#24 - "The Princess and the Penis" by RJ Silver

On not meaning to be a dick

(4.99999999/10)

By Hot Bot

(book chosen by Beau Dashington)

Editor's Note: Apparently the way to a woman's heart is through dick jokes. Go figure. 

I once went through a phase of downloading and reading pretty much any free book which came my way.  Occasionally this was a good thing; usually it was a bad thing. No, scratch that—usually, it was a downright horrible thing.  One example of particular horribleness was ‘Beauty Awakened: The Queen and the Honey’, and my Amazon review began “I read this book because it was free, and without reading a summary or any reviews. I was therefore pretty confused when it turned out to be a mix of a fairytale and BDSM erotica. I'm not entirely sure they're genres that should be mixed”.

Imagine therefore my delight when the erudite gentlemen of the Piece of Shit Book Club assigned me my next reading: a fairy-tale!  A fairy-tale called “The Princess and the Penis”!  Perhaps I should have seen it coming (ayy)—after all, they libellously claimed that I am ‘no perfect princess’, and suggested that I need to get ‘in touch’ with myself.  I think they were hoping I would relate to the princess in The Princess and the Penis (henceforth ‘P.A.T. Penis’) and therefore learn to explore my sexuality: following which I would naturally share my erotic adventures in the guise of a book review.

Clearly, the boys have been at sea too long if they think the mere mention of a p-word is going to scare me off.  And so I launched into this book with gusto!

By the end of the first page, I was pretty sure I knew what my review was going to be about.  I was already face-palming, at sentences such as: “To keep [the princess] safe from the greatest danger of all—men —[the king] surrounded her with three chaste companions and a special troop of guards sworn to defend her virtue” and “he wanted to keep her as pure as fresh snow… [until] her purity attracted a crown prince from one of the big kingdoms.  He hoped such a union… would help his small impoverished kingdom of Westwich survive”.  The whole idea of preventing someone from sexual knowledge or experience, let alone commodifying it, just hurts.

Happily, things improved.  The premise of the book is that our retardedly-named protagonist, ‘Amalia’, is awoken one day by a giant phallic shape in her bed. Or a ‘lump in her rump’ to be more precise.  A ‘pain in her butt’.  And the thing is, these aren’t even my puns!  (At this point, I realised that I may actually be slightly in love with the author.)  Amalia’s father the king is very upset to hear about the mysterious lump—what if it affects his daughter’s purity?  She is, after all, now betrothed to a certain ass-wipe by the name of Prince Rupert.  Without giving too much away, no matter how many inspections of the princess’ room are conducted and no matter how many times her mattress is changed, night after night the princess finds herself sleeping with a massive dick-shaped lump.  (And balls too, it should be mentioned.  Anatomy is important at a time like this!)  The princess eventually befriends it, cuddling up to at night time—and of course, this just wouldn’t be a fairy-tale unless someone (something?) was getting kissed at the end.

The puns and innuendo in this book are just magical.  After the king suspects an interloper of sneaking into Amalia’s room at night, he throws a tanty.  “Then he must be coming in elsewhere,” growled the king.  “Empty the room and check every crack, crevice, and hole you see!”  Now, before accusations that I just have a filthy mind start rolling in, almost every sentence is written with a double meaning: it’s clearly, clearly intentional.  Though I was quietly disappointed at how the author spelled ‘coming’ in the above example.  I’m going to blame spell check.

I should probably also give mention to the outlandish size of the mysterious member at hand (or in bed, as the case may be).  Talking to her husband, the queen says that “they’ve never heard of one so enormous.  Frankly, neither have I.  It seems almost mythical.”  (This is probably the best use of dramatic foreshadowing I’ve ever seen.)  At the king’s presumably disgruntled expression, the queen hurries to add that “I only meant it was…unusual…by ordinary standards.  Not that you’re in any way ordinary, my lord.  Things can be mythical in many different ways.”  Smooth.  Real smooth.

