Thursday, August 30, 2012

A Succubus for Freedom: Excerpt 6

There are six brand new stories in my new collection, A Succubus for Freedom. I've already run excerpts of five of them. Here's an excerpt from the sixth. It's the twisted homage to Robert E. Howard I talked about back here. This time it's "Barbarian vs. Succubus".


* * * *

Even exaggerated with wine-soaked bravado, none of the tales of the Seraglio of Neeb matched up to the reality. It truly was a temple to the worship of sensual pleasures. The rooms beyond were more sumptuous than even the King’s own chambers. Nanok saw pools of crystal-clear water with fragrant flower petals sprinkled on the surface. Mountains of soft silk cushions were piled upon lush, exotic furs. And the girls . . .

Nanok had never before seen such a collection of comely beauties. If willing wenches were as plentiful as apples on the ground then these maidens must be the sweetest, most succulent fruits of the Gods’ own orchard. Nanok saw sapphire-eyed willowy blondes from Fe’berg; flame-haired temptresses from wild Zeminolia; olive-skinned beauties from the islands of Oran; a dark-skinned Buronthian with her black hair twined together in long braids; girls from every corner of the map he’d travelled to and some from regions he’d only heard of in campfire tales. Their supple bodies were naked save for swathes of fine silk around their shapely hips. All were adorned with delicate golden chains and glittering precious stones. A king’s treasure in metal, stone and flesh, was Nanok’s thought.

This temple even had its own idol. At the far end of the long room, with its legs astride a walkway between two pools, stood an enormous statue of the same horned devil woman Nanok had seen on both the chains of office and capstone above the entrance. Clouds of incense wafted around the statue’s legs.

All civilised men made a worship of hedonism and pleasure, in Nanok’s opinion. At least in Neeb they were honest about it.

The girls remained queerly composed. Nanok would have expected some to flee screaming at the arrival of ten bloodstained and battle-weary men, and wouldn’t have begrudged them. He’d sacked his fair share of cities. He knew full well men with their blood up from battle, even the most noble, often committed terrible atrocities in the moments following a city’s fall. These girls seemed so unafraid Nanok wondered if they might be ensorcelled or lost in dreams of the lotus. The same enchantment seemed to have spread to Nanok’s men. Rather than charging in like lusty sailors finding port after a long voyage, they were stricken with a kind of awe. They entered quietly and respectfully, more like men on their way to worship at a temple than men looking to spend coin and seed at a bordello.

Two veiled maidens—one dusky, the other as pale as a snowfield—approached Nanok and bowed.

“Esqeta told us King Lyoncar is dead and we are to serve you as we served him,” the dusky maiden said.

“We are yours as we were his,” the pale-skinned girl said.

“What is your wish, King Nanok?” the dusky-skinned girl asked.

Nanok smiled. “I have some battle-weary dogs in need of the light touch of a woman’s hand to pick up their flesh and spirits.”

As with the veiled Esqeta, if the women balked at the presence of the sweaty, bloodstained soldiers, they hid it well. They seemed well-versed in that peculiar civilised art of quelling the fires of the heart that Nanok so often found infuriating when dealing with the sophisticated elites. The slippery sons of snakes never let on what they were really thinking. By Dhom, the battle had been hard enough as it was. He was in no mood for thawing the loins of frosty dancing wenches.

He didn’t have to worry. The two veiled maidens led him to a soft pile of silk cushions. Both ran soft hands over the iron-hard muscles of his biceps and thighs while cooing like lovebirds. Nanok grinned. As usual, the daughters of civilisation were only too eager to let in the wolf prowling outside their gates.

Nanok lay back on soft cushions. It was a welcome change from cold earth and hard pallets. Around him the atmosphere grew more raucous as his men stripped off their armour and cavorted with the harem girls. Music—an exotic caterwauling of unearthly pipes, cat-screech strings and beating drums—played in the background. Plentiful food and fine wines were brought in—a coronation feast befitting a new king. And by Dhom, why shouldn’t he enjoy it. He’d earned it through blood and steel, as was the right of all men.

