by James Goss
Dear Kate
Thanks for all the sex and for not being too much of a whiny bitch. Can’t believe I had to move to Germany just to get laid. Sorry I’m such a fucking loser.
Todd.
RimTimTim
^ AmaZing.
DawsonsCrack
If only they’d instituted the ability to RT posts in the last upgrade, we could infinityRT that.
LuvvinIT
Good call. I’ve opened a ChangeRequestPetition to make sure that add that. Direct link’s here. Make sure you sign it if you’ve got a moment.
DawsonsCrack
Signed.
MiskaGinTonic
Signed.
SPACSlock
Signed.
AdmiralFapbar
Signed.
HotToddy84 [2.57AM]
You’re all bastards. You know that? You could have saved me. You could have tried.
RimTimTim
[picture of a kitten in a field. EVERYTIME YOU MASTURBATE, GOD BLOWS UP HOTTODDY84]
HotToddy84 [2.59AM]
One minute left. Jesus, help me, I’m so scared.
Diablow
Hey everybody, shall we count down the number of fucks we give?
MiskaGinTonic
10
RimTimTim
9
Sweevil
8
Trisha10
7
HotToddy84
FUCK YOU ALL.
Kristol
6
DawsonsCrack
5
KatesAWhore
4
SPACSLock
3
AdmiralFapbar
2
LuvvinIT
1
SensibarHashtag
0
MiskaGinTonic
Happy New Year Everybody!
LuvvinIT
Boom, boom, boom, shake the room! Tick tick tick...
DawsonsCrack
BOOM!
Quargle
first.
AP MOBILE
Breaking (3.17amGMT) Cologne, Germany – reports of a small explosion in the city. Emergency services have confirmed they are responding to a small fire on the top floor of an office block. No reports of any casualties in the street. No confirmation of any terrorist involvement.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE WROTE MURDER
Vampantha @VampanthaWrites ∙ 19m
To London for BAFTA meet and muchos-contractatas with agent. Frantic call – can I meet a showrunner about pitching? Seriously! #GoodTimes
Vampantha
28 mins ∙
is wondering if any of her WRITER friends are free to do a local library visit next Wednesday? Was really looking forward to this one (love meeting fans!), but been summoned to another hush-hush meeting about SecretProject#3. It’s going to be a great day—give a talk, judge a fancy dress compo, and have lunch with prize winners from the local paper. Gutted not to be going—I hate having to let down the children, seriously. They’ll only pay expenses, I’m afraid, but, if any of you are spare...?
Like ∙ Comment ∙ Share
Georgia Manse uploaded a photo Cover of new anthology
2 hrs ∙
Like ∙ Comment ∙ Share
Vampantha likes this
Vampantha Looks LOVELY!!! Well done!!! Would have loved to been in this one, but having to turn down so many anthologies these days in order to concentrate on my film and TV work, when I’m not chained to my desk by Inspector Grangelove. Can you believe it’s the third book already??? Anyway, best of luck with the anthology. Hawkword are a great little press doing some really interesting things, and I’d love to have taken part, seriously You know how much Vampantha hates saying No!!!!:):)
Just now ∙ Like
Vampantha @VampanthaWrites ∙ 8 Oct
wishes she was at @CrimeyCon seriously! Missing the #karaoke with @BrazWax12. Stupid #SecretProjects.
