruits him as a hero for hire; unfortunately, the guy can’t even lean over without falling on his face, much engage in the acrobatics required. But that doesn’t stop him from riding out to save the day, of course. Deeelicious. A-

The Shadow and the Star: This book has a special place in my heart because it’s the first Kinsale book I read, and I couldn’t put it down. The protagonist is Samuel, whom we first see in The Hidden Heart in very harrowing circumstances. And (oh crap, this is going to sound terrible) Samuel is a ninja. That’s right. A ninja in Victorian England. Your head ready to a-splode? I know mine was when I figured out the premise. But you know what? Kinsale gets it right. No, I mean it. It’s good. Srlsy. She’s uncanny. Other authors have tried to depict Asian cultures (Patricia Gaffney and Mary Jo Putney tried their hands at different aspects of Chinese culture, for example) but Kinsale gets it right. Samuel’s sensei, and Samuel’s mindset after being trained by the sensei, all ring true in a way many authors are unable to achieve when writing about a foreign culture.

Also, the heroine, Leda, is often disparaged by other readers and reviewers as being too passive and kind of a priss, but they don’t get it: she’s rock-steady, steadfast and honorable, and exactly what Samuel needs to heal him and love him. A gorgeous book, and if you don’t love it--well, I don’t even know what to say to you. You’re just weird. And wrong. A+

Flowers From the Storm: The third and mercifully the last of the Fabio covers. This book features yet another Kinsale hero with a disability, this time a brilliant mathematician of a duke who suffers from what seems to be a stroke. The heroine is also extremely unusual: she’s a Quaker. This book got me interested in non-Euclidian geometry, and since I was studying factorials in high school math when I read this book, I was fascinated by some of the equations Kinsale provides. But you know what, I can’t in good conscience give this book a rating because I’ve never been able to finish it. Not because it’s not good, but because it’s so intense that I can’t take it--it’s like being tickled, only I’m not laughing. I’ve tried it twice before, and each time I had to put it down about halfway through and then sneak a peek at the ending to enjoy the HEA. I’ll give it a shot in a few weeks when I’m done with several other books I need to finish, and I’ll see if I can do it this time.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Part II, wherein I cover the books Kinsale wrote for Berkley.

Remember that feature in Good Housekeeping or Ladies’ Home Journal or whatever it was, Can This Marriage Be Saved? People acting like complete buttnoids to one another, and then seeking help to stop them from their buttnoidal behavior? Perhaps that kind of intervention might help us in the world of romance covers. Or maybe the answer to the question is really just, “No.”

Candy: Good lord! Gillian Anderson has been reduced to making 80s-style screwball softcore porn--with Ian Ziering! Oh, how have the mighty fallen. What would Mulder say? I mean, seriously: IAN FUCKING ZIERING? *weeps into X-Files DVDs*

Sarah: Remember when your granny used to say if you made that face enough your face will freeze that way? Let this be a lesson to the blow job hoes of the world.

Candy: Being divine has never been more dangerous because the it’s hard to be effective when you have the proportions, flexibility and wardrobe of a motherfucking Barbie Doll. I mean, seriously, is anyone else as sick of female secret agents and other asskicking action types wearing the most impractical, downright dangerous clothing? Boots with stiletto heels. Skin-tight vinyl that’s not just hellishly difficult to maneuver in, but is shiny and screamingly pink, because hey, making her an easy target is totally a viable survival method--if nothing else, the enemies will be too busy laughing or staring at her breasts to be effective.

But the outfit’s the least of her worries. Somebody teach the deity there how to aim, because she’s either trying to shoot the kneecaps off of Hervé Villechaize’s ghost, or she’s aiming for the bad guys’ toes.

Sarah: He looks pissed off. And you know why he’s pissed off? The plastique woman to his left is freaking glowing and you have no idea how badly glowing hobags screw up your aim.

Candy: “Oh noooo! I’m a porn actress who’s been attacked by the Cover Artist Who Doesn’t Know How To Use the Skew and Distort Tools in Photoshop! My aspect ratio is seriously wonky! I need to be fixed before I head over to shoot Sexy Sorority Sluts IV: Slammin’ Log-Jammin’. Haaalp!”