“Ha ha,” Vroo guffawed. “These wenches have been starved of real men for too long. The sagging sceptre of a fat old king is no substitute for the sword of a virile fighting man.” He took a bite out of a large leg of ham and rubbed his face between the breasts of the voluptuous maiden lying next to him.

Over on a plush divan Dranitreb was attempting to woo his maiden like a yellow-bellied Kosskootan—a kiss to her hand, a kiss to her wrist, a kiss to her arm, a kiss to—

“You’re supposed to make love to her, lad, not send her to sleep,” Nanok called out. “Forgive the pup,” he said to Dranitreb’s partner. “He became a man only today.”

Dranitreb blushed. Understanding flashed in the girl’s eye. With one quick motion she had Dranitreb on his back and was astride him. Nanok smiled. The Zeminolians were renowned horse riders. The young pup was likely to find himself broken in like a stallion if he didn’t watch himself.

The corded steel of Nanok’s neck and shoulders softened as he relaxed on the cushions. The battle was won; time to enjoy the spoils. The pale-skinned maiden brought a platter of sweet grapes and fed them to him while her companion caressed his muscles with first her hands and then her lips.

Scented smoke was filling the room like a fog. He watched it spill out of the nipples and sex of the giant idol and roll across the floor like mists across the northern lakes of Abyleen. Nanok snorted, trying to clear his nostrils of the cloying perfume. The scent was pleasant, but too thick. It overpowered his senses and left him feeling diminished in the way a blindfold over his eyes would take away his sight.

A fiery ache blossomed in his body and surged down to his loins. Sensing his arousal, the dusky maiden took off his loincloth and Nanok’s cock rose with the mists. The air must be drugged. Nanok had heard of such things. Plenty of peddlers in the flesh pits of Po-Teat promised all kinds of unguents, potions and scents to help a man’s rod stay straight and true. Undoubtedly King Lyoncar had required a little something of that magic to help him fully appreciate his treasures. Nanok thought it feeble. If a man had a willing wench beside him, he needed no help.

A gong sounded. The music paused.

“Lady Esqeta will now dance for your pleasure,” the dusky-skinned maiden whispered in his ear, close enough for him to feel the soft pressure of her full lips.

Nanok’s interest pricked up. He was curious to see what the mistress of the seraglio was hiding beneath her robes. A great cloud of smoke billowed from between the legs of the giant idol. Like the breath of a dragon, Nanok thought with a small sliver of disquiet. Two slender girls—golden-skinned beauties from far-off Kallahia, waved fans as they fluttered before the cloud like exotic butterflies. The smoke faded and revealed Lady Esqeta.

* * * *


This was the last story to finish for the collection. Originally it was a simple prospect - take musclebound-but-dim stereotypical barbarian and have a succubus turn the tables on them. Then I reread all of Howard's stories and remembered his Conan, the archetypal and Ur-barbarian, is far more clever and cunning than the fantasy stereotypes that followed.

There's a little black joke at Howard's expense buried in the story. It wasn't deliberate, just a combination of words that could be taken to mean something else. I only noticed it was there when I was editing. I thought about editing it out, but that would mean acknowledging I have something other than a lump of black coal for a heart, which patently isn't true. Apologies anyway, Mr Howard, you stupid daft bugger for killing yourself so young. His genius is available to read here, and well worth checking out to see how good the early pulp masters were.

My humble effort, A Succubus for Freedom, is available now as an ebook from here, here, here, and even B&N here, although no one seems to go there anymore.

For the people waiting for a print version, I do have the full coverflat artwork now and I'm just waiting for the print manuscript to go through. I'll post here with details as soon as the print version of the book is available to buy. Sorry for the delay on that.

I'm not sure which fantasy stereotype is up next for "vs. Succubus". I have Rogue and Samurai (with a guest appearance from another of my characters) pencilled in. Any others you'd like to see?

