Tempting The Beast by Lora Leigh

[elfs]

Without input, there is no output. For a writer, reading is essential. And although erotic furry writers are regarded as the Java programmers of fandom, I still like writing, and reading, that kind of stuff. I was mildly pleased by a witches-verses-werecreatures story by Christine Warren that disappointed me mostly because, although the sex was great, there was never any were-jaguar-on-girl sex and, dammit, there should have been.

So I gave it a second shot. Lora Leigh has written Tempting The Beast, and my feelings about it are mixed. It's better written than much of their skiffy, but the final product is just off-kilter.

Our hero is Callan, our heroine Merinus. (I get the feeling our writer was desperate for "unique" names). Callan is an escaped genetic experiment to breed a super soldier, a mixture of human and lion genes, and although he's mostly human he has a lot of leonine characteristics. Merinus is a reporter (and, not coincidentally, daughter of a newspaper dynastic scion) who's hot on his trail. They end up having a lot of very hot sex. The progression of oral-vaginal-anal over the course of the book is silly; there's no reason for Callan to want to sodomize Merinus; it sorta comes out of nowhere.

But that seems to be par for this book. There's a really silly teleological "nature found a way" argument in this book for why Merinus, despite being 100% human, ends up physically "bonded" to Callan for all of eternity. Merinus' brothers are basically Doc, Hank, Monk, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny^[?], (if you get that without following the link, you're very, very old), except Doc is named "Kane", is ex-special-forces, has a team of twelve others on hand (who all get names, despite never getting roles!) who follow him everywhere and apparently do... what? Dirty work for the newspaper industry? Callan is the product of a private enterprise of mad scientists known only as "The Council," and they have their own mercenaries who, depending upon the scene, either know nothing or more than can be explained by the plot. Oh, and Callan's tongue ejaculates an aphrodisiac. And you can tell when the author ran out of ideas (or wordcount headspace), because the epilogue basically wraps up the mad scientists' evil scheme in four paragraphs.

But if you want lots of hot almost-furry sex, it's a fine book.

Comments

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Merinus' brothers are basically Doc, Hank, Monk, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny[?], (if you get that without following the link, you're very, very old)

Hey! I'm younger than you are and I got that!

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

I will sidestep the question of whether 47 is "very, very old" and point out that it is Ham, not "Hank."

Don't you think there is something slashy in the love/hate relationship between Monk and Ham?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

You're right, it's Ham. That was a slip of the fingers on hte keyboard; I knew that. And yeah, there's something disturbingly slash-worthy about it. On the other hand, Patricia Savage was just... silly.

And I'm only 40, and I used to consume Doc Savages by the dozen every summer.

[velvet-wood.livejournal.com]

But if you want lots of hot almost-furry sex, it's a fine book.

Yeah, but by those standards, so are Laurell K. Hamilton's last three pieces of bad porn.

[nbarnes.livejournal.com]

by those standards, so are Laurell K. Hamilton's last three pieces of bad porn.

Is there something wrong with Laurell K. Hamilton's last three pieces of bad porn? You can have my copy of Cerulean Sins when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

[nbarnes.livejournal.com]

As I check to see who it is that I'm responding to....

VELVET WOOD, you HOWLING HYPOCRITE! You can my have my beloved Anita Blake and pretty goth elf boys when you PRY THEM from my COLD DEAD FINGERS. I scorn you now. /snub

....

Nice to see you still around. Friended you. How's Shalon doing?

[velvet-wood.livejournal.com]

Heh. Shay's fine, everything's going pretty well, honestly, just haven't had time for usenet in a long while. His lj-id is norikos_author, if you'd like, but he rarely posts anything.

Am not a hypocrite. I write porn, yep yep yep (http://playground.pele.cx if you want proof). No problem with porn. I'm very fond of porn, in fact. I do, however, object when an author who I fell in love with for her fantasy writing not-so-gradually stops writing fantasy in favor of, let's face it, pretty boring porn. Poor Anita obviously hasn't yet figured out that quantity doesn't equal quality. In "Micah", you are presented with a scene which is described as, I believe, "mind-blowing, special, amazing, new, and take-your-time once in a lifetime sex" and possibly as kinky as well, not sure. Did the scene in question involve any bondage, out-of-the-ordinary effort, or anything at all even vaguely 'different'? Nope. It was a bit of oral, no more than half an hour's worth of foreplay total with nothing non-vanilla about it, and then some missionary style sex. Whoo. Oh yeah, _that's_ going to turn me on. I mean come _on_! She's got her pick of werecreatures and undead, and living in her bed is the kinkiest, most lucious piece of bisexual submissive male any woman could want, and she does... not much. Some straight sex. Every once in a while she does it in public. Or she might bite. Ooooooh. Ahhhhh.

