Showing posts with label This Is Heaven. Show all posts
Showing posts with label This Is Heaven. Show all posts

Apr 12, 2020

Green Eyes -- the fishbowl -- This Is Heaven


The Green Eyes are coming out soon in a German translation, so lets draw the attention of our readers to this...




...a fishbowl, yes, because a fishbowl plays an important role in the sequel to the Green Eyes, This Is Heaven.

The Green Eyes tell of a "romantic" love story between two gay protagonists, John Lee and Alexander Iglesias. The sequel continues with our heroes, and because they are already together--some reviewers complained that they are not "together" enough--the story is about something else than sheer romance, and murder is always a good substitute. And so, John, as the potential suspect of a potential murder committed in the darkroom of his town's only gay club, is called to the local police station, where he's interviewed by a certain Mario LaStrada, a homicide detective.  And, yes, I have no recollection how I got this idea, but I had to animate the scene somewhat and a fishbowl came to mind. The bowl subsequently appears in various chapters since John is called to the police station at various times, but when John is called in for the last time (after that, LaStrada wont be in the position to call in anybody anymore), John is asking himself the question:


What will be the strada this time?

It will be the fishbowl. The glass container has grown in size and is studied intently by the inspector upon my arrival. We’re watching a detective flick from the ‘40’s—-educating the audience how the suspect is broken down by sheer disregard for his awkward presence. LaStrada has a point though, the toy fish of old has gotten company by three brethren, all looking more or less like goldfish, but not quite. And if my mammal bias is of any help: the fish don’t like each other.

(...) 

He [LaStrada] is turning to the fish bowl again. Previously, a single fish turned its pointless rounds at a leisurely clip, but now there are four of them, and a sense of purpose has taken hold. Were it not for the bowl’s spherical shape, one would fear for the centrifugal forces, the fish being misled by inertia and missing a turn. 

Isn't this neat? Murphy's law inverted, partially. Whatever can get right does get right, and so we hit on this gif picture  with a fish missing its turn. There's more about these fish in This Is Heaven. Perversion, sex, anything. Get yourself a copy, here.


Mar 5, 2019

Five stars again --- Green Eyes and This Is Heaven





Cool folks. Today isn't particularly good a day, but then we discovered these reviews by John_C (his handle, we presume)  both of the GREEN EYES and THIS IS HEAVEN on Inkitt. Have a look:

Amazing -- Green Eyes

I’ve have never actually told someone to leave me alone until I started reading Green Eyes: an erotic novel (sort of) by Michael Ampersant. I held it in my hands and read the first chapter when someone came up to me to ask me a question. I literally held my hand to his face and told him to stop talking, and that I was reading. He didn’t talk to me for a few days. He got over it and read the book. I tried to interrupt him and he stopped me. Karma.
Michal’s protagonist, John Lee, is narrating the story. He’s so funny that I really want to meet him. His descriptions, side notes, and remarks are so powerful. I’ve never met someone so funny, entertaining, and naive in some ways. Okay. I admit I’m naiver that he is. My point is that I love the character. If I met him I would ask, “How?”
The style of the book was new for me. I don’t particularly write in this style. Now that I have I admit I wouldn’t even know how to start. Michael’s style is unique, part description, part I’m telling you what happened, and he also shows you what’s going on. And there is a lot of things going on. He has this unique talent of introducing something traumatic in a very nonchalant way that when the shocker comes out I jump.
What I like the most of the book is that it took me to worlds where I’ve never been. I have never known men could do the things they did in this book. When I’m reading I feel what John is doing and seeing. A few times I cinched because I thought I was there. I can honestly say, I have yet to read another book like this. I’m an honored man for having read Michael’s book.


