Most of my reviews this week are based on reader recommendations, but I wanted to strike out on my own a bit, so I surfed over to new-to-me Noble Press.
I’ve read two steampunk romances that I really enjoyed, Ginn Hale’s Wicked Gentlemen, and Meljean Brook’s The Iron Duke, so the blurb caught my eye:
Conrad Lloyd’s father, Governor of an old west town, wishes his son wasn’t so interested in inventing, or men, for that matter. It isn’t until Conrad meets Ezhno, a Native American inventor, that Conrad thinks he can find sexual and intellectual fulfillment all in one man. Will they find their way together despite the societal and familial divide that threatens to keep them apart? Or will Conrad have to satisfy himself with his steam-powered Pleasuring Machine?
In the interest of full disclosure, it was the title, A Certain Pressure in the Pipes, that sold me.
I went into this book thinking “campy” and fun. My expectations were low. Alas, they were not low enough.
We first meet Conrad Lloyd, son of Governor Lloyd, in a steampunk Victorian western (??) setting, in jail for “performing unnatural acts.” Conrad’s parents are trying to get him to conform to heterosexual norms, so
…he has to endure many hours making calls on young ladies who were frightfully dull and cared nothing about his ideas and passions — which aside from anal intercourse, included an obsession with inventing.
That passage tells you everything there is to know about Conrad’s character, although I should point out that since what he invents are steam powered dildos, it slightly overstates the breadth of his interests. More on that later.
In the adjoining cell is a “savage dressed in a most peculiar fashion for his people. He wore a camel tweed suit…”. The “savage’s” name is Ezhno, and no, it is never explained why he wears a suit. But the suit is extremely important to his character and the plot. The novella is a mere 575 Kindle locations, but the word “suit” is mentioned 22 times.
Conrad woos Ezhno by mentioning his suit: “You are quite handsome in your suit”. Ezhno’s father instructs his lackeys to “rough him up and take his suit”, but Conrad protests, “you are not taking his suit.” When Ezhno manages to secure his freedom, Conrad worries: “On foot? He’ll sully his suit!” After a night of lovemaking, Conrad thinks Ezhno has left him, but no, he was just in the workshop, mending his suit! I would love to ponder Ezhno’s suit some more, but I have to move on to Ezhno’s other main talent, which is decapitation.
Conrad and his dad are in a carriage headed home from jail, and Ezhno is riding alongside on a horse. They hear shots and screams:
Just then, the carriage door swung open. The Lloyds squinted into the sudden light. Where the vision resolved, Ezhno stood, spattered with blood and mud, his hair tangled. Four severed heads of grubby, unshaven white men, he held in one hand by their shaggy hair. …
It was a horrific sight, but relief and warmth surged through Conrad. … Conrad should be revolted, but the lengths Ezhno had gone to in order to protect him overwhelmed whatever repulsion beheadings might normally cause.
Phew!!
When they finally get to Conrad’s house, he cannot wait to show Ezhno his “workshop.” The piece de resistance is The Fucking Machine. Conrad believes that
the Fucking Machine would give him the sex he wanted without the social stigma.
Yes, Conrad, because no one will think it even slightly weird that you spend your days inventing, and your nights getting fucked by, a steam powered dildo.
Ezhno wastes no time in testing out the Fucking Machine — although one might have wished Conrad washed it off before switching from his nether region to his mouth — and by the end of their little session, during which Ezhno “tastes of Earl Grey tea and spunk”, Conrad “melted, feeling like nothing more than warm meat.”
Alas, the next morning, when Ezhno makes the tragic decision to tailor his suit, Conrad saddles his horse, Newton, rides aimlessly around, and eventually, because the story requires something to happen, gets held up at gunpoint by a “roughneck”.
Luckily, Ezhno and his sadistic, murderous rage show up just in time. As Conrad lay dazed and wet, he exchanges tender words with Ezhno, only realizing after a time that…
the warm wetness of heaven was the roughneck’s entrails exploding all over him.
Don’t you hate it when that happens? When you mistake entrails for heaven?
Treating us to another dose of questionable logic, Ezhno declares:
You deserve to be loved, because I love you.
In seriousness, I got that this was camp, and I didn’t care that there was no Victorian old west, or that the fucking machine was incredibly stupid. But it is sold as a romance, and there was absolutely no reason whatsoever to think these two characters (and I use that word generously) were in love except that the author made sure to have Conrad thinking “soul mate” a couple of times. Also, as you may have noticed from the excerpt, the author clearly thinks it is a violation of artistic freedom to stick to one verb tense per sentence.