Sarah: Sweet Christ, it’s a ho trifecta. Only instead of o-face ho or glowing plastique ho, we have acrylic-nail ho with strabismus and a really weird phone. Bitch, is that my WaMu card!?

A Bitchery reader named Ellen emailed me to say she’d read The Rest Falls Away and had liked it. Her feedback, though, was slightly different from mine, and she owes her perspective, she says, to the fact that she’s a fantasy reader. Her focus was on world building, and the idea that there can easily be more than one hero, or a lack of clarity on who the primary hero is throughout most of the novel, didn’t bother her at all. Seems that’s rather a common feature of fantasy series.

This intrigued me, because I’d never thought about the different perspectives of romance readers and fantasy/sci fi readers, but as the genres bleed into one another more and more of late, it seems like there’s a lot in common between the expectations of each group, and even more that varies.

Before I start blathering on, though, a caveat: I’m using the term “sci fi/fantasy” broadly. Even though I don’t read a great deal of either genre, I do know that the two terms do not describe identical genres, so please understand that I’m not defining inaccurately; I’m trying to be as inclusive when describing a community of readers with similar expectations from their preferred work of fiction. Also, while The Rest Falls Away was the catalyst for my discussion, when I refer to any plot points or elements of plot, characterization or worldbuilding, I’m not referring specifically or obliquely to any perceived flaw in that particular book. I’m speaking generally, making huge, sweeping assumptions with a double-wide trailer-sized brush! Whee!

Hanyway, my email exchange with Ellen and later with Candy caused my interest in the variations in reaction between romance readers and sci fi/fantasy readers, since each group seems to have very different expectations and tolerates variations on themes in disparate ways. While a fantasy/sci fi reader might be totally ok with the potential for multiple - e.g. more than two - heroes, the buffet o’ manly heroic men is something that I’ve personally only started coming across recently. I’ve seen my share of triangles, but there’s more than a few books I’ve read, particularly fantasy or paranormal romances, that feature a manly man smorgasboard. Is this the influence of one into the other? Perhaps. But a mostly-romance reader might feel dicked around by the author if s/he doesn’t have at least an inkling who the hero will be, or a sense of who the heroine likes best. Yet many fantasy series readers—and I’m going to guess that there are more fantasy series than stand alone books, which isn’t as true for fantasy/paranormal romance to the best of my knowledge—are able to handle multiple heroes as part of the development of the series as a whole, and the development of all the characters involved.

To spin it a different way, historical fiction readers, according to one dude I heard speak at that tea I went to last October, expect a fictional story told in a meticulously researched setting, so that all the peripheral details are 110% factually accurate, but the story itself is not - but COULD be true since everything else is. Fantasy readers seem to expect from authors a meticulous job of world building and within that world a set of consistent rules governing the fantastical - e.g. repercussions for use/abuse of magical power - while romance readers might be more accepting of world building flaws, but often NOT tolerant of historical inaccuracy or forgiving of character deviations in terms of romantic coupling.

There’s a good bit in common between each genre but the readers have such different expectations that it’s fascinating to me: how do fantasy readers react to paranormal and fantasy romance novels, both series and stand-alone issues? How do romance readers react to fantasy and sci-fi? I know many of the readers here enjoy heaping piles of both genres, so I have to ask: do your expectations and evaluative standards change when you enter one genre versus another? Do you examine each genre from a different perspective when you read? Obviously, we’re all looking for quality storytelling without flaws like flimsy motivations or obvious deux ex machina endings, but once you’ve started reading a solid story from either genre, do you look for different things? What are the differences, if any, in your expectations?

Remember that Gloriously Glorious Unscientific Romance Reader Survey of 2006 we tried to run back in November? I finally got around to tabulating the data and crunching some numbers today. So far, I’ve only worked out the numbers for age and education, because those were the ones that interested me the most, but they’re pretty astounding.

The mean age is 30.44 years.
The mode is 21.
The median is 29.

77.65% of the Bitchery who responded have completed at least a Bachelor’s.
23.53% have a Bachelor’s and nothing else.
15.29% have completed some post-baccalaureate work.
24.71% have completed a non-doctorate post-baccalaureate degree.
4.71% are working on a PhD or MD.
4.71% have a PhD or MD.

100% of the respondents aged 18 to 21 are in college.