I’m reading through my notes from this book as I write this, and it just gets better and better.  One of Amalia’s salacious aunts asks her whether she might not be dreaming, “the same way you might dream of a snow cone on a hot summer day?”  Amalia replies with an innocent “Why?  Does this have to do with food?”  to which the aunt responds “Not if you’re quick”.  Not if you’re quick.  I seriously can’t stop laughing.

I could keep banging on and on about the hilarious dick jokes in P.A.T. Penis, but there’s so much more to enjoy!  The alliterative chapter titles, for example: the Phantom Phallus and the Wacky Wizard.  The fact that the prose is both hysterical and well-written.  The tongue-in-cheek (tongue?) morals.

As you may be gathering, while this book is not to everyone’s taste (and certainly, if you don’t enjoy sex-based jokes then you won’t like The Princess and the Penis… or this book review site for that matter, so what the hell are you still reading for?!), I actually loved it.  I’m going to buy the rest of the series ASAP: I not only read the whole book with a grin on my face, but started holding story-time and reading it aloud to my friends.

To the sadistic gents of the PoS Book Club, this evens it out: I officially forgive you for the dino-porn.  Maybe one day, in the distant future, I’ll even be able to watch Jurassic Park again.

Verdict: NOT a Piece of Shit.

_______________________

The Princess and the Penis is available on Kindle here.

#13 - "Pickles and Ponies" by Laura May

Horse-Cocks and Seal-Fucking: A Hardcore Fairy Tale for Sexual Deviants
 (4.9/10)

by Beau Dashington, Admiral Fartmore and Peartree

(book submitted by Laura May)

Editors' note: This review represents the first time the Piece of Shit Book Club™ has been requested to review a book by the author. It must because of our stinging yet positive literary critiques. That, and the boner gags. And here is that book, written by our very own HotBot, an Australian type person who according to our friend SaltySankhala, may just be an internet bot. Stay tuned for the next review in the Piece of Shit Book Club™, when it will be HotBot’s turn to write as she reviews a book assigned to her by the boys. And that book is going to be a genuine, bona fide Piece of Shit™.

The first rule of fairy tales is that you do not talk about fairy tales.

The second rule about fairy tales is that, as the author tells us, the characters live happily ever after.

Pickles and Ponies is, ostensibly, a fairy tale written by an Australian robot cum author, Laura May (try not to get a mental image of the phrase “cum author”). But as the pages pass, it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that the story is just a cover for the author’s own sexual fantasies.

Our story opens in the land of Raduga, a fairy tale world populated only by princes, princesses, and their bizarre sexual slaves. The story opens with a meeting between Prince Randolph and Princess Christine, as he tries to “steal her cherry”... I don't want to say what we thought that meant at first because it might be offensive. Lets just assume its an actual cherry and move on.

In the opening of the story, we learn that adulthood is a sickness, caught from “gu-fairies.” Yup. In Raduga there is a bizarre race of creatures called the “gu-fairies”, whose name is certainly synonymous with jizm (this analogy was clearly intended by our author, as she seems to employ an infuriating amount of puns even Piers Anthony would sneer at). The jizz-fairies assault the children, which turns them into adults. After the assault, people wrap themselves up in a little cocoon for a week and then emerge as an adult. The jizz fairies probably represent someone’s first time masturbating, but it isn’t exactly clear. Though I do know that after I first figured out how to help my Lyndon B. run for office, I probably didn’t leave my bedroom for solid  week. The adulthood part is still a question mark. Either way, the jizz-fairies justify what they are doing by saying they didn’t really mean to hurt the kids, and they only did it because they love the children so much.

Indeed. I feel like I’ve heard that excuse before.

We also learn that the special move that Princess Christine uses is “the poke.” I wonder what that means. Here’s a quote; “Randolph had witnessed the power of the Poke many times growing up with Christine, and was committed to making sure his son was an expert in all aspects of poking.”

Indeed. I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere before.

