Samhain Publishing, $5.50, ISBN 1-59998-908-5
Contemporary Romance, 2008 (Reissue)
Bianca Kirkland and her friend Gertie descend upon Las Vegas, right in the middle of a Star Trek convention, mind you, for some R&R. I suppose one can question just what kind of fetish a hot woman must have for her to look for someone to play with in a Star Trek convention, of all places, but hey, Bianca’s not the twit here so let her have her fun. It won’t last, thanks to the hero Colby James who gives ex-nerds everywhere a bad name.
You see, Bianca was one of the cool kids back in high school while Colby was the nerd. Because the cool kids bullied him, even when Colby acknowledges that Bianca was never involved with the bullying, he decides that playing her for a fool while using her for sex is the way for him to “avenge” himself. It is odd that the former cool kid ends up being the sane and sensible one here, I tell you. These two meet at the convention venue where Colby is in charge of security and things take off from there.
The part of the story where Bianca stumbles into all kinds of wacky adventures can be most amusing and I actually like Bianca. She has plenty of self-awareness and she definitely comes off like a sane and likable woman who knows how to have a good time. Therefore, Colby comes off like a complete dog the way he plays her for the entire story, minus the last fifty pages or so. The problem here is that Colby knows what he is doing is crappy, but he goes ahead and does it anyway. That makes him a most disreputable twit in need of a hard kick between his legs if you ask me.
Because Colby is a dire fool for so long, I don’t feel that he has groveled and suffered enough to convince me that Bianca should take him back. Oh, he knows he is a dog, et cetera, but he knew that all along when he decided to do what he did so it’s not as if self-awareness will hold him back when he wants to be a creep. Maybe the romance would be more convincing if Ms Surbeck has him run over by a truck late in the story and has to beg and weep for the heroine to take him back while the nurses are trying to hold him down on the hospital bed so that the doctor can administer a few shots.
She Blinded Me with Science… Fiction has a nicely normal heroine who knows how to have a good time and the most wacky moments are amusing too. If you have a higher tolerance for silly heroes, I suspect that you may have a better time with this one than me.
