Photo de l'auteur

Thomas S. Roche

Auteur de In the Shadow of the Gargoyle

26+ oeuvres 437 utilisateurs 4 critiques 1 Favoris

A propos de l'auteur

Comprend les noms: Thomas Roche

Séries

Œuvres de Thomas S. Roche

In the Shadow of the Gargoyle (1998) — Directeur de publication — 170 exemplaires
Sons of Darkness: Tales of Men, Blood and Immortality (1996) — Directeur de publication — 57 exemplaires
Graven Images: Fifteen Tales of Dark Magic and Ancient Myth (2000) — Directeur de publication — 54 exemplaires
The Panama Laugh (2011) 30 exemplaires
Brothers of the Night: Gay Vampire Stories (1997) — Directeur de publication; Contributeur — 24 exemplaires
Noirotica 3: Stolen Kisses (2000) — Directeur de publication; Contributeur — 18 exemplaires
Noirotica 2: Pulp Friction (1997) — Directeur de publication; Contributeur — 14 exemplaires
Noirotica: An Anthology of Erotic Crime Stories (1996) — Directeur de publication; Contributeur — 14 exemplaires
Dark Matter (1997) 7 exemplaires
Between Two Lovers 2 exemplaires
Neptune's Return 1 exemplaire
Butterfly's Kiss 1 exemplaire
Fragrant Sorrows 1 exemplaire
Raw Power: Sex Machine Stories (2015) 1 exemplaire
Black Lily 1 exemplaire
Holy Ground 1 exemplaire
Candledark 1 exemplaire
Viva Las Vegas 1 exemplaire

Oeuvres associées

Eros vampire, tome 2 (1997) — Contributeur — 492 exemplaires
The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (1996) — Contributeur — 234 exemplaires
Aqua Erotica: 18 Stories for a Steamy Bath (2000) — Contributeur — 175 exemplaires
Outsiders: 22 All-New Stories From the Edge (2005) — Contributeur — 134 exemplaires
Horrors! 365 Scary Stories (Anthology) (1998) — Contributeur — 124 exemplaires
Splatterpunks II: Over the Edge (1993) — Contributeur — 119 exemplaires
The Shimmering Door (1997) — Contributeur — 117 exemplaires
The Mammoth Book of Historical Erotica (1998) — Contributeur — 115 exemplaires
The Mammoth Book of International Erotica (1996) — Contributeur — 113 exemplaires
Enchanted Forests (1995) — Contributeur — 112 exemplaires
Naughty Fairy Tales from A to Z (2003) — Contributeur — 108 exemplaires
Dark Angels: Lesbian Vampire Stories (1995) — Contributeur — 100 exemplaires
Queer Fear: Gay Horror Fiction (2000) — Contributeur — 95 exemplaires
Best Bondage Erotica (2003) — Contributeur — 80 exemplaires
Kiss and Kill (1997) — Contributeur — 78 exemplaires
The Mammoth Book of New Erotica (1998) — Contributeur — 77 exemplaires
The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Moriarty (2015) — Contributeur — 74 exemplaires
Nevermore! Tales of Murder, Mystery and the Macabre (2015) — Contributeur — 67 exemplaires
Set in Stone (2001) — Contributeur — 58 exemplaires
Queer Fear 2: Gay Horror Fiction (2002) — Contributeur — 53 exemplaires
Best Gay Erotica 1996 (1996) — Contributeur — 40 exemplaires
Evolve 2: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead (2011) — Contributeur — 37 exemplaires
Best Gay Erotica 2001 (2000) — Contributeur — 35 exemplaires
Happily Ever After: Erotic Fairy Tales For Men (1996) — Contributeur — 34 exemplaires
Blood Lust: Erotic Vampire Tales (2005) — Contributeur — 32 exemplaires
Erotic Fantastic: The Best of Circlet Press 1992 - 2002 (2003) — Contributeur — 31 exemplaires
Ritual Sex (1996) — Contributeur — 31 exemplaires
Cherished Blood: Vampire Erotica (1997) — Contributeur — 30 exemplaires
The Sweetest Kiss: Ravishing Vampire Erotica (2009) — Contributeur — 29 exemplaires
Transgender Erotica: Trans Figures (Southern Tier Editions) (2006) — Contributeur — 28 exemplaires
Extreme Zombies (2012) — Contributeur — 28 exemplaires
Best Fetish Erotica (Best Erotica Series) (2002) — Contributeur — 28 exemplaires
Leather, Lace and Lust (2003) — Contributeur — 27 exemplaires
Like a Wisp of Steam: Steampunk Erotica (2008) — Contributeur — 26 exemplaires
Gothic Ghosts (1997) — Contributeur — 22 exemplaires
Aqua Erotica 2: 12 Stories / No Boundaries (Durabooks) (Bk. 2) (2005) — Contributeur — 21 exemplaires
Grave Passions (1997) — Contributeur — 21 exemplaires
Best Fantastic Erotica (2007) — Contributeur — 20 exemplaires
Flesh & Blood: Erotic Tales of Crime and Passion (2001) — Contributeur — 19 exemplaires
Blood Muse: Timeless Tales of Vampires in the Arts (1995) — Contributeur — 19 exemplaires
Blood Surrender (2005) — Contributeur — 18 exemplaires
Men of Mystery: Homoerotic Tales of Intrigue and Suspense (2007) — Contributeur — 16 exemplaires
S/M Futures: Erotica on the Edge (1995) — Contributeur — 16 exemplaires
Genderflex: Sexy Stories on the Edge and In-Between (1996) — Contributeur — 15 exemplaires
Mind and Body (2015) — Contributeur — 15 exemplaires
Eros Ex Machina (1998) — Contributeur — 13 exemplaires
One Night Only: Erotic Encounters (2011) — Contributeur, quelques éditions12 exemplaires
Sexmagick 2: Men Conjuring Erotic Fantasy (1997) — Contributeur — 12 exemplaires
Embraces: Dark Erotica (2000) — Contributeur — 11 exemplaires
Northern Frights 4 (1997) — Contributeur — 11 exemplaires
Demon Sex (1998) — Contributeur — 6 exemplaires
Flesh & Blood: Guilty as Sin: Erotic Tales of Crime and Passion (2003) — Contributeur — 6 exemplaires
Lust in Latex: Rubber Sex Stories (2013) 5 exemplaires
Seductive Spectres (1996) — Contributeur — 5 exemplaires
Up for Grabs 2: None of the Above (2011) — Contributeur — 1 exemplaire
Like Crimson Droplets: Erotic Vampire Stories (2008) — Contributeur — 1 exemplaire