The poke, which it's hard not to assume refers to banging, functions as a cure-all response to pretty much any obstacle the characters of Raduga face. If there’s a tree in your way, just bang it into sawdust. If a plank of wood is too short, just bang it until it extends to your desired length. If your daughter is depressed, just hire Raduga's Ron Jeremy to come in and sort her out. While fucking a tree may seem a bit far fetched, keep in mind that in Raduga almost everything from a ship to the ocean itself has some anthropomorphic qualities. Nothing is safe from the poke.

After a bunch of magic, cherry-stealing, and the poking of innocents (mostly, it seems, children) we eventually learn of our main characters. One is Vanya, the Prince of Quite Large and Really Rather Big Fish (if you imagine our author as a female Douglas Adams playing on the floor with My Little Pony dolls, a lot of the themes in this book start to gain some perspective). Due to a curse, he has no emotion. He has assigned to him a horse, named Horse, who is able to talk, and explains Vanya’s emotions to him.

Vanya’s female counterpart is the Princess Melodia of Rather Fish-Like Things. After reading too many fairy tales, she decides to exile herself to a deserted island while awaiting her prince to come rescue her. For some reason, Vanya’s parents decide that if he were to rescue Princess Melodia, he might get his emotions back.

Along the way, he must complete a number of tasks. One involves a witch, from whom Vanya frees a new sidekick named Theo. Another task involves Vanya, Horse and Theo assailing a giant cliff. They receive assistance from Hammy the Hamster. I assume the author got copyright clearance for that one.

Melodia, meanwhile, gets bored and is manipulated into banging a dude every day for the promise of new clothes. Once he starts to find their relationship dull he threatens to start banging new island floozies unless she starts doing it a “new way” by insinuating she is stuck up and not “willing to explore a bit” (italicization is the author’s). Of course the author means anal. This all by a guy who is half-man half-seal, known as a selkie. Whereas I thought this was made up, I found out later that it is actually a real thing. There are actually references in Gaelic mythology to people fucking seals. What. The. Fuck.

If you were hoping for our protagonists to stop fucking seals and horses and whatnot, you will end up disappointed. As Vanya’s quest to save the Princess Melodia continues, he ends up deciding to join a circus for seven years. He abandons his Horse, who starts fucking a sea-horse... who knocks him up. True story.

In spite of all the build up, which seems to be bringing Vanya and Melodia together, this does not come to pass. Instead, Melodia starts banging Theo, and the book ends tragically; the mentally handicapped Vanya left by the wayside while the emotionally stable ride off into the sunset. Vanya gets his heart restored just in time to get dumped, breaking rule number 2: characters live happily ever after.

Although well-written and not a Piece Of Shit™ by our normal standards, it’s hard not to wonder if the author just needed a cheap cover to write a story about sex with seals and horses and getting covered in goo by jizz-fairies. That’s certainly the impression up-front. But past these curtains of spunk sits a window overlooking some interesting themes; feminism, a woman’s role in the world, expectations and fantasy versus reality, isolation and friendship, horses, etc., are all examined from an innocent and very literal perspective, akin to South Park’s social commentary. They are well placed and fitting.

However, at times it feels like the fairy-tale is a vehicle that perhaps hinders the author as much as it aids her, insofar as while it grants the author plenty of maneuverability, it also means that we the readers have a tougher time connecting with characters or empathizing with their jizz-coated tribulations. It IS satire, of course, but she who fights fairies should be careful lest she herself become a jizz-fairy. And so in the end, we’d recommend for May to light some candles, put on some Lionel Ritchie, wrap up in a seal-pelt, and get acquainted with her own gu-fairies. ‘Cause fairy tales are for perfect princesses, and judging by the undercurrents of sexual depravity in her first book, a perfect princess she ain’t.

If you haven't already caught on, Laura May has a wicked sense of humor - not just by the fact that she submitted her book so we could take the piss out of it.  Grab her book here.

Beau Dashington, Admiral Fartmore, and Peartree

14/11/2014