Aug 21, 2018

This Is Heaven -- for the record

We've started some sort of add campaign for This Is Heaven on LustSpiel, much of which is NSFW. He's one post that's OK (dunno why it's blurred here):


More of this in Michael Ampersant's This Is Heaven


Mar 20, 2018

More praise for This Is Heaven

A new review of This Is Heaven, on Amazon:

March 16, 2018
Format: Kindle Edition

This is Heaven. Yes it is. The sequel to GREEN EYES. I'm a big fan of Ampersant. I've read a lot of his work. Let me tell you that I read this book slowly and took my time. Actually the story was so good I wanted to just keep reading. The reason. He uses action and thrills and you want to savor the sex scenes and learn from them. Especially getting bitten. Come on, admit it, you want to be bit too. What I also like about the book that it continues from the Green Eyes. It's a month later or ten years later. It's the next day, of sorts. I wasn't expecting that and I'm happy it was that way. I am happy with this book and waiting for the next one.

(We're working on it)



The sequel to the Green Eyes---available now

Michael Ampersant
("click")


This Is Heaven (Green Eyes #2)

Feb 27, 2018

"Oil, oil...!"





And, anything the GREEN EYES have to add to this? Sure, always. Here, Part II (This Is Heaven), CH. 20, The Headless Horseman. Alex and John have left Juliette's hotel room and the scene of a Barbette Bienpensant provoked flagrante, a scene also involving Juliette's new friend, Romeo:


Alex laughs. Chuckles in an old-fashioned way. Slaps my shoulder—even though that’s difficult on account of my head-rest—we’re in the truck, heading to the hospital where Alex needs to be for unclear reasons. “You are contagious dude, yes, you are,” he says.

“What?”
“The post-coital checkup, this is so you, you could have invented it.”
“Never heard of post-coital checkup.”

He hoots. “Gotcha, gotcha.” He cocks his head (which he will do a lot for the remainder of this episode). “I shouldn’t laugh,” he adds. “I believe.”
“There wasn’t any blood,” I say.
“They’ve possibly changed the sheets in the meantime. ‘Room service, room service, we have a de-hymenation.’ Or there wasn’t anything like a virgin…like in the first StarWars movie or what. They are lost in the desert, and the robot shouts, ‘Water, water.’ And the princess shouts, ‘Room service, room service’.”
“You don’t make sense.”
“No, it was Mel Brooks. A Star Wars parody. The robot shouts ‘Oil, oil.’ Spaceballs was the title.” Alex looks at his watch. “How much time did they have? Eight hours, nine hours. They did it four times. Five times. It hurts the first time. But then—female orgasms aren’t automatic, you know. In this case, however, I’m confident—she looked so otherworldly.” He gives me this look: “This is heaven, John, I told you.”



The sequel to the Green Eyes---available now

Michael Ampersant
("click")

Feb 21, 2018

Sogni pensieri parole --- a new review of "This Is Heaven"

Cool, folks, cool. We have a new review of "This Is Heaven," an Italian one. It was originally posted on I mei sogni tra le pagine, but is also available on GoodReads and supposedly on Amazon, and it's by S.M. May, the famed Italian author of oh-so-teasing SM-work. S.M. is actually a full-fledged attorney at law---perhaps not so much of a coincidence. Here she goes:


Like the first book, “This Is Heaven” has a bizarre and crazy plot. John, the narrator, tells us of the volatile relationship with his partner Alex, which is further complicated by a gaggle of new friends.

The scenes are often surreal, the dialogues full of jokes and witty quirks. There’s an initial sense of disorientation, but the reader eventually learns to understand the extremely particular/original---and, at bottom---cynical/sarcastic voice of Michael Ampersant, which hides, and thus reveals, a vast cultural/literary background.

From the famous incipit (“It was a dark and stormy night”) of the cataclysmic Chapter 47 to the numerous quotations and allusions in the text: it’s a real treasure hunt.