Vampantha @VampanthaWrites ∙ 9 Oct
Quick 9km run in the rain (bracing!!!) and then 4,000 words before 10am #amwriting
Vampantha @VampanthaWrites ∙ 10 Oct
Fans of the redoubtable #InspectorGrangelove will be pleased to hear he’s got me under house-arrest. Seriously! #amwriting
Vampantha @VampanthaWrites ∙ 11 Oct
So pleased for @BrazWax12 ’s new book deal. A talent who’s finally found a place in the genre at last #KnewHimFirst
Vampantha @VampanthaWrites ∙ 11 Oct
Nervous for the new #Grangelove book. Shippers will be in for a treat. Bit.ly/Grn8765
Vampantha @VampanthaWrites ∙ 13 Oct
Have you read the new #Grangelove book? Dying to know what you think!!! Seriously. #FingersCrossed Bit.ly/Grn8765
Vampantha @VampanthaWrites ∙ 14 Oct
Tempted by the raunchy new #Grangelove? Dive in to a FREE chapter. Seriously. Please RT Bit.ly/Grn8765
Vampantha @VampanthaWrites ∙ 14 Oct
ICYMI Tempted by the raunchy new #Grangelove? Dive in to a FREE chapter. Please RT Bit.ly/Grn8765
Vampantha @VampanthaWrites ∙ 15 Oct
For the morning crowd. Tempted by the raunchy new #Grangelove? Dive in to a FREE chaper. Please RT Bit.ly/Grn8765
Vampantha @VampanthaWrites ∙ 2h
Male critics can STFU. I don’t write for you. Never have. Never will. #Bigots
Vampantha @VampanthaWrites ∙ 1h
.@SarahDartford78 gone over to the boys club with that review, I see? #StabbedInTheBack
LAST YEAR WAS an odd one for Vampantha. Her third Inspector Grangelove ebook hadn’t quite been the breakthrough success that had confidently been predicted. Mostly by Vampantha herself:
Stevedore—that’s Grangelove’s first name, by the way. I always call him Stevedore as he feels like an old friend to me. What’s great about Stevedore is that he’s kind of like a sexy superhero everyman. He’s a crossover hero in so many ways, in that he solves crimes but he also has some fairly—shall we say—raunchy adventures. He’s essentially a James Bond with sex. He’s also got a really strong appeal among his female readers because he’s written by a women and I think a lot of women recognise the authenticity of my voice. I’m writing from a female point-of-view.
Sometimes that’s really hard. You know, it’s difficult for a female writer to establish herself in the crime fiction genre. There are so few really successful female crime authors. As a gendered-space it’s quite male-dominated. I sometimes find it really frustrating. You know, I’ll often be sat on a panel with the Same Old Men and I’ll think, You’re lovely blokes but we’ve heard quite enough from you—where are the new women? I’d love to see some raw female talent coming through. It can be quite lonely.
Erotic crime is easily dismissed by a lot of people. I don’t know why. I really resent comparisons to 50 Shades, you know. That feels really old hat. I was writing before that came along and I’ll be writing long after EL is forgotten about. She’s a lovely girl by all accounts, but what she’s writing really isn’t sex, or BDSM, or even erotic. People say it’s been a great gateway for a lot of folks into reading, but if that’s the case then I hope they read something better. No offence to EL. I’ve met her and she’s a real sweetheart, but she does cast a bit of a shadow over us proper writers. And not just cos of the cakes.
Vampantha, interviewed on the “CrimeTea” Podcast
REVIEW: A Rubber Of Velvet:
An Inspector Grangelove Mystery
by Vampantha
This book is WEIRD. Actually, WEIRD doesn’t do it justice. Neither does horrid, eyewatering, shoddy or grim.
The plot (oh there is one) is basically so old-fashioned it may as well be called Confessions Of A Copper or Carry On Copper. Someone has graphic sex. They get murdered. Inspector Stevedore Grangelove (hahahaha) is having sex when he’s put on the case. He interviews suspects, has sex with them, gets leads, goes undercover (in a sex club), has sex with more suspects, finds out who the murderer is, has sex with them, and then hands
them in, before going home to have some sex.
I’ll talk a bit about Little Grangelove. His member is frequently described as ‘purple,’ ‘throbbing’ and ‘angry.’ I think ‘bruised,’ ‘sore’ and ‘resentful’ also make it in. The poor thing takes more of a pounding “than a hooker’s behind” (this is a frequent simile). Apparently the PC’s plodder is able to satisfy every conquest with a ‘warm gush of love’s fountain’ but it has to do this so often I’m surprised it’s not a dry cough.