86.05% of the respondents between 22 and 35 have completed at least a bachelor’s.
86.96% of the respondents between 36 and 60 have completed at least a bachelor’s.

Say it with me, folks: Holy crapping damn.

However! There are big fat caveats all over this here study, kittens, so here are some reasons why this sample is No Good and Probably Not At All Representative of the Average Smart Bitch, Much Less the Average Romance Novel Reader:

1. It’s a self-selecting sample.

2. Method of data collection deeply flawed (if nothing else, the comments section might’ve influenced people to not post, especially if they felt shy because they didn’t conform to the existing respondents).

3. Preamble to the data collection (i.e., my rant about how romance readers are perceived as stupid) probably urged more of the over-educated among us to post.

But the numbers are still cool to look at, no?

More numbers to look at after I’m done massaging the data this weekend, and you’ll get to find out just how gay and/or godless and/or god-fearing our readership is--at least, the readership who bothered to respond to that survey.

Those of you with more extensive training in statistics and the social sciences: Interested in helping me design a more scientific survey with results that might, y’know, mean something? .

You find. You email. You attach. You send. We rub our eyes, and take one for the team. The Smart Bitches present a two-part series of reader-submitted cover madness.

Sarah: You’d think there’s only one obvious joke to be made here, but no. Yes, you cut a hole in the box. Then, put the junk in the box.

But then you go buy a different box because clearly that one is way, way too big. And her g-string? Too, too small. I bet it snaps off and flies across the room like an overextended rubber band.

Candy: A belated Martin Luther King present to the bitchery. Because for every single holiday: a dick in a box. Only instead of backstage at the CMAs, this dude probably makes appearances backstage at the RWA.

(I have a dream--a dream that one day, these covers will no longer sear my eyeballs and make me snort-laugh at work and make people stare at me.)

Sarah: There are so many things going wrong here, it’s like a breathtaking trainwreck of awful. I think this cover has moved me to tears - tears of horror. The facial hair. The absurd necks. The bizarre musculature. The groping efforts to do open heart surgery. And wow. Check out that weapon of mass destruction.

Poor M.J. Pearson.

Note: One of my cats is sitting next to me. He took a look at the screen, got up, and turned his back to the computer. There you have it. Cat snark: That sucks.

Special bonus from SB Hubby: That’s the mantittiest mantitty I have ever seen.  (I had to inform poor Hubby that I’d seen worse. *whimper*)

Candy: First of all: is it a wee bit nipply out?

Second of all: isn’t it weird that your nipples react to the cold in completely the opposite way from your junk to the cold?

Third of all: I can only congratulate the dude for having junk that reacts in completely the opposite way from everybody else’s junk. Though I’m not ruling out the possibility that he injected a whole bunch of silicone into his jibblies. (WARNING: OH DEAR LORD LINK IS SO NOT SAFE FOR WORK. OR LITTLE CHILDREN. OR ANY EYEBALLS IN GENERAL.)

Fourth of all: I admire the blond dude’s efforts to kill himself by snapping his own neck. But really: it’s a doomed effort. He’d be better off flinging himself off the castle.

Fifth of all: What the fuck is up with the Amish beard there? Because that’s serious, serious bonerdeath right there.

Sarah: You’d think it would be the furry-lovin’ bunny ears on Harvey there that really cocked my brow, but no. Check the font. The Coca-Cola font?!  Is this what the ads mean by “The Coke Side of Life?” Bunny-eared corpse-humpers?

Candy: Great. Now I have that Magnetic Fields song stuck in my head.

Let’s pretend we’re bunny rabbits
Let’s do it all day long
Let abbots, Babbitts and Cabots
Say Mother Nature’s wrong
And when we’ve had a couple of beers
We’ll put on bunny suits
I long to nibble your ears
And do as bunnies do

Not that I mean to malign The Magnetic Fields--Stephen Merritt’s songwriting is infinitely preferable to this cover.

Editor’s Note: Smart Bitch regular Robin won a copy of Meljean Brook’s Demon Angel on the condition that she review it by the 15th of January. However, Robin didn’t have a blog, and hosting it on Meljean’s site would’ve looked, well, iffy at best. This is where the Bitches come in. Robin’s a regular, Meljean’s a friend, and Lord knows we could use more reviews i