It’s the next big thing in m/m romance covers, apparently. Oh yes, we’ve moved beyond Disembodied Torsos*. Now it’s time for…Attack of the severed hands!
 
 

It’s true, some hands would die for a good book or six…

“Cause the hand always wins. Play long enough, you never change the stakes. The hand takes you. Unless, when that perfect house comes along, you bet and you bet big, then you take the hand. –”Ocean’s Eleven” (2001)

…And they settled on interplanetary conquest with a firm handshake.

(Prognosis: I’m sorry, sir, but you appear to have a staircase growing between your hands.)

(Man, I hope he’s got a tight grip on that cork when it blows.)

“Jake Goodall is a Texas bull rider who’s used to keeping his preference for men under wraps.”     (“Jake Goodall is a Texas bull rider who’s used to being attacked by disembodied hands…”)

In a house as large as this one, a severed hand had a lot of crawling to do to get where it wanted to go. –Dean Koontz, Frankenstein, Book One: The Prodigal Son

(When two hands meet, and they really really love each other….)

(Okay, well first of course, they tend to make it official, that’s true. At least in states where that kind of thing is legal.)

(“…Does this hand make the back of my head look big?”)

 
 
Any takers on what the next cover trend will be? Eyeballs? Feet? Sexy kneecaps?

*Oh don’t get me wrong: there’s still plenty of severed torsos to go around…

The Year in Review

So TDB officially opened its doors on 1/18/2010 and has had a pretty solid year. At least we think so. Although as with any venture we started with our ideas bigger than our reading time, we’ve been steadily plugging along reviewing we hope a wide variety of books in the GLBTQ genre. We didn’t hit all of the goals we set for ourselves but we also never wanted to be a massive site. We’re happy to be a quiet corner of solid reviews that span the genre with thoughtful, careful reviews. So let’s see how we did in accomplishing that goal.

In the past year we’ve published 21 “rambling” posts and 223 reviews by 10 different reviewers.

Of those reviews, they break down the following way:

1 star reviews – 4

1.5 star reviews – 1

2 star reviews – 8

2.5 star reviews – 7

3 star reviews – 27

3.5 star reviews – 45

4 star reviews – 77

4.5 star reviews – 38

5 star reviews – 16

The average rating on TDB is 3.7.

We’ve reviewed:

8 bisexual titles

193 gay titles

24 lesbian titles

2 queer titles

7 transgendered titles

Erotica still makes up the majority of books coming in at 138 out of 222 reviews – we all like our porn – but we do offer nearly 40% of non-erotica book reviews. Hopefully we can get this even higher and more diverse in the coming year.

One of the goals starting this site was to offer reviews for books that are outside the m/m erotica romance genre. While we still have to work on that, I think TDB balances both the guilty pleasure books we love and those gems that may be overlooked.

So where do we improve? We have several ideas about what we’d like to improve upon and work on in the coming year but this is a perfect time to get some feedback from our readers.

Feel free to take the anonymous poll or leave us some feedback (which we love!).

Thank you and here’s to another successful year.

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Thanks so much to everyone who came and visited and commented on our special Valentine’s Day week-long celebration with zombies!  It was definitely not the “typical” way to celebrate the holiday, but here at Three Dollar Bill Reviews we don’t do anything in the “typical” way.  We had a blast and we hope you did too!  Hopefully we’ll come up with other fun and exicting ways to share our demented interests with all the readers out there so stayed tuned!

So now on to the most important thing…the winners!  These winners were picked through a totally random method of…well…picking random numbers.  I know, super scientific.  I thought of letting Brody, my crazy puppy, pick the winners but he was too busy chasing the cat around the house to care. 

Winner of the $10 gift certificate to ARe is……Tam!  Congrats!!

Winners of a free zombie ebook of their choice from those we reviewed……Josephine Myles & Jenre!

Congrats to all of the winners!  The winners should send an email to threedollarbillreviews@gmail.com and we’ll get your gift certificate or ebook of choice out to you ASAP.  Thanks again to all!

