Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste!
Susan Crain Bakos’ THE SEX BIBLE: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO SEXUAL LOVE is exactly what it says it is. I suppose if you were to buy one full-color hardback of intercourse positions and foreplay tips, this would be the one. The debut offering of sex-book purveyors Quiver (love the name), THE SEX BIBLE is surprisingly classy, R-rated pictures and all. Expertly designed, the book takes you through several realms of pleasure with your partner, demonstrating and explaining positions and techniques in a manner that’s titillating without being offensive. My wife and I thumbed through its pages together with equal interest, so Bakos’ aim to appeal to both genders is on-target. The best thing about it? Knowing I’ve been doing it right all these years.
These days, virus thrillers are timely as ever, including Joshua Spangole’s credible, creative, CDC-centered ISOLATION WARD. The story gets rolling when a retarded woman is admitted to a Maryland hospital with such a wide array of bizarre symptoms that she’s quarantined. Two more girls soon follow, making it a series for which Dr. Nathaniel McCormick must find the point of origin. His investigation leads him to a home for the mentally handicapped, where he determines the virus was spread sexually among its residents. Now there’s something I’ve never quite read before. But when the male carrier turns up in several states away in a grave, eviscerated and minus his testes, a mere hunt for a sex bug turns into a murder mystery as well. It kind of reminded me of that recent NBC one-season wonder MEDICAL INVESTIGATION, except with a likable protagonist and little room to breathe. Since Robin Cook has all but forgotten how to write a decent doc thriller, perhaps Spangole would like to take his place? He’s got the chops.
Now look what you did. Because you didn’t listen to me, IDW’s ’70s-style horror comic magazine DOOMED has lived up to its title; the current fourth issue is also, sadly, its final one. Which is too damn bad, because DOOMED #4 finds the title comfortably settling into the more content-rich format established in the issue prior. You still get your four showcase comic adaptations of stories by F. Paul Wilson, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch and David Schow (the best is Matheson’s tale of urban paranoia, tied with Wilson’s freak-child parade of “Faces”), but also reviews of new horror novels and DVDs, as well as an appreciation of Matheson culled from the pages of the new BLOOD LINES collection. It will be missed. –Rod Lott
Buy it at Amazon.
Discuss it in our forums.
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• DOOMED #1
• DOOMED #2
• DOOMED #3
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