Étiqueté

Partage des connaissances

Sexe
male
Professions
writer

Membres

Critiques

5 stars for the sheer madness.
 
Signalé
amuskopf | 1 autre critique | Jun 7, 2018 |
Overall Rating: 2/5
This is generally unimpressive collection that suffers from the uneven nature that anthologies tend to suffer from, though it has fewer redeeming stories in it than most others I've read. There were some pretty terrible stories here, some decent ones, but only a couple that were truly worth reading.

My main issue with the collection as a whole is that the stories I didn't like generally had a lot of the same problems. They seemed to meander into pointlessness, as if they were written solely to fit the theme of the collection (whether or not that's true) or to show off an exotic setting, instead of entertaining and delighting. Too much emphasis was placed on description, and not enough on character, plot, and thought-provoking messages. Many of the stories ended with cheap twists that had me rolling my eyes or blankly turning to the next story, instead of leaving me with a feeling of poignancy or contemplation.
Such a waste, considering the depth of the well that the theme of this collection offered.

Diana of the Hundred Breasts, by Robert Silverberg (1/5)
A typical, “hardcore skeptic sees something that he can't explain,” type story. Some archaeologist finds a tomb, opens it, and the aforementioned god with many breasts starts roaming the country-side before disappearing into the sky. Maybe it's a god, maybe it's an alien, maybe it was a hallucination brought about by latent chemicals in the tomb. Who knows? A better question is; who cares? Not me, that's for sure.

The Face of Sekt, by Storm Constantine (2/5)
An alright story about a living deity who questions her deity status before breaking free of her earthly prison and claiming her true power. Best thing about it was the fantastic descriptions of setting, which made the story have that immersion factor.