Over the past week we’ve covered several topics about zombies and reviewed quite a few queer stories featuring zombies in one way or another. We’ve covered zombies in film, whether there are queer zombies, who would win in a zombie vs. vampire smackdown (my money is totally on the zombies by the way), why we crazy few are so drawn to zombies, and how much fun it can be to read stories featuring zombies. Some of the stories reviewed were sweet and relatively clean while others ventured into the particularly gory and morbid. The stories featured gay, lesbian and bisexual characters and we’ve gotten a few recommendations of other stories to try so hopefully there will be more zombie story reviews in the future.

Zombies really are everywhere these days, popping up in movies, magazines, books and on television. People have taken beloved classics and “zombified” them. Heck you can even find zombie toys! If you’re a fan of zombies you don’t have to look far to find quite a bit of media entertainment, and hopefully over time even more authors of queer books will venture into this new territory and try their hand at zombie fun.

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by and commented this week! Y’all made this a fun time indeed and Kassa and I are glad that we could share our demented zombie love with you. Keep visiting and commenting through today for even more chances to win a $10 gift certificate or your choice of one of the zombie books we featured this week.

As Brandy has mentioned, we both found it quite difficult (and surprisingly so) to find queer books featuring zombies in any capacity. There are some, of course, and we’ve featured as many as we could, but there just aren’t as many as we would like. Of course then there’s the flip side, the visual media of film, my other obsession after books, where things are a bit different, and yet the same. There are a plethora of zombie movies, so many that I couldn’t possibly list them all here, but I honestly can’t say that I can think of a single zombie movie that features gay characters. Now, I am far from an expert, and there could very well be a movie out there that fits the bill ~ and if there is I can’t wait for someone to tell me what it is so I can see the movie!

Zombie films make up a solid percentage of horror flicks, a genre that I just can’t get enough of. The gorier the better I always say! Yes, you’re likely wondering a little bit about me at this point, but trust me, I’m relatively normal. LOL Just from my own collection of movies I can easily list out a few movies featuring zombies that I’ve watched over and over again: Dawn of the Dead (both the original and the remake which I personally enjoy quite a bit), Resident Evil, 28 Days Later. Now the diehards among you might argue with me on those of those, since Resident Evil and 28 Days Later are really more of infection movies. However I employ a rather loose definition of zombie…if the damn thing wants to bite me and eat my flesh, it’s a zombie. So yes, I consider them zombie movies.

Some of the very best films employ zombies and humor, two things you wouldn’t necessarily think go hand in hand and that are simply a blessing in disguise. First is Shaun of the Dead, a truly wonderful zombie comedy from the brilliant minds of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. Simply brilliant!! A mixture of humor and satire, a band of survivors attempt to outsmart the hoards of zombies and live to see another day. It’s funny from beginning to end and is a must see for sure.

And the top of my list. The cream of the crop when it comes to zombie films. The film that I could watch over and over and never get tired of.

Oh, America. I wish I could tell you that this was still America, but I’ve come to realize that you can’t have a country without people. And there are no people here. No, my friends. This is now the United States of Zombieland.

…

In those moments where you’re not quite sure if the undead are really dead, dead, don’t get all stingy with your bullets. I mean, one more clean shot to the head, and this lady could have avoided becoming a human Happy Meal. Woulda… coulda… shoulda.

Yes, my friends, it’s Zombieland. Filled with rules for survival, an intense search for a twinkie, a hot chick who can handle a gun, a quest to reach Pacific Playland, an immobilizing fear of clowns, and plenty of zombie mania, this movie is sheer perfection. If you haven’t seen it…well why the hell not?!? Of course, you do need to enjoy a bit of blood and guts. But there’s plenty of humor and hilarity to balance out with the zombie horror aspect. Overall it’s a stunning blend of the best things about zombies and just good clean fun.