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Hentai Game Review: Violated Hero 2

Yay, another monster girl hentai game came out. Yay, another opportunity to lure fresh readers here and pimp books to them under the guise of a game review. As this is a hentai game, if you’re under 18 or likely to be offended by such things, now is the time to steer the mouse cursor up to the top left and hit the back button.

I blogged about the original Violated Hero back here. It was a game with some nicely executed H-scenes, but some rather lacklustre gameplay and a few iffy quirks. Well, it has a sequel out now from Dieselmine and the good news is they’ve managed to iron out a lot of the annoying wrinkles of the original.


They're not kidding around when they say violated...

It’s pricey at $34, but it’s a really chunky file at 1.5GB, so you do get a lot of content. Gameplay-wise it’s similar to the first one—the player wanders around two Dungeon Master-esque mazes, defeating enemies with either sword or magic. Lose (or sometimes win!) to certain enemies and you get a gorgeously rendered Game Over hentai scene where the monster girl performs a variety of different sex acts on the lucky/luckless hero.

The first maze is set in a forest and the second is set in the demon queen’s castle, both with nicely drawn backgrounds. As with the first game there isn’t a lot of strategy other than hit either the sword attack or magic attack button. The player also has the option of a special strong sword/magic attack, but each has a limited number of usages and is best saved for the bosses.

In the original the player levelled up by picking up a stat boost for each monster they killed, which meant an awful lot of tedious grinding against boring silhouette monsters to be able to beat the monster girl ‘bosses’ in order to proceed. This is mostly gone apart from six special conventional monsters (this time with full artwork rather than plain black silhouettes) hidden in each maze that give a stat bonus when defeated. Aside from them, the player levels up each time they defeat one of the main monster girl characters.


Milfy. Cute, bouncy, adorable...and general of an army focused on exterminating humanity.

The mazes are divided into five regions, each containing one of the main monster girl characters locked off behind a mystical barrier. The random encounters in each region are smaller versions of the main monster girl with lower quality artwork. Yes, the idiosyncratic pixelated artwork is back, but at least the main characters are all drawn with detailed artwork. Defeat three random encounters and the barrier pops open. Most of the time the player will do this before they even get to the barrier, so it’s not really a chore.

There are five monster girls in each maze as well as four generals and the demon queen herself, making fifteen characters in total. Common types such as harpies, lamia, slime girls (Milfy is adorable), mermaids and succubi are all present, and even some more unusual creations as well. Each has their own Game Over H-scene, which is the real reason you’re here, let’s face it. In that respect VH2 doesn’t disappoint. As with the first game, the artwork is consistent and well-drawn, and each scene is fully voiced. There’s a reason for that huge file size. Most of the monster girls have at least two scenes and the generals also have a third bonus epilogue scene after defeating you as well. These range from the sexy to the…um…yeah…weird.


Insector. I'm not sure I want to unlock her H-scenes...

Dieselmine clearly had one eye on Monster Girl Quest while developing this, and there’s more of a story this time around rather than a straight dungeon crawl to the Big Bad at the bottom. In particular there are plenty of cutaway scenes building up the characters of the demon queen and her generals.

Overall it’s still a collection of sumptuously-rendered hentai scenes in search of a game, but at least the game elements are less annoying this time around. It can be bought from here and the Dieselmine website is here. If you don’t fancy all the mucking around with AGTH and locales in order to play the Japanese version, this fella is working on an English translation, so it might be worth bookmarking their site.

And finally the inevitable plug. If you like this sort of game may I also humbly suggest giving my books a try, as I’m sure you’ll enjoy them too. Sample stories can be found here.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The difference between censorship and censorship

The Edinburgh International Book Festival is running at the moment and has thrown up some interesting articles. Patrick Ness put out this brilliant polemic on censorship and in particular how social media can cause problems of self-censorship for writers worried about their words being taken out of context and misunderstood. In the latter article China MiƩville made the point it's only really censorship when the police show up.