Ampersant is a very good author who loves to play with words, and the art of writing. And how can we not appreciate a writer whose author picture is captioned: “The author picture is a bit outdated, but not photoshopped” (?). [LOL]



The sequel to the Green Eyes---available now

Michael Ampersant
("click")


This Is Heaven (Green Eyes #2)

Dec 31, 2017

Harem Rock


By Michael Ampersant (text) and Theo Blaze (art)


Michael Ampersant had dreamed of using some poetry in THIS IS HEAVEN---one character speaking in verse, say---but nothing came of it. But then he discovered that the first part of Chapter 33, "Harem Rock" would actually work as poetry if reformatted as a stanza. Nothing up to Shakespeare standards, but still. Next, the formidable Theo Blaze put up an invite on his site, asking authors to come up with a brief story to illustrate one of his pictures. Michael reacted, and they got a deal; Michael would write a story, if Theo would create an illustration for "Harem Rock." And there we are:
  

John,
Why couldn’t you,
At the end of a page-turning,
Adverb-packed day,
Of unparalleled heat levels.





Why couldn’t you,
Just down the third ‘fortification’ the lady of the house was handing you,
And chuck your dirty shorts one more time,
And let the sex slave fix the Magic-Mike collar around your neck.

In view of the advanced hour,
We’ll keep the strip-tease to a minimum.

Dec 9, 2017

It doesn't make sense --- teaser --- This is heaven



It doesn't make sense, but then we rarely make sense. Here's a picture by Guy Billout, which beautifully sums up This Is Heaven:



Louis of Versailles and the Titanic in the same frame? Let's start with Louis of Versailles, one of our best neologisms, invented by Greta Wetten Dass, the award-winning romance author, in steamy Chapter 14; Greta recounting last night's adventure with Ben Fletcher and Jane Trumpleton, (Alex and John listening):

“The pursuit of love-making, gentlemen, has a practical component. Despite the best efforts of my pen-colleagues, a male person can have only so many ejaculations during a limited period of time. We would have Ben three, at most four times during the night. Letting him come at that moment would have meant that a quarter of his lust had already been consumed while we weren’t quite undressed.”

“It’s funny,” Alex says, “how your voice oscillates between the practical and the romantic.”

“It’s the same with love, Alex. The sensual and the physical, it’s not an easy marriage. Women, you may have noticed, are more practical when it comes to the inevitable; they bear children, they live longer. So, Jane shakes Ben’s maleness knowingly, more precum oozing in all directions, then whispers, ‘He’s bursting, no way he can hold this, he would explode at the very moment of penetration. Let’s enjoy this fountain while it lasts. He has enough ejaculations left, at least one for each of us, trust your sister.’

Nov 25, 2017

Handsheet for the erotic writer --- Call me by your name (2) --- updated, reposted

So, the movie Call Me by Your Name is out this week to rave reviews. Most of them regrettably fail to mention that it's based on the homonymous novel by André Aciman, a book that became something of a cult-hit in the literate gay community since its appearance in 2007. We got hold of the title while writing the first part of the GREEN EYES, and read it with thieving expectations: lifting a few ideas, maybe, or at least a few turns of phrase from Aciman's oeuvre. And in preparation for doing so, we created this Handsheet for the Erotic Writer with steamy quotes from the book. Enjoy... 

(Click to enlarge)

Much to our regret, we never managed to lift anything of substance, but...the idea of the Handsheet took hold. And so, in THIS IS HEAVEN, the award-winning author Greta Wetten Dass---while recounting last night's erotic encounter with the ravishing John ("Ben") Fletcher---suddenly holds a Handsheet for the Erotic Writer in her hand...

Here's a fragment from Chapter 14, titled accordingly "Handsheet for the Erotic Writer"---Greta recounting, John and Alex listening/interrupting:



“And there we go. While Jane holds onto his shoulder, yours truly tugs at Ben’s trouser legs until the jeans come off. There’s the minor issue of the underwear proper, which is dispatched by a forthcoming sister in one swift gesticulation. She then buries—don’t blush—her nose in the loosened pouch of the garment.