So these are just a few of the movies that feature zombies…and I know there are a lot more that I haven’t even mentioned! While I wait for my favorite authors to feature zombies in their queer stories, I’ll have to just spend my spare time watching zombie films. What are your favorite zombie movies? What have I failed to list that you just can’t believe I missed?

Zombies vs Vampires – who would win?

In this historical battle I feel zombies have been vastly underrated. Usually with these match ups you see the uber powerful vampire tear the head off the mindless zombie with ease. It’s really a bit insulting to the zombie when you think about it. Also some over compensation on the vampire’s part no doubt.

So let’s break it down.

In an end of the world scenario which would you fear more?

This to me is a no brainer. Vampires need blood of a living, breathing creature to live. So when the end of the world comes about – do you want to be the feed bag of a vampire, a hiding fang banger that will likely die from slow blood loss or chewed up flesh from a zombie? I mean on one side you have a rather civilized, if cruel predator that feeds on your blood but needs -you- to survive. On the other you have a mindless eating machine that would just as soon tear your limbs from your blood and eat your flesh as well care about your comfort.To me, Zombies win this one.  Definitely the more feared creature when the apocalypse happens.

Who’s harder to kill, Zombies or Vampires?

This is kind of a tricky one. Vampires have a wide range of issues from garlic to crosses to holy water but they always include the stake to the heart, silver, and sunlight. The fact that vampires can’t come out in the daylight leaves a lot of valuable hunting time to the zombies. This is offset by vampires having a working brain and have evolved (presumably) over thousands of years into more efficient, deadly predators; which is a definite bonus on their side. Zombies have seemingly more problems. They’re mindless predators – ala the energizer bunny – and they keep going and going. Zombies can be shot and often destroyed by flame thrower and hack saw. But likely so can vampires. Vampires aren’t destroyed by bullets or baseball bats to the head though and depending on the lore, vampires can fly.

This is a tough one. I’m leaning to say Vampires are harder to kill.

Who’s likely to take over the world?

Well vampires typically have to bite someone with the intent of turning them into a vampire to make more little blood suckers. How exactly varies with lore but the general concept stays the same. Simply biting doesn’t do the trick. Unfortunately those soon to be zombie targets aren’t so lucky. Zombies seem to be made from virus, bacteria, and even the bites of other zombies. This is a wide spread indiscriminate infection that seems to have weaknesses. No one is immune to becoming a vampire or a zombie but in an attack of both species, your chances of becoming a zombie are close to 100% better than being a vampire. Not to mention, the vamps are likely to just hibernate until the silly mess is all over and done with and then worry about their feed bags when they wake up cranky and thirsty.As much as I respect vampires, I’m definitely siding with Zombies taking over the world if they so choose.

So what do you think in the epic battle of vampires versus zombies?

I think zombies have been vastly underrated as skilled, scary opponents. However the sheer lack of sex appeal definitely has to contribute.

Obviously here at Three Dollar Bill Reviews, we enjoy zombies. It would be silly to devote an entire week to something we didn’t really like! Whether it be in books, movies, television, you name it, if it has to do with zombies we like it and can’t get enough. Now for the moment, ignoring the queer/lack of queer aspect of zombies, we really should start with one simple question…why do we love zombies?

What is is about these horror icons, with their hideous gaping wounds and insatiable hunger for human flesh? What draws us to these creatures who can smell humans and travel in mobs that are practically inescapable? What does it say about us that we love them so? All most definitely good questions, and not all ones that I have immediate answers for.

I can speak for myself when I say that I’ve always been a fan of horror and zombies always topped that list. I think it draws on the “fight or flight” response that kick starts the adrenaline while reading a book or watching a movie that features hoards of blood-thirsty zombies. Many a times I’ve found myself rooting for the zombies, looking forward to them ending the life of the seriously annoying character who is obviously built into the story simply for their own imminent demise. Sometimes the zombies are just a lot more enjoyable than the characters trying to escape them! Zombies have only one thing on their mind, and that need to feed always keeps the story moving quickly.