This is a familiar argument and a problem with how censorship is defined. Selena Kitt brought it up here after the problems with paypal and online retailers banning some of eXcessica’s books. The articles around the time generated some debate with other people making the point that it wasn’t true censorship—no government body was actively banning the books; the booksellers were simply refusing to stock the books, which they had every right to do. I argued back then that the semantics of whether or not it was technically censorship were moot if they resulted in the same outcome. It might not be censorship in the pedantic sense, but the end result is still a writer being unable to get their work out for readers to read. There isn’t really a word to fit this ‘soft’ form of censorship, so we tend to use censorship even though it’s not strictly accurate.

This ‘soft’ censorship is especially appropriate to social media and I think Ness has it spot on. A writer either has to censor themselves and avoid trigger topics completely, or risk something being interpreted the wrong way and then have a baying online mob (most of whom probably didn’t even read the original work in the first place) stomp all over their reputation and career.

Ness raised the example of Salman Rushdie. Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was not banned or censored by Western governments to my knowledge, but after seeing what happened to Rushdie, only an incredibly brave or reckless writer would attempt to tackle the same topics now. Again, this isn’t censorship in the pedantic sense, but the end result is the same—certain work will not be available for the public to read. It’s a kind of censorship by the mob.

And irony of ironies, this is the week when the Save the Pearls and Weird Tales controversy erupted on the internet, a situation that exemplifies Ness’s argument (although I don’t think he’d thank me for drawing the line from A to B).

I don’t want to talk about Victoria Foyt's book too much. I’ll be charitable and assume Foyt was aiming for an anti-racist message, but rather than hit the target, managed to spin around 180° and fire the arrow right through her foot. As a result plenty of people found it racist and were offended by it. They were also offended that Weird Tales (a fiction magazine with a long history) planned to run an extract. Further exacerbating the situation, Weird Tales had recently undergone some kind of editorial coup, with the popular Ann VanderMeer turfed out by the new owners.

This is where being one of those staunch Free Speech Warriors sucks. I fear and loathe all forms of censorship, which by extension means I also fear and loathe Political Correctness, as it’s another form of censorship, albeit by people with more honourable intentions. The moment you start to think certain things should be banned, for the “good”, is the moment you start opening the door to allow other people to ban other things, for their “good”, which might be vastly different and far more narrow-minded than your own “good”. That door should be kept shut and firmly locked. Unfortunately that sometimes means ending up on the side of the river you’d rather not be. As the famous quote goes: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Of course, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism. If someone writes something bone-headed and stupid, someone else has the right to call them out for writing something bone-headed and stupid. There is, however, a fine line between honest and deserved criticism, and hounding a writer off the internet and leaving a smouldering crater where a magazine once stood.

I fear the chilling effects Ness talked about in his polemic. Culture is poorly served if writers are grinding their work down to tasteless gruel for fear of the PC police lurking at their shoulder. Free speech should mean exactly that, not “You can write what you like, but if you write things we don’t like it’s back to rounding up trolleys at Tesco for you.” Our culture shouldn’t be ruled by fear.

Given a choice between a world where people have the freedom to write what they want and occasionally fuck it up completely, and a world where people don't write because they're scared of an online lynch mob coming after them if they do fuck it up, I'll take the former. If that means the existence of the occasional disagreeable—even bigoted—book, it’s a price worth paying.

During the rather lively discussion beneath The Guardian article someone made the point freedom to be published is not the same as the right to be published. Ultimately that decision lies with the publisher or magazine. They’re not obligated to provide a platform to writers whose work they find disagreeable, same as readers are not obligated to support businesses they find disagreeable.

I agree with that, but this is not what happened in this case. Rightly or wrongly, Weird Tales had already taken the decision to publish an extract of Foyt’s work. Then—rightly or wrongly—a pitchfork-wielding mob turned up at the gates and forced the publisher into a U-turn. In doing so they denied other readers the chance to make up their own minds on whether or not to support the magazine’s decision. That choice was taken away.