The Goddess Danced, by Lois Tilton (4/5)
This is the first story in the collection that struck a chord with me. It’s about a young woman named Meena living in the Middle East and treated, as one might expect, terribly by her father, the blind husband she’s forced to marry (since no man that can see would ever marry, or should I say ‘buy’, a disfigured woman. More on her disfigurement in a second), and pretty much every other man in the story, as well as her mother-in-law. She’s beaten, raped, and a young man melts half her face off with acid for denying his sexual advances (melting most of the skin off her skull). This happens in a society where she was TAUGHT to be virtuous, modest, and abstinent since childhood. Seriously? You either want your women to have sex or you don't. I mean, you shouldn't be controlling them regardless, but if you're going to control them at least have some cultural consistency. It's like teaching my cat that he's not allowed in my lap and then beating him because he won't get in my lap.

Somehow she puts up with all of this abuse and even grows detached to it. That is, until she overhears her step-mother and husband talking about killing her off so that he can marry her fourteen year-old sister instead (which of course her father would be fine with as his wife died giving birth to her and so she’s been dead to him from the moment she was born. Real fantastic human beings in this story, huh?). After overhearing this, she comes into the house screaming that she won’t let them take her little sister and they LIGHT. HER. ON. FIRE. Right there on the spot. Apparently immolation is a common way to get rid of wives you no longer want around, as it’s faster and easier than divorce and can be swept away as a “cooking accident.” Luckily this is a mythology/magic-themed collection and she gets some supernatural retribution at the very end that ties nicely into the subtle foreshadowing that was done throughout the story.

I don't think any short story has ever made me so angry, which is a good thing. Any time a story can make me feel an emotion strongly, even if it’s an unpleasant one, I’d say it’s doing a good job.

The Grotto, by Kathryn Ptacek (1/5)
An overly depressing and boring story about a woman who's going to die of cancer soon. She decides to spend her final days visiting her grandparent's homeland—a small, relatively unremarkable city in Tuscany somewhere. At the end, instead of dying, she...becomes the Etruscan god of death, I guess. Meh.

The Eleventh City, by Gene Wolfe (2/5)
This entire story is basically some writer talking to his editor about something he witnessed while living in Central America and writing about local folklore, and asking whether or not this thing he witnessed counts as folklore since it was a fellow American that told the tale. Much like The Face of Sekt the saving grace was how good the description was, which isn't surprising. Grounding you in a place and tickling your senses are Gene Wolfe's specialties. Unfortunately he still needs to work on making the other aspects of a story interesting.

Heart of Stone, by Lawrence Watt-Evans (5/5)
I'm a sucker for short stories that read like fairy tales that were written a long time ago. This is a fantastic example of that approach to short story writing.

A wizard is chased out of his house by fearful villagers, who leave the place ransacked and empty. Unfortunately the wizard left a young woman of his own creation behind, trapped inside the stone walls like a shadow. She laments in the loneliness of her stone prison for a while before a disreputable man stumbles into the place and discovers her. He takes advantage of her desire for company and conversation and uses her to make money off of folks by telling their fortunes.

Eventually she has enough of his mistreatment, both of her and of gullible villagers, and chases him off, deciding that dealing with the loneliness would be better than dealing with him. Sadly, the villagers, having seen her during the fortune telling sessions, decide to knock the house down to the foundation to make sure she's dead since she's an unholy abomination and all that. She has no idea what's going to happen when they bust down the walls, but she assumes that she'll die. Instead, she becomes a real flesh and blood person for the first time, finally freed from her stone prison and able to go anywhere and experience life and all of its' hardships and wonders. This story is a poster child for the phrase, “a simple tale, told well.” Beautiful stuff.

Cora, by Esther Friesner (2/5)
I'm not even sure how to describe this story. Basically it's about a Manticore, its' owner, the sexual assault he experienced at the hands of his rich aunt, and a young man he falls in love with. Unfortunately their relationship is volatile and, ultimately, fated to end. It's alright for what it is, but written strangely. It's omniscient, and conversations are summed up in that, “Say what now? You don't like this?” sort of way, only showing one person' side of the conversation. I've never been a fan of that. It always comes across as stilted and awkward, and it compresses time in a way that takes you out of the moment entirely.