Zombies are showing up everywhere these days, which makes me very happy to say the least, and whether it’s reading about them or watching them onscreen, it’s always an adventure. So my fellow readers, how do you feel about zombies? Do you love them or stay far away? Are you like me, intrigued by anything that mentions zombies, or do you know that the word zombie means that you’ll avoid it at all cost? Why do you love zombies?

I’ve already mentioned yesterday how the GLBTQ zombie genre is sorely lacking. When Emily and I went looking around for books, asking for suggestions, we found very few books. At first I thought it was just because zombies weren’t popular but that’s not true. They’re very popular and there are numerous books about the zombie apocalypse and how to survive a zombie attack. (Of these I’d particularly recommend Mel Brooks’ excellent survival guide.)

So if zombies are popular and zombie attacks are all over pop culture, media, tv, movies, literature… where the hell are the gay and queer zombies!?

This leads me to the parallel question – can gay zombies even exist? I mean when I think about it, zombies aren’t really sexual per se. They’re rotting, mindless, flesh eating creatures of destruction. They lack personality, they lack intelligence, they lack that all important sex drive. They truly lack the all important sex factor period. Unless of course you’re one of “those” kinksters and well then that’s your business. No judging, just yanno that’s your thing.

At the same time the corollary argument holds as well – if there are no gay zombies then there are no straight zombies either. I’m a firm believer in various types of zombies – really there can’t be just *one* – but apparently there aren’t multiple kinds based on sexual preference. So ok but if common sense is thrown out enough to involve straight zombies into literature than we can scale that wall into gay and queer zombies too. We’ve attempted to review several different kinds of queer zombie books this week but we need more!

So this is a challenge to authors and readers – bring on the zombies! (not the straight ones please..we’re done with that)

So while we were chatting Emily and I came up with the idea that this Valentine’s Day, we wanted to celebrate a little differently. We of course came up with the idea of doing a zombie themed week here at Three Dollar Bill Reviews. What better way to celebrate the commercial holiday of love than with crazed, flesh eating undead?

Bring ‘em on!

We’ll be posting reviews every day of various zombie books in the GLBTQ genre. Some are good, some are bad and some are just so bad they’re good. There’s gay, lesbian, ménage books and really when we went looking around we were disappointed with the offerings. Why isn’t there a bigger zombie book market? Well I should say “alternative” zombie market because the whole Jane Eyre zombie trend has been beaten to death. Let’s not return there please.

Throughout the week we’ll also be doing posts on various zombie related topics from pop culture to movies to epic battles. Should be a good time.

To top it all off we’ll be giving away a $10 GC to ARe (our bookstore of choice, we love it and like to promote it). Two other winners will be chosen and get to pick the zombie book of their choice from the ones we reviewed. You can enter by commenting on any of the reviews or posts this week. The more times you comment, the more chances you have to win.

So to kick off the zombie week – let’s hear some book suggestions! You’d be surprised how difficult it is to find GLBTQ zombie books so what books do you know about?

Today’s column is a bit of a departure from talking about literature and smut but an important message.  This week I read a memoir in which the author’s childhood bullying and parental neglect led to life long consequences. While disturbing, this fascinating memoir hits upon a relevant topic that is getting a lot of media attention lately and that’s childhood bullying.

In recent years the number of childhood and teenage suicides due to high school bullying has been skyrocketing and there is a great initiate to help those children and teens get through a tough time of their lives.

A you tube channel started by Dan Savage has been circulating around with authors, teens, activists, and LGBTQ people that is titled “it gets better.” These videos attempt to reach out to young people and let them know that the horrible years in school will not last forever. That no matter how lost and alone they feel now, it will get better. This is in conjunction with the Trevor Project – a non-profit national organization focused on crisis and suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth.

I think the timely message is really important and relevant enough to take a small space and advertise it once again. Although I disagree with the idea that everyone just has to “put up” with bullying, it’s a step in the right direction. Perhaps you’ve seen all the videos uploaded and heard the stories but it’s one that bears repeating. Feel free to tweet this, post it on your blogs, or even get involved and upload your own video.