I’m not sure what the story is supposed to be. There’s a lengthy subplot involving possibly dyed pubic hair. There’s whole chapters devoted to Grangelove’s unique interrogation technique which features more use of the phrases ‘paddle,’ ‘sling’ and ‘spreader bar’ than you see in the police procedural manual. At every stage, you’re made painfully aware of all of the tricks that Agatha Christie missed out on, such as putting arsenic in lubricant, or electrocution via butt plug.
You’ll have gathered by now it’s not really my cup of teabagging. Fair enough. Horses for courses (talking of which, I will never ride a pony again after that scene in the stables with Lady Vagenta). But you know, Vampantha is no EL James. Frankly, she’s no Sid James.
The writing is execrable. Grangelove does everything ‘wryly.’ He drives wryly, he interrogates wryly, he has sex wryly. He probably drinks rye wryly. I counted 43 instances of the word ‘gush,’ 23 of ‘pert’ and 4 of ‘cum guzzling slut whore.’ The latter is, I guess, empowering. Go Women!
Every apartment is ‘spartan,’ but some are also ‘cluttered’ and ‘homely’ with ‘earth tones’ and yet also ‘clinically white.’ People can’t pass a sunset without remarking on its ‘glowing embers.’ ‘Red sky at night don’t they say?’ they say to each other three times at least. No-one ever pulls a gun on someone else without the detail being categorised in a way which, if it reminds you curiously of Wikipedia, is because every description is from Wikipedia.
If you can make it through all that, you’re in for a treat. If you’re a professional proofreader who loves unpaid homework. Otherwise, oh, my god, this is a cry for help. The standard of proofreading screams ‘self-published ebook’ more than the clip-art and the use of Arial on the cover. There may be a high body-count, but the biggest crime here is against the poor semicolon, which is often allowed to end a paragraph;
I’m not sure why that happens, but, oh, God it hurts me. The two chapter 47s are a treat as well. I kind of viewed it as like a choose-your-own-adventure flashback—if only Warlock Of Firetop Mountain had presented you with the choice of fighting or fisting an Orc. Ah well;
Avoid;
Reviewed on
“Crimes Against Language” Blog
THE THING ABOUT a bad review is to take it on the chin. I’ve seen friends get dumped on Facebook and fight back. It never ends well. The best thing to do is to walk away. I’m not sure if I could. (Mind you, I worry I’d just kill them. What have I become? When did murder become easier than solving a problem?)
Vampantha’s book got a succession of really very bad reviews. And she replied to each and every one of them:
Hey there – I seriously don’t have time to reply to this upsetting filth, but clearly you have LOTS OF TIME!!! Why don’t you go and get a life? Sure the books got typo’s, but its also got one thing that youlll never have and that’s TRUTH. Buy a dictionary and seriously look it up why don’t you?
Hi! Thanks for trashing my book without reading it properly. Wonder if any1’s ever managed to finish any of your books? I seriously think not with you looking how you do.
A curious thing happened. If you were an author as well as a reviewer, and you’d reviewed Rubber Of Velvet badly, then the chances were that a series of one-star reviews would appear on your Amazon page. A typical sample would be:
WASTE OF TIME!!! 2 Nov 2014
By Vampantha
Avoid this book! Seriously, waste of time and money. Illiterete garbage. No suspense at all – obvious from the start that the detective’s boyfriend did it! Lame.
Not all of these reviews appeared under Vampantha’s name. She reacted to complaints about the ones that did with, ‘CAN’T TAKE IT? THEN DONT DISH IT OUT. SERIOUSLY.’ However, the reviews that weren’t obviously written by Vampantha attracted more attention. As one blogger put it...
Declaration: I’ve only met Vampantha once at KetCrimeCon ’12. She’s not a friend, or even an acquaintance, really, but she was on a panel about Getting Started In Crime Writing, and I went up to her afterwards to ask her for advice. She looked me up and down and then pointed to her breasts (I am not kidding) and said, “Honey? If you want to get ahead, get a set like these. Seriously.”
I thought that was a bit of an odd and sad thing to say. I’m a shy person and rarely manage to say anything clever on the spot, but I couldn’t help muttering, “Is that how Dorothy L. Sayers did it?” To which Vampantha nodded, “Well, that’s seriously how all the Americans get on.”
