I mentioned in a previous post that I was soon to play Deus Ex: Human Revolution. As stated, the game is an action RPG that takes place in a dystopian future. You play Adam Jensen, the security chief for a large biotechnology firm. You are severely wounded early in the game and are forced to become “augmented” by the same biotechnology that your company engineers and manufactures in order to discover the identity and purpose of the mercenaries that raided the company headquarters. One of the scientists that disappeared, supposedly burned up in the intense fire, was his ex-lover Megan Reed. You as the player come to realize that finding resolution for her disappearance is Adam’s main motivation.

The game features a rather small number of quests versus games like Mass Effect or Oblivion. Rather than taking on quests in which some guy you’ve just met wishes you to go fetch an irrelevant item for him for a monetary reward, all the objectives in Deus Ex contribute somehow to your character’s overall investigative goal. Also, several of these quests have two or three ways to solve them: some methods are crueler or more criminal than others. In addition, you as a player can choose whether Adam is pacifist or not, which means that except for the three “boss fights” in which you confront the mercenaries that raided the company headquarters, Adam does not kill anyone in the game despite the immense advantage he has with his state-of-the-art augmentations. Subsequently, playing through the game as a pacifist takes longer and requires more patience, which truly tests the player’s resolve and pulls him/her deeper into the game and into Adam.

The game does an excellent job of creating a deep sympathy for Adam. In the opening credits that occur after Adam is fatally wounded, you witness in an almost dreamlike sequence the numerous surgeries to replace his shredded organs, shattered bones, and to include weaponry and superhuman abilities that literally change the way he sees the world. Interspersed are his screams of pain and flashes of memories in which he recalls intimate moments with the M.I.A. Megan Reed.

See it here.

Deus Ex affected me emotionally more than most of the other games I’ve played. For people who don’t really game, I feel like they’re missing out on a great experience and hope that if Human Revolution were ever adapted to the silver screen, the same level of pathos is conveyed. Human Revolution also galvanized a discussion in our apartment about what it means to be human and how far medicine and technology can take the human form and identity before changing it into something no longer human anymore.

As for criticisms, most people have poked fun at the voice actor for Adam and at a couple of lines of inner dialogue he used (see the McDonald’s joke). While I enjoyed the voice acting to a certain extent, in particular the added layer of amusement that the gravelly voice lent to a couple of very sarcastic lines he used with the equally sarcastic Pritchard, the voice acting did sound like a mixture of Batman from Dark Knight mixed with Keanu Reeves. My biggest complaint was an unexpected game-crashing bug that appeared in the final climactic set-piece of the game in which going through a certain hallway somehow froze the game. The only workaround I could find online that would allow me to complete the game was as bizarre as the bug itself: to go down that hallway backwards.

Yeah, kinda weird. Thankfully, though, in the grand scheme of things, one bug (though major since it freezes the game) is not bad compared to how buggy other games are when released (coughcoughOblivioncoughcough). Speaking of Bethesda games, I’ve just started playing the fifth game in their Elder Scrolls series, entitled Skyrim. Unlike the eight hours it took for me to complete Uncharted 3, which I’ll post about soon as well, Skyrim is a game that can last a really, really long time. Days. Maybe even weeks. Oh and another Assassin’s Creed is being released next week. Gotta love the holiday season!

My boyfriend Zach and I have a major difference of opinion regarding BioWare and specifically regarding Dragon Age. First, for anyone who hasn’t read previous posts mentioning Dragon Age, here’s a quick rundown of the first game, Dragon Age: Origins.