This is censorship by the mob.

No matter the provocation, we should aspire to be better than this.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

A Succubus for Freedom: Excerpt 5

Continuing the excerpts from A Succubus for Freedom, here's a tasty chunk from the other new Hell-space story, "Onychophoral Dreams (The Soul Worm II)":


* * * *

It was quiet. I didn’t notice it until it was almost right on top of me and by then I was too surprised to react. She—

That’s the weird part. It’s so easy to focus on the human-like parts and forget their other . . . bits. I know I should think of it as an it, but it’s always a she.

She was right in front of me, not more than a couple of paces and as naked as the day she was born. Cute as well. She had a smile like the girls you always wanted to talk to at school, but never had the courage to ask. Those naked titties of hers were something to behold. Big, round, firm, and with the sweetest pink nipples you ever saw right in the middle of them. Pink like her hair, if it was hair.

I didn’t move. Ever since Beth . . . since Beth . . .

. . .

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a girl’s titties in the flesh. The other guys’ll go to their strip clubs, maybe get more if it’s offered, but not me. That ain’t me. Now there was this gorgeous naked girl standing right in front of me and I was so shocked I didn’t have the first idea what to do.

Except she wasn’t a girl. You only had to look down to past her waist to see that. Where a normal girl would have a cute little ass and maybe long sexy legs if you’re lucky, this girl had . . .

It’s hard to describe. Hey, you know what a velvet worm is? Proper name is peripati or puripatus or something like that.

Nephew of mine likes keeping weird little bugs for pets and that was one of them. They call it a worm, but it walks. Has these stumpy little legs—not like a millipede, more like a caterpillar.

Anyway, that’s what the girl’s lower body looked like—long, worm-like and dark pink in colour, but with rows of stumpy little triangular legs running down each side. She’d reared up so it looked like she was standing upright like a normal girl, but with that long, moist-looking worm body below the waist and fleshy little pyramid legs waving around in front of her. Even if you couldn’t see that lower peripati-whatever body, you’d still know she wasn’t a human girl. She had antennae. They grew out of her temples like the eyestalks of a slug. There was a second, bigger pair, growing out of her hips on either side of her pussy.

Ah, her pussy. It’s going to sound weird, like I’m the biggest goddamn pervert in the world, but I swear to you it was the sweetest damn little cunny you’re ever likely to see. So clean-shaven, as if it had been plucked, and with all her intimate folds tucked up so nice and tidy within her.

I know how I sound—a fucking deviant lusting after freaky demon poonang—but there was something about her exposed vagina. It drew the gaze, grabbed the eye and held it there like it had been harpooned. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m a good man, a god-fearing man. Heck, there hasn’t been anyone since Beth. Yet I was staring and gawping like I was back at puberty with my first porn mag beneath trembling fingers.

And while I was standing there and gawping like a deer in headlights those weird stalks sticking out of where her hips should be opened out into fleshy tubes and sprayed gunk all over me.

The gunk left her tubes as a jet of liquid, but it was already solidifying by the time it reached me—setting like glue or maybe some kind of stretchy rubber. The first sticky line hitting me in the chest knocked me out of my trance. I tried to struggle free, but it was already too late. She stood there and squirted more sticky threads over me until I was totally gunked up.

At that point I noticed the sticky gunk was eating right through my clothes like acid and I really started panicking. I thought for sure I was going to be melted in freaky alien slime. I thrashed around like a berserker.

Not that it did me any good. The thick threads stretched, but they were strong like thick rubber and stickier than glue. The girl thought it was funny. She stood there with her arms under those perfect pink titties and her shoulders moving up and down like she was giggling.

I was a crazed animal at this point. I was dreading the moment when the slime finished eating through my uniform and started to cut into my flesh.