Another major problem with the book is that what stands in for Ezhno’s character is a batch of the worst stereotypes of Native Americans I have ever read. Not only is he referred to as “savage” or “a savage” frequently, but contrast what Conrad does with his anger to Ezhno’s actions. Here is Conrad, after his aimless ride on Newton:
Being outside with Newton soothed him enough that when he saw a buck drinking from a brook, the compulsion to kill had all but vanished. Instead he watched the deer, admiring the grace and strength of its neck to carry such a heavy rack without tipping forward.
When you stop tearing up over the depth and poignancy of Conrad’s puzzlement over how a buck can stay upright with those big antlers, take a minute to compare his quiet contemplation to the beheadings and disembowelments in which the “savage” specializes.
Moving on…
“My expectations were low. Alas, they were not low enough.”
Don’t be surprised if I steal (or at least paraphrase) these two lines for one of my own reviews at some point. They are just too perfect not to be used again (and again).
Quite honestly, I’d be appalled by this book, by the fact that it was ever published, by the mere idea that it exists, if I weren’t laughing so damn hard. When reading about works like this it’s really hard for me to imagine that the author actually wrote it as a “romance” in good faith. Perhaps I’m cynical, but this reads essentially like the plots used by low-grade, high volume pornographers, the kind of folks who churn out about a story a day as filler for the large and not very picky porn magazine trade (yeah, I’ve actually known a writer or two who did this for a short while to make a few quick bucks and no, I’ve never been one myself). I, personally, don’t have a problem with porn (although I do have a problem with the grotesque racism on display in this tale) but I do like it to be labeled accurately. Romance readers aren’t generally looking for porn and porn readers aren’t especially interested in romance and pretending they are the same thing in some misguided attempt to expand one’s market is bound to lead to disappointment all around.
I loved Wicked Gentleman too! Couldn’t you wipe the sight and memory of this debacle from your mind’s eye with a review of that? I am just sorry that Lord of the White Hells isn’t available in ebook except as a kindle download because I also liked Gin Hale’s ‘Feral Machines’ (it is an SF story) and would love to read that as well. All her books have original world building that her characters really inhabit – it isn’t just a pretty backdrop for the character’s to shadow play against.
YES, I do! I thought that only have happened to me! Relieved to see that it is not the case.
That was your first mistake. Jill Noble is dead to me after her disgraceful behaviour over the publication of not one but three books with homophobic insults in the title – as a flip off to those upset by the word.
I wouldn’t spend a cent on anything she published. Now you’ve read this one, I hope you follow my example. When a publisher publishes work about gay people but has zero respect for their views, they don’t deserve your money.
@Ann Somerville: You know, Ann, I was thinking as I read it, “this is everything people complain about when they complain about m/m.”
Dammit, I posted a comment yesterday. It seems to have vanished into the sub-ether. Okay:
What I really like is how his homosexuality seems to be signaled by his desire for anal sex. As in, homosexuality is all about the buttsex and nothing to do with an emotional and physical attraction to men. It’s the ACT that makes you gay, donchaknow.
Sigh.
@Sarah Frantz:
Yes, exactly! Great point. All he is is a walking desire for buttsex.
Oh dear. I was laughing so much, my husband kept asking what was so funny. Now I feel guilty for laughing at a fellow author. I admit I haven’t been reading your blog for very long yet, but I had no idea you could write such lethal reviews, Jessica. You have the power to send authors hiding under their beds for weeks.
Ginn Hale has a new 2-volume book out…it’s looking very pretty on my shelf right now….
Jessica, thank you for reading that so that I won’t have to. I believe this post is almost a Hanukkah miracle – certainly it was a much needed laugh on what has been a sad day in Israel.
A fully rounded character then. Nice.
Wow. I do really love the title, though!
Oh my… the author’s a devotee of the Anne McCaffrey school of thought on homosexuality?
The concept of a steam powered dildo has, I think broken my brain. Ow.
@FD: If you want to see a mechanical fucking machine story done right, I recommend to you most heartily, this story by Manna Francis:
http://www.mannazone.org/zone/other/fic/fucking.html
And this one is free, so you can read without risk of anything but being caught by your boss
“it slightly overstates the breadth of his interests”
I started laughing here and never stopped.
Great review Jessica – pity the book wasn’t. Thx for taking one for the team