She was on quite a lot of panels at the Con, and had no shortage of opinions. It was the last Con that Clayton Roberts ever did, and I was really looking forward to hearing him speak, but Vampantha was also on the panel, so, as it was clearly taking him time to draw breath, he didn’t really get to say much. Vampantha did. She offered the following advice: “The thing is, I see Vampantha as a brand, and I’ve got to conform to my own standards. Always be polite, kind and damn witty. Seriously, I dress as the brand—I’m careful to ensure that I’ve a recognisable silhouette—always the dress and the corset so that, at a glance, people know that I’m Vampantha.” There was a lot more in this vein.
Later on that night, I was chatting to a male publisher friend (someone who I knew so well I wouldn’t dream of asking for help getting a book published. It’d mortify us both). We were chatting about the food at the hotel, when up came Vampantha. I kind of saw her approaching because, I swear, she was unzipping her jacket as she got nearer. You could hear it going zizzzzzz. And then she stood there and announced herself to my friend with, “Hey there. Why you wasting time with that gal? Seriously, does she have THESE?”
That was Vampantha being polite, kind, and damn witty, right there. I’m no qualified feminist, but I am a woman, and I seriously just can’t even. Especially, because there’s a thing about these conventions that some of you may know—not all the men who go to them behave, perhaps, as the Complete Gentlemen they could be. I’ve 5 brothers, all of them sportsmen, and I must say, drunk Jocks have always treated me with more courtesy and charm than your average male convention-goer. I think, alongside a lot of female attendees, I’ve got used to smiling tightly as I remove unwanted hands from bits of my anatomy. To see Vampantha out there being so... Vampantha, well, I found it a little unpleasant. I don’t want to say she’s setting a bad example, as that makes it seem like I’m slut-shaming, but I will say that she came up to me the next day in the corridor and said, “Sorry about last night, honey. Seriously hope I didn’t butt into your boy business. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just titnotizing him.”
Titnotizing. Yeah.
I’ve kind of been aware of Vampantha ever since. You know, in a ‘oh, right, her,’ sort of a way. She’s one of those figures on the Crime Lit Scene who you can be very aware of without ever having read one of her books. (Confession: I have read a couple, actually. She puts together some nice people you quite like and then kills them off in horrid ways. If that’s your thing, then it’s not bad.) Mostly I’ve heard of her anecdotally, or in one case having to try and counsel a friend after he left his wife for Vampantha only for her to say, “Oh, honey, that’s seriously sweet, but no.” (The best counselling I could offer was to punch him on the nose.)
Anyhoo, obviously I was aware of Rubber-of-Velvet-Gate. Or Rubber-of-Velvet-Gash as a friend called it. At the same time, I was having a bit of a personal voyage. Due to a deal falling through, I’d ended up self-publishing a project (The Magpie Kiss, if you’re in the mood for a bit of post-war murder & melodrama).
One thing I’ve learned as a writer—we’re hugely jealous of anyone else’s success. Like there’s a finite amount to go around. Like high school, only much more mental. If Sally got the captain of the football team, then fair enough. There was only one of those. But there are lots of publishers and lots of little triumphs—pretty much enough to go round.
So anyway, The Magpie Kiss came out and sold—well, pretty badly, but it actually sold. #12,354 in the category after a couple of weeks, meaning 30 copies. Ouch. Don’t worry, I’ll live.
Thing is, I spotted that A Rubber Of Velvet was at #12,355 in the category. In other words, I was outselling Vampantha. Result.
Only, it was waaaay more curious than that. Because Vampantha’s book had some 1- and 2-star reviews (4 in total) and then 37 5-star raves. How, I wondered, could it have more reviews than copies sold? How? It’s not like it was on NetGalley; I checked. Interestingly, a lot of the ‘people’ who’d handed Vampantha 5-stars are the same ‘people’ who handed her rivals 1-star reviews. And those are the only reviews they’ve ever written.