Saturday 3 July 2010

Sex or porn? When too much is not enough.

Still Missing. A thriller? Misery memoir? Porn? Not read it yet, but will let you know. It does annoy me that industry insiders tell me my sex-and-drugs thriller is not commercial, yet this apparently is? Anything with this amount of pre-publication publicity must be commercial by definition, surely? It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Edited to add: here's a link to an interesting debate on this very topic on HarperCollins authonomy site.

Hmmph.

Friday 2 July 2010

Vampire fiction

A timely post, since there's apparently some new vampire film just out?

What is it with vampires? They're fictional creatures that drink blood, for God's sake. And yet the media and youth of today are obsessed with them. 21st century vampirism is definitely cute and fluffy, with pin-up vampires and Hollywood overtones.

Personally, when I do vampires at all, I like them dark and broody - Mitchell style, I guess, in the awesome BBC tv series Being Human. But I got a vampire book for review not so long ago - called Blood & Ice, I was fully intending to write a review here but lost the publicity slip and can't remember when the publication date is. I emailed the publishers but they've not got back to me. Now while this has been published already in hardback, I'm loath to write anything pre-paperback-publication-date just in case my edition is different in any way. So you'll have to make do with the hardback review by The Independent in the link. But I have to say, that for somebody who doesn't generally do vampire fiction, I liked this one, despite the negative review. I thought it was rather original. But you make your own mind up.

Or if you like your vampires a touch more - shall we say? - erotic, check out this excellent unpublished snippet Bite on HarperCollins authonomy site. But please note - it's adults-only and, um, ever-so-slightly (well all right - quite a bit) graphic. Don't say I didn't warn you....