Ascension, by Yvonne Navarro (3/5)
Like Eleventh City, this is another Mexican/Spanish-themed story that fails to truly grab me. Such a shame, as I really like the idea of that setting and culture and would love to read a story that does it justice. Basically some priest has an affair with a woman he doesn't intend to marry and when she protests he strangles her to death and hides her body in a secret place on the roof of the church. Two centuries pass and she sits there like a statue, dead but still somehow conscious and looking down on the streets of the village. The virgin Mary eventually lets her loose on a descendant of the man who killed her just as he's about to start having an affair with a peasant woman that, I guess, is doomed to end the same way. She kills him and places him on the roof where she used to be, and then goes and turns into a statue outside the church and is worshiped as a miracle.

It's one of the shorter stories in the collection and doesn't do a great job of making you feel the passage of time that this woman endured. In some ways it's powerfully written. I particularly like this passage:
The descendants of He Who Put Me Here visit the cathedral every Sunday, then again on the holiest of days. Perhaps these regal Spaniards believe this will elevate them to grace, but to my knowing eyes the passage of centuries has not dulled the blood on their hands.
Unfortunately that's just not enough to make up for the fact that it feels too short and like it doesn't have any meat on the bone. Also, it is basically a typical 'jilted lover' story and the setting and supernatural elements don't really go far enough to give it a unique identity.

Mud, by Brian McNaughton (1/5)
This story starts with an intriguing idea—that mud is somehow sentient and malevolent and that the horrors of world war I or II (wasn't clear to me one way or the other), which the viewpoint character is fighting in at the time of the story, somehow released it—but it's immediately tossed aside for an action scene with guns and grenades that goes on for far too long and does nothing to establish character or plot. One of my pet peeves is needless action scenes, and I can't think of a more needless action scene than one that happens at the very begging of a story, before I have to chance to attach myself to any of the characters. Here's an excerpt from the end of that action scene to give you an idea of the tone of this story.
“I am Sergeant Miller, great-grandson of Miller the gallows bird, and I must advise you that you should have surrendered before using the last of your ammunition to kill my men.”
I then blew his head off.
Seriously? Did I pick up a cheesy military action anthology by mistake? What the heck is going on here? It goes back to the mud thing eventually, which turns out to be related to some god from the Cthulhu mythos that I'm unfamiliar with (I know, I know. I'm a bad Lovecraft fan. I'm working my way through his bibliography. Slowly. I'll get there though). Unfortunately the payoff was nowhere near good enough to be worth the unnecessary, cheesy action I had to wade through at the start, nor the less than stellar writing throughout. I have to give the story credit for one thing though—it taught me a fantastic new word I'd never encountered before—pudendum.

Shaped Stones, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (2/5)
This is a story about three orphaned children during the great depression. The oldest of them, Teru, has some latent magical talent, being able to hide himself and his siblings when necessary by disguising them as rats or shadows, until one day a man sees through his illusions and offers to take care of him and his siblings if he becomes his apprentice. Teru accepts and is led to the man's super rich mansion-tower, full of weird stuff and things, where he begins to learn sorcery.

The man is true to his word . . . until the very last moment, which anybody with half a brain would see coming from the very first scene he's in. He performs a ritual that locks the two younger children in a glass heart (so that they'll be safe forever, as he promised) and forces Teru to give up his innocent heart in exchange for an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Teru turns into a cold intellectual until he figures out that coming into contact with creatures made out of stone (an angel in a cemetery and a black sphinx in a hidden room of the mansion-tower being the only examples) somehow bring his heart and all his feelings flooding back to him, and that's how the story ends.

I enjoyed the story alright up until the end, which made me kind of not like the story as a whole. It offered a mystery that I felt wasn't earned. The weird god Teru's master summoned looked like a stone face, so there's a stone god who has Teru's heart and thus stone creatures make him feel things again? And the strange man seemed to have no deeper motivation than he wanted an apprentice and he was a bit of a dick, which was a letdown. Even though it was obvious from the start that he was going to turn out to be evil, I was still expecting his motives to be cool or interesting in some way, but they were just boring. Such a shame, as the beginning of the story really gets your hopes up.