It didn’t happen. As corrosive as the gunk seemed to be to clothes—and hair—I didn’t feel any pain or loss of sensation when it reached my skin. It felt warm, sticky and kind of pervy. Yeah, a weird description, I know, but that’s how it was. The stuff covered me and I felt all dirty and excited at the same time, like I was about to have illicit sex with that girl at school everyone warns you to steer clear of.

I kept pulling at the sticky, stretchy filaments, but my motions were slower now, like a punch drunk boxer on the ropes in the tenth round. I was stuck fast and knew it.

“Have you quite finished?”

Yeah, she spoke perfect English. It was a shock to me too. I stopped struggling and stared at her like I was an inbred redneck.

Her voice was high and sweet, kind of like a young woman being all teasy and girlish. She had that kind of face as well, if you ignored her weird antennae things.

“You won’t break loose, no matter how hard you struggle,” she said.

She was right. I was all trussed up in her sticky white ropes. What unnerved me was part of me seemed perfectly happy with this.

“What do you want?” I asked.

She didn’t miss a beat. She reached down and hooked a finger right up between the folds of her pussy. I swear that sweet little face went and gave me a smile dirtier than the filthiest jezebel.

* * * *


Out now on Amazon, B & N, Smashwords and other ebook websites.

Friday, August 10, 2012

A Succubus for Freedom: Excerpt 4

A Succubus for Freedom is already out as you might have seen. I don't have exact details on when the print version will appear - hoping to have more information on that soon. In the meantime here's another excerpt from one of the new stories, "Come on the Candle". (Sorry about the repetition for the people who've already picked up a copy - I'll make it up with a new Jackson in HRPG World mini-serial starting here after I'm done with the ASfF promotion season.)


* * * *

“She looks like a devil,” Vince said.

The candle looked like the kind of prop you’d expect to see in an old Hammer film about Satan worshippers.

“That’s because she is,” Annette said. “She is Arpella, spirit of lust and temptation. The ritual is a rite of cleansing. By spraying his seed onto the candle, a man is—in essence—telling her: ‘Take this. It has no hold on me.’ It’s a way of demonstrating he has transcended the pleasures and desires of the flesh.”

“Arpella?” Vince queried. “Not Lilith?”

The sculpture looked like a Lilith, or one of those succubus demons from a computer fantasy role-playing game.

Annette laughed. “That’s a Christian invention,” she said. “They took their stories from the Romans and modified them, just as the Romans took theirs from the Greeks, and the Greeks took theirs from sources long forgotten in the dust of history.”

Vince looked at the candle. “This ritual. All I have to do is light the candle and masturbate over it?”

As genuine as Annette sounded, he couldn’t quite shake the fear the attractive shopkeeper was having a joke at his expense.

“That’s right,” she said.

“Sorry. I’m picturing this in my head and it looks . . . well . . . a little ridiculous to be honest.”

“Smell the wax,” Annette said.

Vince put the sculpture to his nose and took a cautious sniff. Oh. That smelt kind of nice. Exotic. Like perfume or incense, but with a hint of something else. His previous mental image of him jerking away in front of the candle was swished off screen and replaced by a picture of a dusky desert maiden belly-dancing in a cloud of scented smoke.

“That’s the real magic,” Annette explained. “The wax is impregnated with a special blend of aromatic compounds and essential oils. As the wax melts they’re released into the air and inhaled by the user.”

“Oh. It’s a kind of aromatherapy,” Vince said, understanding.

“Yes,” Annette said. “The smoke will help you relax and achieve the perfect state of mind for flushing all the tensions from your body.”

That was good to hear. Vince was a little apprehensive about the ‘flushing’ part.

“Actually,” Annette lowered her voice, “one of those compounds is quite a potent aphrodisiac. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the force and strength of your release.”

The shop owner might have the voice of a prim and proper schoolmarm, but right there and then she gave him a look as filthy as any of the nymphs from the naughty films Carolyn had forbade Vince from seeing.

* * * *


It's Annette Brite up to more mischief. This one is best described as like "Bubble Bath", but with smoke. I haven't forgotten about that foam succubus minion either. I'll be catching up with her in the next collection.