When you begin Origins, you can choose one of six “origin stories”, each of which has an impact on how you experience the game, including how characters speak to you and even certain plot paths. After you’ve experienced a sort of prologue in which the origin story is played out, you are recruited by Duncan to join the order of the Grey Wardens, an enigmatic and legendary group of warriors who fight against a specific threat: the Blight. Blights are the uprising of Darkspawn from deep within the earth onto the surface (they’re always around, just usually kept at bay by dwarves). You learn through an initiation rite the terrible truth behind becoming a Grey Warden and at a battle between the allied armies of King Cailan and his general/father-in-law Loghain against a horde of Darkspawn, Loghain purposefully quits the battlefield, ensuring defeat and the death of the king. You and another Grey Warden are of the very few survivors (it’s assumed you died, though).

Thus begins your adventure to gather up allies, learn of the truth behind the Darkspawn, and bring justice to Loghain for betraying the king of Fereldan. You travel all over the kingdom, recruiting mages, dwarves, and elves to help you battle and defeat the dragon leader of the Darkspawn known as the Archdemon.

I loved the game. A few things about it weren’t perfect, such as boring combat unless you were a mage (don’t get me started on how tiresome it was to control other party members during battle), but the story itself was enthralling. Decisions you made had significant impact in the game, and more than once, plot revelations surprised me rather than being obvious from a mile away. (And some of them were fucked up).

So, to continue the point of this post, Zach dislikes the plot and characters (as he dislikes most BioWare plots). He feels the plot is as cookie-cutter as all of BioWare’s other plots. To quote him, “In BioWare games, a mysterious evil force is teeming at the edge of civilization, pent on its destruction. You play someone recruited into an elite force who gathers up allies/companions in the first two acts, at the culmination of which you have a confrontation with a political adversary. In the third act, you have the actual battle against the real evil.” As for BioWare characters, “You always have the stodgy/annoying male companion (Alistair in DA, Karth in KOTOR), the whacky inanimate companion (Shale in DA, HK47 in KOTOR), the moralistic older companion (Wynne in DA, Bastila in KOTOR), the overpowered and reckless companion (Anders in DA: Awakening and DA2, Jack in Mass Effect 2), the immoral, callous character (Morrigan in DA, Isabela in DA2, Canderous in KOTOR), etc.”

In addition, Zach appreciates (somewhat) that DA2 attempted to break away from cookie cutter. In it, you play Hawke, a refugee of Ferelden who ends up in the city of Kirkwall. (Though you can play male or female Hawke, I’m going to just use “he”.) After allowing his prodigal, waste-of-space uncle to sell a year of his service to one of two buyers in exchange for allowing his family into the city, the first act follows Hawke’s struggles to make life easier for his family by raising money to join a Deep Roads expedition (and other stuff happens along the way, including the start of rising tensions between the mages and their Templar “oppressors”). The second act involves Hawke’s deepening involvement in the city’s political troubles, one strain of which culminates in a bloody battle between the city guard and the squatting Qunari. The third act involves the second major political struggle: the ethical issue regarding mages, which also culminates in another battle. While there’s no “inanimate” companion in this game, you could still apply the same personality labels to characters in DA2.

I found less satisfaction with the second Dragon Age and felt that a lot of what made the first game fun was taken away. First off, the sense of traveling and discovering almost became a chore in DA2 because with every new act, you had to explore each area of the city anew to find new things sitting there, and I got sick of seeing the same city streets over and over and over again. The Deep Roads expedition was almost the best part of the game. Also, though Loghain was a more compelling villain than the Archdemon in DA1, I found the Darkspawn to be a more credible threat than the ethical circle-jerk in the second game.

Mostly, though, my dissatisfaction boils down to this: in the first game, the Blight is a reoccurring nightmare that punishes humanity for its hubris. The cycle of Darkspawn tunneling through the dark, crushing depths of the earth to awaken the next incarnation of the Archdemon is one that’s unstoppable. Citizens of Thedas that talk of the Blights (whether recent or in ancient history) always speak with a sense of dread, hate, or resigned misery. In the second game, however, a party companion that you know is mentally troubled (seriously, he’s been possessed for fuck’s sake), that you know is fixated on the “freedom of mages” from under Templar control, and that you know has been up to no good forces the Chantry (Templars) and mages into a battle that will ripple across the entire world. Why the hell can’t you punch him out before he blows things up? Why the hell can’t you strangle him in the first act? Why the hell can’t you knock out Grand Cleric Elthina and haul her out of the Kirkwall Chantry in order to save her life?