Wanderlust, by M. Christian (2/5)
A traveling salesman picks up a hula hoop girl to go on his dashboard and draws the attention of some 'goddess of the road' that took notice of his endless traveling and sort of possesses the doll. He only stops when he absolutely needs gas and food. When he does everybody sees in him the most beautiful thing they can imagine and pretty much give him stuff for free. A benefit of the hula hoop god. Unfortunately for him, after not very much time they start to see the most horrific thing they can imagine when they look at him, as the hula hoop doll calls him back to the car, where he can never leave.

Giotto's Window, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (3/5)
A pretty decent, “dude is insane, but really he's the only sane one,” type story that evokes Lovecraft without being a direct nod to him. An American living in Italy has a break from reality where he sees everyone, including himself, as monsters with beaks and tentacles and such. His parents hire a psychiatrist to fly in and bring him home, and she winds up seeing what he sees, but tries to ignore it. Probably the most interesting aspect of the story is that the man never says that people are secretly evil or conspiring to do evil. He just maintains that everyone looks like monsters but refuse to see it, but they all seem to act the same as regular people, so is there really a difference?

Masks, by Jack Ketchum and Edward Lee (1/5)
A mythological gang bang story (literally) that goes on for way too long and would be more at home in an erotica collection, complete with a stupid and unearned twist at the end.

At Eventide, by Kathe Koja (3/5)
A story about two people—a predator and his former victim. He finds her in a magazine, as she's become semi-famous by making memory boxes for people. He goes to her isolated workshop with some of her hair, which he had from their encounter years ago, and demands she make a box for him because he's dying. She tells him she can't. That all he has is what he's taken from others and nothing of his own. He doesn't have the energy to do anything about it and leaves, dying later that night in the cold of the desert.

That Glisters Is, by Tanith Lee (3/5)
The life story of a gay man and his lover. The supernatural element is basically the idea that the afterlife is within us, and that certain people share the same “inner world,” and will end up in the same place.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
ForeverMasterless | Apr 23, 2017 |
You may also read my review here: http://www.mybookishways.com/2011/12/review-the-panama-laugh-by-thomas-s-roche.h...

The Panama Laugh has been high on my to-read list for a bit, but it moved up in the queue because Paul Goat Allen (of Barnes and Noble) said it was awesome. Yep, The Panama Laugh made a zombie fave list of his, and it’s been a few books since my last zombie novel, so it was time. There’s a fairly comprehensive synopsis above so I won’t rehash it. I will say that The Panama Laugh grabs you by the throat, hard, pretty much from page one and doesn’t let you go. Please let me stress this. It. Doesn’t. Let. Up. Dante Bogart is pretty much everything I love in an anti-hero. Yes, I’m a sucker for the bad boys sometimes, I admit it, and Frosty D. (don’t call him that)¸falls right in with just the kind of guy that would get my motor running. When the man wakes up naked, bloody, and loaded for bear in the middle of a battleground, gets up, surveys the scene, takes a suspicious-yet-valuable looking case with him, and makes his getaway, I’m totally his by the time he washes up at the home of his old friend Van Fish, wondering where the last 5 years went. His old flame, Trixie (that’s Dr. Trixie to you) is there too, and she’s a little bit pissed at how Dante left things between them. That’s really the least of his worries though. Trust me on this one. When the laughers start invading the shoreline of Fish’s jungle home, the real fun starts.

Thomas Roche pulls absolutely no punches with Panama Laugh. The guffawing (this is seriously creepy-making), hysterical dead come from every direction, and thanks to a relatively good supply of ammo, lots of guts end up flying around. Lots. A veritable cornucopia of gooey flying zombie flesh fills the pages of The Panama Laugh. As Dante, Trixie, and Van make their escape via air, eventually ending up on a nuclear fortified gunship of the coast of San Francisco, our hero rarely flags. Told in first person from Dante’s POV, the narrative goes back and forth between the action at hand to the events leading up to the zombie apocalypse, and it’s not a pretty story. Corporate greed, a madman’s desire for eternal life, and radical groups bent on depopulation make for a heady cocktail, and Dante’s experience with the nasty cause of the Panama Laugh is very, very personal. Giving away too many details would take away the visceral fun of this awesome, terrifying, gruesome, and warped roller coaster ride, and I certainly don’t want to do that. Roche’s writing is tight, immediate, and engaging, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll want to read it in one sitting (ok, I read it in two, but I wanted to read it in one.) Horror lovers will eat this one up (sorry about the pun), and if you’re a true zombie fan, it’s not to be missed. I was in the mood for something “zombie”, different, and awesome, and I got all three, and more, with The Panama Laugh. Put this one on your must list!
… (plus d'informations)
½
 