And yeah, I know, Vince is a bit of a strawman. . .

Saturday, August 04, 2012

A Succubus for Freedom: Out Now!

You can’t escape . . . You won’t want to escape . . .

Succubi and other monstrous femme fatales abound in M.E. Hydra’s fourth collection of wild, warped and wickedly dark erotica. Lie back and enjoy as alluring sirens ensnare helpless prey in thirteen weird tales of sex and horror. They'll give you pleasures beyond your wildest dreams, and terrors beyond your darkest nightmares . . .



Here's the full list of the stories:

A Succubus for Freedom
Exile
Guard Duty
Don't Fuck the Flowers
The Biggest Tits in the World
A Night at McHooligans
Barbarian vs. Succubus
Onychophoral Dreams (The Soul Worm II)
Naga Massage Review
Come on the Candle
What Bad Boys Get For Christmas
Riding the Medusa
Locked in with a Succubus

Some of the titles will be familiar, but I managed to boost the original story content up to nearly half. Six of the stories are brand new and only appear in this book. I also modified a couple. "Locked in with a Succubus" should now have an ending that makes more sense. "The Biggest Tits in the World" is actually my lowest rated Lit story, partly because of some scale issues in what happens. No problem - Lovecraftian Geometry to the rescue!

The six brand new stories feature the stone tablet succubus being thoroughly evil in a hefty 11K word novella (if you like your demon girls BAD, you'll really enjoy this), the Robert E Howard 'Conan' homage I mentioned in previous posts, something a little experimental with some lush descriptions of hell, an odd succubus summoning rite with candles and smoke, and two Hell-space stories featuring some bizarre (and sexy) monster girls.

Why are the chapters for "Locked in with a Succubus" alternating with the other stories instead of in one place?
Originally it was a weekly serial and I wanted to preserve that feeling of having a 'pause' between each chapter. It's one of those things that might work or could suck. It wouldn't be any fun being independent if I couldn't do the odd bit of experimental craziness now and again...

The book can be found on amazon, and in amazon UK (where no one actually reads me, which is ironic considering they're the only people that might understand some of my more obscurer references! :) ). It's also on B&N, smashwords and also directly from eXcessica's own site. I even put it on various romance fiction sites, because that's where we upload books, although I pity the poor person downloading it in search of fuzzy paranormal romance.

I hope everyone enjoys it anyway. Sorry it was so late coming out. It does mean I can now finally get back to Succubus Summoning 201, another project I've fallen a little (okay a lot!) behind on. I would love for people to leave reviews, but appreciate that amazon's insistence on real names might make that unappealing for some people. Please feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below or even email me directly at manyeyedhydraATgooglemail.com. The same for any suggestions. I can't guarantee I can satisfy all of them, but I don't mind tweaking scenarios to cater to specific fetishes (especially ones I haven't got around to covering yet) or even tweaking character descriptions if there's someone/thing you'd like to see in a story.

Thursday, August 02, 2012

A Succubus for Freedom: Out this Friday!

Yep, that's right. A slot opened up and so it will be out August 3rd after all. It means I'll have to compress my book plugging, but hey, who wants to read book plugs when you could be reading the actual book.

Here's an extract from the title story, "A Succubus for Freedom", to celebrate:


* * * *

Andy thought the girl from his dream was just that—a dream. Then he saw her in the flesh a few nights later while they were playing a gig at The Wyld Hart.

The Wyld Hart was an odd sort of pub. It was too far off the beaten track to be absorbed into the bland franchise chain conglomerates and it didn’t have the history and character to be one of those defiant locals’ haunts. It wasn’t really the town’s rock pub either—that was The Drunken Choir out on Newcastle Street, where the bikers hung out—but it had been colonized by the metal and emo kids from the town’s schools and college. They had nowhere else to go, so they fetched up at The Wyld Hart because it had a jukebox that wasn’t full of R’n’B and Landfill Indie.