It’s unfair.

Hell, in the first Dragon Age, you obviously have no control over what Loghain does in the beginning, but you do get to decide who dies in order to kill the Archdemon at the end (if anyone at all). You maybe even prevent future Blights! Why is that kind of control not given in DA2?

Because they want to force a plot point and make DA3.

So much else about DA2 was aggravating. Isabela is a terrible person. So is Anders, for obvious reasons. The gaps of time between acts, as Zach said, “remove agency” and force more plot onto your character. You can’t make an RPG without railroading, but some RPGs hide it better than others, or at least make cut-scene outcomes less frustrating. In DA2, a lot of choices that my character should have control over are made without my consent. It’s one thing if a king has issued me orders or some guy I don’t know somewhere else did a bad thing and the result has this kind of impact on your character’s circumstances, but so much of this game was railroaded not only in a straighter line, but also in a much more obvious way than in DA1. In the first game, you have more options for what kind of person you are as well, not just a male or female version of the same human fleeing to Kirkwall.

Given all my dissatisfaction, though, I still liked the game a lot. I’m just hoping that DA3 is more like DA1.

As for Zach’s opinion of BioWare plots and DA specifically, I’ve already discussed with him that nothing is new under the sun. Archetypes will be recycled for as long as people want to hear stories, but hopefully presented in new ways. The “inanimate” character in Mass Effect 2 is not “whacky” in any way. He’s pretty awesome, actually. Shale has more depth than you’d expect. All of DA’s characters do. And as frustrating as Anders is, you are shown how defeated he is after the horrifying act he commits. He’s a dick, but he’s unique.

And as much as Zach rants about “cookie cutters”, he has to admit that BioWare has galvanized more discussion in our apartment than any other game developer.

I’ve been wondering how many lovers of romance fiction are also ravenous for video games, especially ones populated with an ever increasing number of stunningly rendered hotties. In addition to breathtaking graphics, which serve to deepen one’s immersion, these video games are also entertaining and well-written. Escapism is their forte, which I believe goes hand-in-hand with reading a good book.

A while back, I posted a bit about the first Dragon Age (and its drool-worthy Templar). In Dragon Age 2, which my boyfriend would say I played waaaay too much, the story focuses on Hawke (either male or female according to your preference, though you can customize your own Hawke). Hawke is a citizen of Ferelden, which your Grey Warden from the first game saves from a Blight, but just as the very same Blight has begun, Hawke and his/her family are forced to flee to the city of Kirkwall, where Hawke forges a name for him/herself over several years. His/her story is told by a companion in the game, who is being interrogated by an enigmatic female inquisitor at some point in the future after the events of the game. Clever, right? Both male and female Hawke are good-looking, badass, and can take any of three personality routes in the game, including a mixture of all three. If you need that edge of romance, several companions in the game can be romanced. Probably my favorite was Fenris, a magic-hating elf with a damned sexy voice (follow the link for a scene of a customized female Hawke talking with Fenris).

(Left) The original female Hawke. (Right) Fenris.

A title currently only playable on PS3 is Uncharted (the first game is Drake’s Fortune, the second is Among Thieves, and a third–Drake’s Deception–is coming out this year). Your character is Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter and hunk. A film version of this game is in the works, and though fans of the game were rooting for Nathan Fillion to play the role of Nathan Drake, Mark Wahlberg will be playing the lead instead. I loved these games because the plots of both games take a sharp, jarring turn into LEFT FRIGGIN’ FIELD. I’ll give you an example of how the game blew my mind: in Among Thieves, Nate is following a native through some ice caves in order to track down a clue. The ice caves are a mix of shadow and reflected light, but I pay no mind to this as I shimmy and jump my way across ledges to reach a point higher on the mountain. Then, as I near an exit to the cave, a shadow in the foreground moves, alerting to me to the fact that something is NOT RIGHT. I don’t want to spoil anyone unnecessarily, but let’s just say that my action/adventure suddenly turned into something supernatural. My boyfriend happened to be watching me play and we both went, “OH SHIT!!”