‘Aah,’ she affects with a knowing voice. She hands the cloth to me. For the first time in my life do I sniff willingly and voraciously the scent of male hidden treasures, a scent so unbuttoned and rustic, so intimate and strong. A touch of Marquis de Sade gets involved.”

Oct 22, 2017

More reactions to "This Is Heaven"




Michael P.  on Goodreads:

Anyone who uses neologisms correctly, and understands their meaning, has me intrigued. This novel, the second in a series, had me from the first page. A plethora of language used eloquently and subversively kept the story going. We meet a number of characters who are intertwined in various ways. There is a Vampire festival, dead bodies, 'trolling' (to use the author's word), an amnesiac who cannot remember his former life due to committing suicide, an internet scam, and colorful people which blend this wonderful story into a crazy week of escapades which ends happily ever after...or does it? I wish I had read the first book to understand some of the goings on in this one, but it can be read as a stand alone novel due to the author creating vivid characters that will long stay in my mind. I would love to know these people and party with them, as they make life interesting.

If I can say something here in between: I got the informal meaning of 'trolling' from our friend Glenn, who figures regularly on this blog, and who was the owner of Nick's Restaurant---which also appears in the GREEN EYES---the real one, located in Baltimore. Let's hope Glenn used the word correctly. 


Nick's Restaurant (or Fish House, as it is now called)




Fun read, like Christopher Moore

(Yes, that was the entire review)



on Goodreads:

I loathed the formatting of this book. That out of the way, the story itself was wacky (and that's a good thing). It was hugely entertaining.

This Is Heaven, order now...


Michael Ampersant

Oct 6, 2017

Homosexuality is a choice





Anything to do with the Green Eyes? Well, sure, after his OD-suicide-attempt, Alex re-awakes with serious amnesia and can't remember his sexual orientation. We're at the hospital, Alex still recovering, John and Alice are with him. GREEN EYES, Part I:


“John, you said you were my friend, right?” Alex asks.
“Yes.”
“You are my friend?”
“Yes.”
“How about my family?”
“Good question,” I say.
“How old am I?”
At least, I know his age. “Twenty nine.”
“I’m twenty-nine. Just attempted suicide. There’s no family to speak of? To work with?”

I’m chewing on the sweet. What do I know?

“They live somewhere else,” Alice says.
“I could be married, right? Have children?”
“You have no children.”
“How about a partner, a wife?”
“No wife.” she says.
“Figures,” Alex says, “she would be here now. I could be divorced, though. Not divorced?”
“Not divorced,” Alice says.
“You’ve heard this social worker,” he says to me, “I need an ally. How about girlfriends.”
“Girl friends don’t make good allies,” Alice says, “I speak from experience.” She looks at me. “Alex, you’ll have to do with us,” (she rests her hand on my shoulder) “John here, and myself. We’re your allies.”

“Thanks,” Alex says. He seems unconvinced. He seems so unconvinced, Alice has to add: “All the girls I know are in love with you.”
“You are a girl, too,” Alex says, more matter-of-fact than joking.
“Yes.”
“You are not my partner, right. Never been?”
“I’m lesbian,” Alice says, “I’m a dyke.”
“Right,” Alex says.
“How to explain this,” Alice says, “Here, John, here, he’s your partner.”

Don’t ask me how Alex looked glared at me. “Right,” he says. We’re cool.


Y'all still there? Then you'll like us:


Michael Ampersant
("click")

Sep 28, 2017

More reactions to This Is Heaven



M. v. Brentano

Michael's philosophy teacher Margherita v. Brentano always used to say: "Don't care about what they are saying, care about what they are doing." Along those lines, a friend sends this message on Goodreads:

"I am about 100 pages into "Green Eyes, An Erotic Story" and I am quite impressed. (Admittedly, I've had 2 boners already. Sorry if that is too graphic for you, but I figured that the stories you write it would not be.)
I read your book before bed (and in bed) so it makes for a better atmosphere."

And here, another review on Goodreads from Mrs. Becky Kahl:

"I don’t read this kind of books but overall it was a good book. My grandsons age 15 & 16 loved it."