But still... it's not so much the quality of the porn that bugs me as the fact that that's _all_ her books are anymore. All pretense at plot has been abandoned in favor of stuffing in more sex. I can't honestly recall Cerulian Sins... they've all kinda blended together since Narcissus in Chains (which had _such_ a promising set up) but I seem to recall that I counted up the pages in either it or Incubus Dreams and in the 667 page book, there were 62 pages of plot and 605 pages of sex-scene. When I pay hardcover price for a fantasy novel, I _want a fantasy novel_. I can get porn for free online. I can get printed porn dirt cheap. I _can't_ get a hell of a lot of good urban/gothic fantasy, and I'd really like to. I miss the kind of writing she did in her early books, but have concluded that she's totally sold out, and that writing shall never return. And, IMO, if you're going to write porn, you should be honest about it, and not lable it something else and get pissy if people claim that's what you're writing.

An example... she recently had a shortstory in a collection of 'paranormal romance' stories. (probable spoilers here)
.
.
.
.
.
.
The story started out really promising. Anita was at work (wow!) and a woman came in to ask her to find her daughter, who she was afraid was going to lose her soul by becoming a vampire. The daughter was 17, so it was illegal. Sounds pretty simple, but then we find out that the daughter has bone cancer and, if she doesn't become a vampire, is scheduled to have her leg removed next week. There's also some interplay that suggests that while the mother is certain the 'beast' her daughter's seeing is a male, that might not be the case. So, pretty good set-up, lots of tension, you're wondering how she's going to pull off not turning in the vamp or whatever, yes?

Don't bother. You never see the girl. You never see the vamp. You never see anything, because all she does is go ask Jean Claude about the vampire, Jean Claude sends a flunky looking, and then they have sex. That's it. That's the entirety of the 'story'. A teasing set-up which makes you hope she still remembers how to write something other than sex, and then... sex.

.
.
.
.
.
End spoiler space.
con't

[velvet-wood.livejournal.com]

So, in my opinion, she ripped off that anthology, big-time. They paid good money for her name, and that's _all_ they got from her. She couldn't even be bothered to take the time to actually write a 20 page shortstory, and copped out with yet another generic, vanilla sex scene. I have absolutely no respect for her after that, and I don't care how desperate I am for reading material, I won't buy her books. Truly... I threw that one across the room and was pissed off enough that I'd probably avoid any con she's going to be at any time in the near future, because I'm quite likely, upon seeing adoring fancreatures cozying up to her, to tell her exactly what I think of her. So best I stay away. :)

For _good_ authors in that genre, check out Jim Butcher, Kim Harrison, Carrie Vaughn, and possibly Charlene Harris' 'Southern Vampire' series... that last gets better as you get further into it, though, and starts a bit rough. Simon Green's 'Nightside' books are good, too, but awfully short for normal paperback prices.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

Check out Luna. They're a lesser known publisher that's starting to get some notice, and for good reason. Two of my favorites are the Retriever novels by Laura Anne Gilman and "Cast in Shadow" & "Cast in Courtlight" by Michelle Sagara. Those two are more magic user type books, but Luna publishes alot of werewolf/vampire/etc. stuff too. Granted most are no more porn than one of your steamier Harlequin titles, but it's dang good fantasy.

[nghtangl.livejournal.com]

>The progression of oral-vaginal-anal over the course of the book is >silly; there's no reason for Callan to want to sodomize Merinus; it sorta >comes out of nowhere.

Just to help answer this part...her books, while are okay as stand alones, do have a continuing storyline that you don't really understand unless you start at the beginning.

They discovered that the mating heat in certain Breeds wouldn't dissipate without a true mating, that involving anal. Anal sex was also suppose to be the most dominating way a male could take the female and proclaim her as belonging to him. Each Breed, has a slightly different way of completing the bonding, but anal seems to be a favorite.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Aw, heck. There goes an entire thread of the Journal Entries.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

If you want something close to furry erotica, including a mating in wolf-form, may I direct you to my werewolves? Paul's an architect, Dan is a an English prof. They starred in "Cake Under the Mistletoe" (a Torquere Press single shot) and are back in "Singing Up the Moon" in the Shifting Again collection coming in October.

And I'll happily bribe you with free copies of both stories if you'd be willing to take a look at a piece I've got that needs more emphasis on the SF portions to balance the smut.

Let's just say I'd prefer my stuff (if it ever finds a publisher, and Ellora is looking right now) ignite your shorts rather than be held up for mockery in this space. 8)

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

Wow. Where do you find this crap? Though I appreciate knowing what authors to avoid.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Well, most of these are from Ellora's Cave, which is an on-line, straight-to-ebook seller of "romantic erotica," and the talk among the fans is usually about trying to ferret which writers are really women and which are men using pseudonyms.