Uncharted is one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played. The physics of Nate’s movement and the rendering of his clothes and the environment is stunning. His clothes even become soaked if you have him swimming in water (and you can watch his clothes dry once he’s back on land). It’s not some lame effect of water dripping off him, either–the color of his shirt darkens and the trapped water shimmers in the light.

Another game that I am ravenous for is Mass Effect. I played through the first and second games at least four or five times, and Mass Effect 3 is releasing early next year. This game is similar to Dragon Age 2 in that you have a male or female version of your main character, whose name is Shepard, and players can also customize their own version. (Original male Shepard to the left.) Mass Effect is a sci-fi action RPG in which humanity has harnessed alien technology discovered on Mars to propel us out of the solar system and into a violent galactic society. Also like Dragon Age, your Shepard can collect companions and can accomplish story goals either using Good actions (Paragon) or Evil actions (Renegade). Conversation trees let you customize how your Shepard interacts with other characters, and the major decisions you make in the story have a significant impact on how the game ended; when you import a character from ME1 to your ME2 play-through, you get to experience further ramifications of your decisions in ME1.

Mass Effect includes romance options, of course. I have a weakness for Garrus, a Turian alien with a delicious voice. I also really love the voice actress for the female Commander Shepard (pictured right). She’s very convincingly bad-ass. What I loved most about Mass Effect, though, was the very exciting setting. Imagine being able to explore and save the galaxy in a state-of-the-art ship! It’s so much fun, even, that I’m playing through ME2 yet again! Click for a scene of male Shepard reuniting with Garrus in Mass Effect 2.

I can’t not mention Assassin’s Creed at this point. It’s very unique in that it’s a historical sci-fi third-person action game. In present day, a simple bartender named Desmond is kidnapped by the rich and powerful Abstergo Corporation in order to force him to use a machine called the Animus to access his ancestor’s memories and discover lost clues to the location of a powerful object. Historical cities like Jerusalem and Damascus are recreated for you to explore as a 12th-century assassin, who is given missions to learn about and then assassinate targets. Though the first game featured Altaïr, the second and third games’ ancestor is Ezio Auditore da Firenze, an assassin during the Renaissance era. These later games explore Italian cities such as Florence and Rome and go into detail regarding Ezio’s very epic life. In addition, a whole other plot is going on with Desmond in present day! A fourth game featuring Altaïr, Ezio, and Desmond will be released–you guessed it–later this year.

Both of the above images are of Ezio Auditore. He’s ITALIAN, ladies.

Finally, a game releasing next week that I’m squealing over is Deus Ex: Human Revolution, an action RPG which takes place in a somewhat dystopian future. You play Adam Jensen, who amounts to a security agent for a large biotechnology firm. You are wounded early in the game and are forced to become “augmented” by the same biotechnology in order to discover the elaborate reasons behind the attack. Oh, and you are gorgeous.

VERY, VERY GORGEOUS.

Did I mention that you’re gorgeous?

Since I haven’t played the game yet, I obviously can’t say if I love it or not, but based on game-play videos, there’s a good chance that I’ll be as obsessed with it as the other above-mentioned games.

Going back to whether consumers of romance fiction also love video games, I feel that someone could make a ton of money making games as intricate and engrossing as these while emphasizing the romance a little more heavily. If those games could also include more hardcore love scenes (such as the famous one from the first Mass Effect), I’d bet romance fiction readers would be All Over That. I’m crossing my fingers!