So much for adult content.

This Is Heaven, order now...



("click")


(One remark: Reading about Becky's grandchildren, I was first surprised, but then I thought: if you discount the sex scenes, this is very much an Enid Blyton story---and any contemporary adolescent has been exposed to so much sex on the internet (and perhaps elsewhere), all of them possibly discount sex scenes automatically.)

Sep 13, 2017

The Schadenfreude Institute


(Our friend Glenn sends this cartoon)




Anything the GREEN EYES have to add to this? Not really, except that we have Barbette Bienpensant, a professor of quantitative metaphysics and experienced forecaster of doom, who's affiliated with the University of Metaphysics. There, they have Departments of Alchemy and of Astrology. Why not  adding a Schadenfreude Institute to the mix? Especially with Donald Trump in the offing? Here's a pertaining fragment,  CH 46 of This Is Heaven, with John and the Bienpensant  conversing (the story is set in 2014):

“You and I talked about this before,” I say. “What do you do if your prediction is wrong? If there is no Armageddon?” Well, there’s so much Armageddon already. And there’ll be more soon, her Department of Astrology put out a Trump Warning. “A what?”  Trump, you know, the NYC real estate mogul, the stars have aligned apparently, they predict he’ll be the next president. And yet, you know, the end of the world need not be the end of the world, even with Trump in the offing, see, it could be rapture, rapture for just about everybody, an ecumenical ride from this world to the next. One moment we’re in this vale of sorrows, and the next we are up there in heaven. This is heaven— like Alex says, that’s what she loves so much about Alex. But people are so edgy these days, they don’t take yes for an answer. And so impatient. They always require distractions.


Sep 7, 2017

Amos Lassen reviews "This Is Heaven"


Cool, folks, cool. The first official review of This Is Heaven is out, and it's by review celebrity Amos Lassen. Here are a few lines:

I have remarked several times that the sign of good literature is that which makes me think and I have been doing a lot of thinking about Michael Ampersant’s wonderful new novel, “This is Heaven”...

...I must admit that I have already had more than my fill of novels predicting the end of time and vampires. Novels like this tend to appear in cycles and it seems that vampires have become a staple in gay literature. I became apprehensive with where this story was going but something said to me to keep reading and I am glad that I did as many of my favorite historical and literary figures make an appearance here— Shakespeare, Albert Camus, Enid Blyton, Mark Twain, and many other writers appear in cameos. The satire becomes quite strong while we move forward and the characters interact with each other. I surprisingly realized that I was totally pulled into the novel...

 ...Ampersant's wit is wonderful and there were times that I could see him in my mind as he sits at his computer writing this with a wry smile on his face. His prose is gorgeous and his characters are fascinating. For those two reasons alone, you should want to read, “This is Heaven”.


Read Lassen 's entire review here



This Is Heaven, order now...


Michael Ampersant
("click")

...and/or subscribe to our mailing list:





Sep 3, 2017

Vanity fair





We're also---see last post---featured on:

Two men are better than one

Queer SciFi

and

Gay Flash Fiction


The Reader's Handbook





Cool, folks, we are this week's Sunday Feature of Katie Lewington's The Reader's Handbook. There's a lot of stuff about THIS IS HEAVEN, including an interview. 

Here's one Q/A from it:

What themes are in your writing? 

The two fiction books I’ve finished are fairly erotic, and fairly explicit in places. So, sex would be a theme. But it’s not the principle message. There’s this aphorism by Mark Twain: It’s easier to fool people than convince them that they get fooled. That’s what I’m writing about. Highly topical in the age of Trump, I’d say. I’m interested in language, and lots of my writing is about language and how it’s used and misused. I’m also interested in politics. Here’s one little fragment from This Is Heaven (with Nick, the owner of Nick’s Restaurant, speaking):

