(An idea for the next book/film deal, perhaps?)
She tried, but could not forget his lustrous beak or the wild, alien stare of his gigantic eyes. Where had they come from, these strange new sensations that seized her, seized her with sudden force like his powerful tentacles? She tried to keep her head above the water of her feelings, but knew she was drowning. This driving urge, this reckless desire, this... need to wreak carnage on the shipping lanes of the Atlantic. She heard the sound of racing blood in her ears, and it sounded like the crash of the sea.(Sample paragraph from Beneath the Surface, a heart-warming tale of love and giant sea monsters. "Kraken Cheese, Gromit" was the back-up title I had in mind.)
His face was desiccated and decayed, but his bandages were soft, like smooth skin against hers. There was something in his eyes older than the Pyramids; she dared to hope that it was love, and not just ageless soul-devouring evil. She heard him call her name with each broken, sepulchral groan that rumbled out of his throat. Those once-muscular arms that Time had ravaged still had power - the power to thrill her.(Sample paragraph from Cursed Love, vol 1: Wrapped in Your Arms. You know, this just gets easier and easier. I think I'm tapping into my inner slashfic writer.)
She was starting to wish she'd never come on this monster hunt. Lou was such a chump. It had been easy at first to love his bewildered spluttering and comical double-takes, but his clean-cut image soon palled and boy, was she tired of his "Who's On Top?" routine! Alas, poor dumb Lou thought he'd worked out who was his rival for her affections, but it wasn't the Invisible Man she'd fallen for - it was all-too-visible Bud.(Sample paragraph from Abbot and Costello Meet an Impressionable Young Woman.)
More may yet follow, unless fifty thousand in used notes is deposited at this address...
(...is "skittery" the right word? Hmm...)
7 comments:
I'm glad I read this at home, I think work might have complained about me laughing out loud!
I always though there must have been something between King Kong and Ann Darrow...
so what's a 'twilight' then?
I think it's a subtle choice of title that indicates that the book is neither brilliant enough nor dark enough.
Actually John, I think you'll find that "Supernatural Romance" has been around for a while. I think "Twilight" is as much a casher-in, as cashee. (Though obviously, currently the most famous.)
And why are we blaming/praising "Buffy" for this? People have been falling in love with Vampires for a long time now. All the way back to Stoker, to be blunt. Not that I'd deny that much of the more recent stuff is almost certainly "Buffy" inspired.
And your first attempt, I assumed (until I read your title) that it was going to be a sampler from your new work "Waiting for Cthulu (to Call): A Tale of Love, Redemption and Elder Gods eating the Souls of their Followers. Oh, and possibly Nihilism too".
Go on. Write that. I dare you. Bonus points for making it as much Beckett as Lovecraft.
"The Booty Call of Cthulhu"? I'll get back to you on that one.
Maybe I should start referring to "Bram Stoker Fan Fiction", I don't know - it just seems as though Buffy opened the floodgates on this one. Yes, it's been around for a long time, but there's an awful lot of it about now, and it all seems to involve emotionally vulnerable teenagers or sexually hyperactive twenty-somethings.
How do you know that? How much of this stuff have you read?
As for why this stuff is written (or, more importantly, why it sells), I'm sure there are many psychology case studies out there already. And if there aren't, there soon will be.
Some women do like their bad boys (or, to be slightly more accurate, their fantasies of bad boys).
I have read blurbs and reviews. They're pretty easy to come by - SFX Magazine is particularly generous in its coverage.
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