Ellora’s Cave, $4.45, ISBN 978-1-4199-0947-4
Fantasy Erotica, 2007
Because I have had a pretty good laugh over SL Carpenter’s Dark Lust, I pick Dark Lord Origins up because it’s a sequel of sorts. I am hoping for more ugly cavemen being eaten by dinosaurs or a return of that “sex expert” on that radio show to insult and humiliate all her callers, but unfortunately, Mr Carpenter decides to go for the straight-up smut route with Dark Lord Origins.
Now, I say the word “smut” with love rather than in derision. There’s nothing wrong with some good old-fashioned no-nonsense erotic raunchy reading material that doesn’t have to mention love and other messy emotions. However, this one is not very good smut in my opinion.
What little plot this story has revolves around the Dark Lord who first shows up in the four interconnected stories in the previous book. You have his medallion, he’ll show up to ravish you, although I’ve no idea what happens if he shows up and realizes that the fellow holding his medallion is Richard Simmons wearing a Barney the Dinosaur outfit. This story, therefore, is pretty much scene after scene of Mr Dark Lord here ravishing said women non-stop as if someone has shoved a giant Energizer battery up his behind so that he’ll keep going and going.
The problem is, these scenes are purple in the first place, which is still okay because purple prose often makes me laugh, but yikes, after a while these scenes become repetitious. It’s always the same – Mr Dark Lord here just has to stand there with his dark loaf jutting against the fabric of his pants and whoa, the women can’t get down on their knees or onto their back fast enough. That’s how I know this story is written by a man, by the way – and again, I say “by a man” with love because some of my favorite wham-bam just-sex ma’am tales are written by men – because the author assumes that mentions of the hero’s physical traits (long hair, muscular body, and a little too much like Fabio if you ask me) and that big dark loaf are enough to send these women into lust-crazed frenzy. The dark loaf in question seems to increase in dimension with every other mention of it until I’m sure the poor man will suffer from eyes bruised black and blue and a broken nose if he should ever do jumping jacks while sporting an erection.
I don’t know. Purple prose is relative from reader to reader and what causes one reader to fan herself may cause another reader to howl with laughter. For me, Dark Lord Origins lacks some much-needed variety in the sex scenes. Everything soon blurs into a purple mess of frantic spurting, thrusting, screaming, shrieking, gasping, moaning, heaving, and throbbing while I cover a yawn behind my hand. Perhaps some variation in position or maybe the introduction of some toys would have helped. However, I suspect that presence of wicked radio DJs, stupid cavemen, losers in love getting mowed down by buses, and other juvenile but effective forms of crude humor would have really helped, heh. At least with comedy, I will remember the author’s work. This particular work, alas, is too much of a generic and forgettable showcase of purple prose.