The landlord didn’t mind. The kids brought custom and even if they were ‘funny looking’, they were a lot less bother than their peers, who normally required scraping off the vomit-sodden streets every Saturday night.

Scott Battersby was normally around anyway, and no one messed with Scott Battersby.

Most people assumed Scott was the landlord even though this wasn’t the case. He did rent rooms up on the first floor and spent most of his time either behind the bar or manning the door, but he didn’t own the pub. Scott looked intimidating—bald and squat like someone had taken a seven-foot person and squashed them down to six—but he was a decent enough bloke in Andy’s opinion. Unless he was in a mosh pit. Then you stayed the fuck out of his way. Andy and the band had gone with him to a Megadeth gig. Scott had been quiet for most of the night, and then “Hangar 18” came on and a neat hole formed in the crowd around him as Scott started moshing. Scott was old school.

Scott read the board they’d chalked the band’s name on as they were setting up their gear.

“Perverts In Satan’s Service?” he said, doubtfully.

“Our new band name,” Stidolph said. “Cool, isn’t it.”

“You do know what it spells out?” Scott said.

Both Andy and Chris gave him the dejected ‘yeah, we know’ look.

Chuckling, Scott shook his head and walked away to tend the bar.

Confusion fluttered across Stidolph’s face. “What’s the problem? Is there something wrong with the band name?”

Andy put a hand on his face.

Stidolph wasn’t exactly the brightest spark, but he was still a decent frontman. The gig kicked off and straightaway he was snarling out lyrics and prowling the front of their makeshift stage as if possessed by the spirit of Ozzy himself. Of course, it would have looked more impressive had he been, you know, taller than five-foot-four.

They were halfway through a cover of Dimmu Borgir’s “Succubus in Rapture” when Andy saw the girl from his dream amongst the collection of onlookers that might loosely be termed the crowd. It was impossible to miss her. She wore a lurid red corset that accentuated her cleavage, an indecently short miniskirt and kinky red fishnet tights. Goth-wear with the kinkiness dialled up to eleven. Andy was so surprised to see her he fucked up and missed a few beats. It didn’t matter as Chris did the same. The only one who didn’t fuck up was Daniel, and that was because he was staring at the floor.

The girl watched them all the way through the set. She leant against a pillar in the centre of the room and looked so hot Andy wouldn’t have been surprised had the old oak timber caught fire. Both Stidolph and Chris were convinced they were the ones she had eyes for and showed off accordingly. Andy was a little unnerved. She looked exactly like the girl he’d dreamt about a couple of nights ago.

She wasn’t the only unexpected onlooker. As Andy was packing away his kit at the end of the gig he noticed Richard speaking with Scott over by the bar. No, more than speaking, laughing and joking as if the two men were old friends. Whatever could a boring fart like Richard have in common with an old-school thrash-head like Scott?

He didn’t get a chance to ponder it further. The hot girl, her eyes smouldering, was walking towards them. Both Stidolph and Chris stepped up to introduce themselves. She walked straight past them without a sideways glance. Her burning eyes were on him. They had been all night.

“Um . . . hi . . .” he started.

The girl shushed him with a finger on his lips. Her other hand grabbed a twist of the T-shirt covering his chest and formed a fist. Both Stidolph and Chris gaped at him in surprise as the girl shoved him in the direction of the toilets.

Yes, for the first time in rock history, the hot chick ignored the singer and lead guitarist and went straight for the drummer.

* * * *


Hey, someone found the succubus tablet . . .

It'll end in tears. (But there'll be some hot sex along the way).

Here's the nice coming soon link on eXcessica's site. It'll also be out on Amazon, B & N, Smashwords and the other usual places. I'll put the links up on Friday. There will be a print version, but it will probably be a week or so later. Given that I've never managed to successfully synch an ebook release with a print release in my entire (short) writing history, this will not exactly come as a surprise.

A Succubus for Freedom and other tales of Obscene Orgies, out Friday!