I wanted to talk about virginity today. First, virginity is pretty relative according to one’s beliefs, though I think most people can agree that one is a “virgin” until they’ve engaged in penetrative intercourse. Second, a woman’s hymen, which if intact was traditionally thought of as “proof” of virginity, is a feature as varied as the shape of one’s face. Several kinds of activities (sports, tampons, masturbatory devices, or even visits to a doctor!) can weaken or outright remove the hymen without sexual intercourse. Also, not all women bleed when the hymen is broken, assuming it was still there to begin with!

Therefore, if as a writer you wish to have a virgin heroine, you’ve already got a problem before your protagonists Get It On. If one’s heroine doesn’t bleed, or often in the case of romance writers, still manages to be “into it” after breaking the hymen, why would the hero believe she was a virgin in the first place? (Hopefully, if he’s a modern man, he’s not stupid to how hymens actually work.) How could female readers suspend disbelief when some of them had painful first times? (Why does this heroine get to have her cake and eat it too??) If the heroine isn’t college-age but rather nearing her thirties, describing her as a raving beauty might give your readers cause to raise an eyebrow in disbelief. Certainly in non-contemporary romances when premarital sex got you shunned or secretly married in a hurry, you might have an older virgin heroine, but an otherwise normal, modern-day woman who is still a virgin at twenty-nine might be difficult for a reader to accept.

While an older virgin heroine may or may not have the typical pain and bleeding with her first rodeo, the reason for her delay may be a character aspect you can explore. Was it simply a comedy of errors that kept her a virgin this whole time? Maybe one guy couldn’t last long enough, one guy fell off the bed and hit his noggin, while yet another didn’t get that home run because a cop shined a light in the window. Perhaps it was simply a busy life and ill luck with finding a nice guy that conspired to keep her a virgin until that sexy hero finally came along.

I’m not specifically inviting a discussion of the fairness of enforcing or judging a woman’s “virginal state”, but romance novels quite often deal with sex and not all heroines are going to be veterans at it. (Ooh, but wouldn’t it be interesting to have a heroine with some experience doing the nasty with a virgin hero?)

What do you think? Do you prefer authors to handle virgin protagonists a certain way?

I’m rarely an “early adopter“. I didn’t get a Facebook account until at least 2008 (might even have been 2009?), I didn’t get a smart phone until last November, and I still don’t have an e-reader. At least two of those things were due to me being hesitant to buy anything over $20. Without an e-reader, though, I end up reading my e-books on my desktop at home. What to do?!

Thankfully, my Windows phone has an app for that! The Kindle app lets me read e-books on my phone, and though reading on a smart phone might not be quite as nice as reading on a Kindle or other e-reader, it’s nice to have something to read my e-books without spending that dough on an e-reader! Even better is that you can now “borrow” e-books from other people for a week at a time, so I’m borrowing some non-romance books from my b/f and also reading free classics like Pride and Prejudice. Oh frugality!

Something else free that I’ve been into in the last year is aggregating RSS feeds into Google Reader, which means reading new posts from my favorite blogs all from one application. Yet another app lets me use Google Reader from my Windows phone, and it’s let me become more informed about topics such as politics, science (especially astronomy), and hot trends in romance.

Any technology that has amazed you in the last few months?

I should start getting my flu shot every year instead of thinking I can wash my hands enough in order to avoid it. Last night, two hours before midnight when my b/f and I would’ve popped the cork on some champagne and celebrated the New Year, my flu went full-blown. I was doing something on my computer and couldn’t keep my eyes open. My coughing was getting worse and I was started to get chills. By the time my b/f got me into bed, my teeth were chattering.

Apparently I slept through something like half a dozen fire trucks going by our place (some hotel nearby was on fire!) as well as the loud crowd of people returning to downtown from the Space Needle, where they set off fireworks every year (also slept through that). When I woke up today, I was a hot mess. It took me two hours (and a nap) to take a shower and then put on my clothes. I didn’t feel human enough to take food until some painkillers kicked in, and I’ve slept away much of the day.