Signalé
MyBookishWays | 1 autre critique | Dec 29, 2011 |
No, didn't like this at all. Love crime, mystery, police thrillers, etc. Love erotica & "romance" lit. However, this collection was more about violence and hate, aimed mostly at women and homosexuals, than it was about sex and erotica. If you love "Silence of the Lambs," Law & Order: SVU, and get a hard-on for the Black Dahlia, then this book is for you.
 
Signalé
seongeona | Dec 3, 2011 |

Prix et récompenses

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi

Auteurs associés

Alison Tyler Contributor
Maxim Jakubowski Contributor
M. Christian Contributor
Poppy Z. Brite Contributor
Nancy Kilpatrick Contributor
Carol Queen Contributor
Nancy Holder Contributor
Lucy Taylor Contributor
Jeff Gelb Contributor
Brian Hodge Contributor
Charles L. Grant Contributor
Christa Faust Contributor
Caitlin R. Kiernan Contributor
Simon Sheppard Contributor
Amelia G Contributor
Wendy Webb Contributor
Charles de Lint Contributor
Alan Rodgers Contributor
Neil Gaiman Contributor
Don D'Ammassa Contributor
Melanie Tem Contributor
Jo Clayton Contributor
Robert J. Harris Contributor
Harlan Ellison Contributor
Katherine Kurtz Contributor
Jane Yolen Contributor
John Mason Skipp Contributor
Brian Lumley Contributor
Marc Levinthal Contributor
Ron Oliver Contributor
D. Travers Scott Contributor
Kevin Killian Contributor
Bill Brent Contributor
Edo Van Belkom Contributor
Bruce Benderson Contributor
Thea Hillman Contributor
Kate Bornstein Contributor
Wickie Stamps Contributor
Patrick Califia Contributor
C. Dean Andersson Contributor
William J. Mann Contributor
David Nickle Contributor
Charles Ardai Contributor
Kathryn Ptacek Contributor
Brian McNaughton Contributor
Storm Constantine Contributor
Lois Tilton Contributor
Esther M. Friesner Contributor
Tanith Lee Contributor
Robert Silverberg Contributor
Jack Ketchum Contributor
Edward Lee Contributor
Kathe Koja Contributor
Yvonne Navarro Contributor
Gene Wolfe Contributor
Robert Thomson Contributor
Michael Rowe Contributor
David Quinn Contributor
O'Neil De Noux Contributor
Alex S. Johnson Contributor
Jason Bovberg Contributor
Carl Wheat Contributor
Clint Catalyst Contributor
Sukie de la Croix Contributor
Trey R. Barker Contributor
Michelle Tea Contributor
Bart Plantenga Contributor
Tom Piccirilli Contributor
P. D. Cacek Contributor
Juliette Vargas Contributor
m. i. blue Contributor
Trish Thomas Contributor
Michelle Fairchild Contributor
Violet Hemlock Contributor
Kyle Stone Contributor
John Shirley Contributor
Caprice Contributor
Robin Sweeney Contributor
Alice Joanou Contributor
Gary Jonas Contributor
Caitlin Sullivan Contributor
Nancy A. Collins Contributor
Danielle Willis Contributor
Mason Powell Contributor
Cecilia Tan Contributor
Sean Doolittle Contributor
Lydia Lunch Contributor
Paul Reed Contributor
Emilio Cubeiro Contributor

Statistiques

Œuvres
26
Aussi par
61
Membres
437
Popularité
#55,995
Évaluation
½ 3.4
Critiques
4
ISBN
20
Langues
1
Favoris
1

Tableaux et graphiques