“People have a right to forget,” he says. “Think of slavery. That wasn’t ‘slavery’ at all—that was ‘our peculiar institution.’ ‘Suffragette’—that was our term of derision for a bunch of uppity bitches. ‘Miscegenation’—that was miss, you understand, and illegal to boot. ‘Separate but equal’—my God, we swore by it until fucking Truman put them all in the same bunkbeds. And Brown versus Schoolboard—have you seen the clips, Brown emanating from a court hearing, and the entire American press stalking him with sneers and laughter ‘cuz he’s black and wannabe white? And now you guys, with your rainbow marriage. There’s only one solution for real Americans, who have never, ever, been racist, or misogynists, or segregationist, or anti-Semitic, or homophobic, or whatever was wrong with us in the past—or will be wrong with us in the future—and that’s forgetfulness.”

Haha. Can you come up with a more succinct critique of American Conservatism?




Aug 31, 2017

They have arrived!


This Is Heaven arrives in Australia

The King Bolete arrive in Switzerland. They were late this season.

Aug 24, 2017

The ad that ends the culture wars --- This Is Heaven --- Teaser (17) --- reposted

(A few more days to go until the release of This Is Heaven, so here's an old teaser re-posted---our favorite one, in fact, because of the fab gif sequence)

John is back home where he's confronted with Ben --- Ben, last week's conquest and this week's backbone of the newfangled A-level Escort Service.


Ben has a very long shower at the moment and my feeling is that he’s going to depart from my life pretty soon, the way he shot cursory glances at the bedstead and then at me---which was still okay, especially under the circumstances---but then he asked whether he could use the shower, and his next step will be to ask whether he can use the bathroom, and then he’s gone.




We shouldn’t belabor the obvious here, but if you’re in the pay of one of these outfits that use “family” as code against gays, and you’re tasked to produce the definitive ad, the ad that ends the culture wars, you could do much worse than to tell the story of a young, handsome Afro-American who has options, obviously, when it comes to sexual preferences, and who falls into the hands of this homosexual assistant professor of French who’s only option is a tangled ménage with a rape victim and a suicide victim and pimping handsome Afro-Americans to high-strung Valkyries---not to mention Ray, the murder suspect whom he hasn’t met yet.

Now Ben’s back from the shower, and this is my last chance. He’s wearing these graffiti briefs that look so great on him even when not quite fresh, and he's just standing there, the precise model of ebony perfection, unconscious of his own skin, one more second before he’ll ask whether he can use the bathroom. So you say: “Ben.”

Aug 8, 2017

We simply had to --- Cloud fart --- This Is Heaven


We had this firm resolution: no more TIH teasers until the release date of August 27. And then we saw this gif:





So, there we are in Chapter 37. Note the name of Juliette's new boyfriend---Romeo. Romeo's sugar daddy Roper has just been found dead with a kinky dog collar around his neck, and there is more trouble on the horizon.

“Act Two,” Alex says, and fumbles in the pockets of his shorts. Alex always seems to carry a medication bottle lately, and now he unscrews it and hands a pill to Juliette.
“This will do,” he says.
“What is this?”
“A pill.”
“Oh my God, the pill,” Juliette says.
“The pace quickens in the second part of the play, doesn’t it?” Alex says.
“The pill is Act Four.”
“Act Four, then.”
“Alex, please,” Juliette says. “My Romeo, when am I going to get him back?”
“Soon.”
“Hold on, Alex. First you say Roper is not a big deal. Next thing you say they will put up wanted bills and he has to go into hiding.”
“Juliette, I’m just thinking on my feet.”
“For how long does he have to go into hiding?”
“Until Strada and friends get distracted by something else. They’re up to their ears in unresolved cases like this-—perverts passing away in seedy circumstances. Nobody wants these cases resolved, it’s much too embarrassing. Give it a week. Four days.”
“John said you know the assistant DA for vice?”

Alex grins introspectively and a bit longer than he should. He has been standing next to me and now he adds his habitual arm to my shoulder. “Yes, we do, John, don’t we?”
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