A great way to begin the new year, right? Let me just say that if you don’t happen to get your flu shot every year, this is a good reason to start. So that you don’t sleep through your big holiday moments!

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The end of the year is looming, and many people take time (either with Best Of lists or some other meme*) to reflect on the past year. Was it good? Could it have been better? With our old mistakes nagging at us and another year full of new mistakes to look forward to, we all can appreciate the Japanese tradition of holding a bounenkai, or a “party-to-forget-the-year”. Friends and co-workers gather to drink, eat, and enjoy each other’s company for a few hours.

Having been to a few bounenkai myself (and having suffered the consequences the next morning), these parties are one of the things I think of when the holidays roll around. (Another thing I think of are tiny fake trees.)

So when Ellora’s Cave put out the call for a kinky holiday-themed Quickie, I knew it had to include a bizarre bounenkai. In Pink Present, no one needs a good party more than Yuki, whose past year has been appallingly bad. Not only did her cheating, wasteful husband divorce her, but he got her fired from her job. A younger man has his eyes on her, though. ;D Perhaps Yuki’s year can turn around before the clock strikes twelve.

I had a very eventful New Year’s last December 31st going into 2010. At my day job, we were unfortunately robbed and ended up closing early. That night, though, as I watched fireworks shooting off the top of the Space Needle from my boyfriend’s apartment, he told me he loved me for the first time. (Aww!) I’m hoping this New Year’s Eve isn’t quite the roller coaster of last year.

How has 2010 been for you? Do you have any interesting New Year’s stories?

REMEMBER, PINK PRESENT IS OUT ON DECEMBER 28TH!

* Random note: I simply Google’d “2010 livejournal meme” to find an example of an end-of-year wrap-up meme and am very amused by the LJ user’s name: StarSparkle333! Typical! XD

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is very different from the other Harry Potter books. It’s the only year in which Harry doesn’t go to school. Not only is his hateful muggle family forced into hiding, but he no longer has a reason to return to their home anyway. He doesn’t have the protection of Dumbledore, Hogwarts, or the charm that proximity to Aunt Petunia grants him since she shares Harry’s mother’s blood. He can only rely on his friends and he has a very specific mission: to find and destroy all of Voldemort’s Horcruxes.

It’s also the culmination of an encyclopedic amount of details about the Wizarding World. The list of characters alone is enough to frustrate–and also completely confuse–major reviewers who are too high-brow to understand the word “fandom” (or care about the art of video games). If you haven’t seen or read any of the previous books, you won’t know what Polyjuice Potion is, what opinion most wizards have of The Quibbler, or even why the destiny of Harry Potter and Voldemort are so inextricably joined. Such, dare I say, basic knowledge is necessary to understand, for example, how the first scene of the movie was able to happen in which volunteers temporarily transform into Harry to create several decoys when smuggling him from one house to another–and would anyone unfamiliar with Harry Potter know why he had to be smuggled? Nope!

Without that knowledge, you also wouldn’t feel the same sense of loss when Harry loses those close to him. You wouldn’t have the same sense of connection to characters such as Xenophilius Lovegood and his daughter Luna, to the Order’s members, or to Harry’s school friends, whose appearances are brief but amazing. You wouldn’t feel the same terror when you see the Deatheaters, the Dementors, or the corrupt Ministry officials.

