With BOOKGASM’s 1-year anniversary, I’d like to share something with everyone: For the longest time, I’ve been afraid to talk about the books that I read.

Many of my friends – for whatever reason – really, really like books that involve:
• people with a staggering amount of angst;
• who actually do practically nothing;
• and struggle with unrequited love and/or malaria;
• and then die, leaving us to marvel at how crappy life is.

And that’s fine, but for whatever reason, those type of books are considered to be inherently superior to the books I like, which feature:
• robots;
• monkeys;
• robotic monkeys;
• spies;
• private eyes; and
• superheroes.

It turns out that I’m not alone, and a little more than a year ago, my old friend Rod Lott (seriously, he graduated before me; therefore, he’s old) decided to do something about it. Since then, BOOKGASM’s contributors have opened the gates of the genre ghettoes and shown the world that yes, we love to read for fun, and goddamn does it feel good to talk about it for once. Though no agenda was ever set in stone, here are eight things I think have come to define the BOOKGASM experience.

HARD CASE CRIME
Since nearly its inception, the reviewers at BOOKGASM have shown their affinity for hard-boiled action, and Dorchester’s Hard Case Crime imprint is literally a dream come true for us. From the covers to the titles to the action itself, these books are hard, cool and dangerous.

FUN WITH BOOKGASM
Whether they belong to Mimi Rogers, Evangeline Lilly, Uschi Digard or Charo, ’tis breasts that keep web surfers coming back to BOOKGASM for more, despite our site’s total lack of boobage. This monthly segment shows off what search terms led readers to our site, and while some may surprise you (”jay mohr gasping for airtime”), others will totally shake your faith in the basic decency of humanity (“rituals involving semen”). So click away!

WE DON’T DISCRIMINATE
For the most part, I’d rather throw myself off a ledge than read the majority of fantasy books out there. Here at BOOKGASM, that means I probably won’t be reviewing a ton of fantasy books, instead leaving that to someone who knows and appreciates the genre: Mark Rose. He knows his stuff, and if he says it’s good, I believe it. Especially if it makes him cry.

WE DON’T MAKE EXCUSES
That isn’t to say that we whore ourselves out for the sake of free books. Sure, it would be easy to do, and the publicity people would probably fall over themselves to get books to us, but we’ve got standards, and no genre, imprint or author is safe if the book happens to be a stinker.

WE GET OUT TO TALK
Whatever your genre fancy is, odds are that we’ve talked to some of the best. From Douglas Preston and Max Allan Collins to Christopher Moore and even the Oscar-winning dude who did THE LORD OF THE RINGS SKETCHBOOK, we love to get inside the heads of old favorites and new up-and-comers.

ALTERNATIVE NON-FICTION
I heard you sigh. Yes, we do non-fiction, and no, it doesn’t suck. For your inspection:
• a Mexican wrestling coffee-table book;
• bird men;
• kooky cults;
• and all-American porn!

BULLETS, BROADS … YOU KNOW THE REST
Bruce Grossman is one hard-boiled cat. He drinks scotch as if it were milk, knows that dames can’t be trusted, and can spot a shiv from a mile away. Each and every week he opens up his hoard of dusty paperbacks to separate the wheat from the chaff in a world of crazy covers, insane premises and flat-out hardcore action.

AND DID WE MENTION THE DEATH CLOUD?
All of our respective stars fell into place earlier this year with the publication of THE CHINATOWN DEATH CLOUD PERIL by Paul Malmont. This tale, which could loosely be described as historical fiction, details an adventure shared by Lester Dent and Walter Gibson, the creators of Doc Savage and The Shadow, respectively. While the plot is best discovered on your own, let me just say that there’s something for everyone, and genre fiction fans will be delighted by who shows up in the course of events. It’s definitely our book of the year so far, and we’ve kept it in the news with a dizzying array of content, from Lott’s review to Grossman’s column about the pulps that inspired it, to an interview with Malmont himself. We do so not because someone’s paying us to (although the extra income would be nice), but because we’re in love with this book, If one book can sum up our mission statement, this is it.

‘Nuff said. –Ryun Patterson

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