Therefore, this movie is solely for the fans. If you are a fan of Harry Potter, especially the books, then this movie was made just for you. Thankfully, I’m a pretty big fan. :D

So putting aside the required encyclopedic knowledge of the Wizarding World, the first installment of the final chapter of Harry’s story is, in a word, dark. In the very first scene (if I’m recalling it correctly), the Deatheaters are having a pretty terrifying meeting with their leader, Voldemort, while an unfortunate witch who offended them is suspended in a painful position above their table. Not long after that, two well-loved characters are killed off in an ambush of the Order by the Deatheaters. A wedding is brought to a violent end by another Deatheater invasion. Even the Ministry, which is supposed to be there to protect innocent witches and wizards, is taken over by corrupt officials. All the while, Harry, Hermione, and Ron are struggling to make even the tiniest bit of progress at finding and destroying the bits of Voldemort’s soul locked inside various Horcruxes.

All the while, Harry and his two friends are trying to find the strength and endurance to see their mission through rather than turn on each other out of frustration and fear. When remaining incognito in urban areas becomes too dangerous, a great deal of their time is spent exiled in a large forest hiding behind enchantments while they puzzle out where the next Horcrux is and how they can destroy it. Their deductions and a great deal of help from their house elf allies put them on the right path, but can they evade those pursuing them forever, especially when their goals force them to put themselves at great risk to accomplish the mission they’ve sacrificed so much to complete?

I am, of course, talking about the ballsy infiltration of the Ministry of Magic. The uses for Polyjuice Potion are so very limitless! It’s an arch of the book that really gives one hope that Harry and his friends can succeed, but then the task of destroying the Horcrux they retrieve becomes a hurdle more daunting than anything they’ve yet seen. It’s a powerful, evil object that tests their friendship.

And it’s not—-Ebert—-about “blooming love”.

What it is about is what the books have always been about: friendship. Even then, the word is both too narrow and too broad. It’s too broad because it’s about Harry’s friendship with Ron and Hermione, about his relationship to Dumbledore and a dawning realization that he didn’t know Dumbledore very well, and about his relationship to all his allies and the burden he carries to lead them. The word friendship is also too narrow because throughout the books, it’s constantly tested and only bravery and loyalty see Harry through. Harry’s faith in the late Dumbledore is tested, the friendships of the three main characters is tested, and their very wills are tested the longer they languish under fear of capture and failure.

As for the movie and the events within, it’s functional. Harry and his friends have a mission, they struggle to complete it, and then they do. A palatable sequence of action-inaction-action scenes keeps the viewer involved, and there’s an even mix of successes and failures in their endeavors. The only measurable character growth is with Ron, who overcomes a jealousy that has been building a long time. The only key piece of information they learn outside of the main clues that lead them to a Horcrux and to the method of destroying it is the story of the Deathly Hallows.

So as others have said, the real climax of the movie isn’t in the first movie, it’s in the second. The final film will be where all the major events (and deaths) occur. I’m not saying Part 1 isn’t very good. It’s great! I love the well-spaced comedic relief, which the twins are always good for, but which is also accomplished with simple awkward British subtlety. I am also moved by the various sad moments when characters you loved are fighting, hurting, or dying.

Like I said, if you’re a fan, this movie is for you and you will greatly enjoy it. If you’re not a fan, then I’d like to ask you, why not?

What follows is an excerpt from my kinky novella Pink Present. Contains mild sexual content.

Read more

We’re coming up soon to the release of my first novella! Pink Present, releasing on 12/28, is part of Ellora’s Cave’s Merry Kink-mas line of holiday-themed novellas with an especially kinky twist. I’ll be posting an exclusive excerpt you can’t find on EC’s website. Read on to learn more!

Jin was too young for Yuki when he confessed his love years ago, and his unfulfilled desires dominated his sexual fantasies. He can’t help himself when he begins to touch her on a crowded train amongst dozens of strangers, especially when her body betrays how much she likes it.

Yuki has had it with her old life. She’s made her mistakes and with a new year comes a fresh start. She knows what she wants and Jin is it. She likes the danger of being caught, likes the attention of enthralled onlookers, and the moment he touches her during her morning commute sets into motion a sexual escapade that changes the direction of her life.

PINK PRESENT IS OUT 12/28!