Rude Mechanicals

Wow - and I mean wow - this is very, very cool: the great Sasha Mitchell over at R.U. Sirius’s site Acceler8or.com just posted this very cool review of my dark gay thriller Finger’s Breadth. Here’s a tease:

Did Oscar Wilde ever mention a baby-shit sofa, as fetishized by Tom of Finland, and crusted with salty, sweet sticky?  Cliche to throw out Wilde when reviewing a piece of m4m fic?  About as cliche as including a reference to Sex in the City in said fic. 

Really, I josh.  Because apart from a (for me) slightly delayed pick-up—and the more obvious fact that yours truly is of the vaginal realm—I had fun with, and eventually became engrossed by, M. Christian’s Finger’s Breadth. 

Boilermakers, mambo-fuck you gay bars, scenarios seemingly inspired by a homoerotic Misery, and of course the ever prevalent ”asses flexing into handful-sized tightened cheeks” (is that your technology chirping, or is throbbing a better adjective?), Christian flaunts a downright capacity for electric lyric as well as (sorry mum, must include this in such a review) all the “hard cocks, strong cocks, long cocks, thick cocks – bobbing up and down, swinging right and left, even swirling in a sweaty circle,” that you could empty. 

Not to mention a devilishly intricate plotline, which goes as follows: Fanning is a freelance cop on a most perplexing case.  He kicks himself for not having caught whoever is terrorizing the tequila sunrises of Boyz Bay (did I just coin that?) by luring men for nonconsensual finger lobotomies. 

[MORE]

AMPUTATION AND NOVEL PUBLICITY: AUTHOR M. CHRISTIAN THREATENS ONE FOR THE OTHER

PRESS RELEASE: In what is clearly an act of pure desperation, author M. Christian has threatened to amputate part of one finger to publicize his new novel, Finger’s Breadth (Zumaya Books).

“The fact is, it’s getting harder and harder to get the word out about anything new, especially novels,” says M. Christian, whose biography includes over 400 short story sales, nine author collections, the editing of 25 anthologies, and six previous novels.  ”Is it no surprise that writers are having to resort to obvious stunts to try and get their work noticed?”

Though Finger’s Breadth – described as a gay erotic science fiction horror thriller – has garnered respectable reviews, Christian says that it has yet to gain the notoriety he believes it deserves.

“Even with Zee at Firepages saying ‘Finger’s Breadth has a way of getting under your skin and sending chills to your bones in both a terrifying and arousing kind of way. Finger’s Breadth is not a story; it is an experience I highly recommend,’ it’s been too damned hard to get word out about the book.

Christian points out other reviewers who, apparently, have also found the book to be superb: “I’ve got Lisabet Sarai, who says ‘If you’re looking for an easy, sunny, sexy book with a happy ending, don’t pick up Finger’s Breadth. If, on the other hand, you want a scary but enlightening ride through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, I highly recommend this book,’ and the Circlet Press calling it ‘…one of the most psychologically astute erotic novels since Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, and it deserves to be just as widely read,’ and even science fiction author Ernest Hogan, who calls it ‘a world of crime, out-of-control passions, mutilation, and madness. Terms like noir and hardboiled don’t quite fit – this is more like ultraviolet, the invisible light that makes the scorpions glow in the dark.’”

As for what the novel is actually about, Christian says that the book’s description as erotic, nightmarish, fascinating, disturbing, intriguing, haunting, you have never read a book like Finger’s Breadth is actually pretty accurate – if a little vague: “There are far too many scary books and movies about serial killers, psychos, nasty supernatural forces … but all of that, to me, is just too removed.  It’s far too easy to be able to say it’s a matter of them – or him – and us: but the real horror I’ve always felt, and tried to explore in Finger’s Breadth is that the real horror is human nature itself.  That, given the right set of circumstances, otherwise good people can have their minds, and most of all their desires, turned inside out.”

And so to try and get the word out about what he feels to be his best novel yet, the reclusive author says that he is willing to step into the light with his most audacious publicity plan ever: to lop off one of his own fingertips

“Okay, my track record for honesty isn’t the best … I’m the first to admit that,” Christian says about his planned amputation.  ”The whole ‘stolen identity’ campaign around Me2 [his previous novel] was lost on more than a few people.  Never mind that it worked and the book sold like hotcakes.  But this time I’m totally, completely, absolutely, honest: I really want people to read Finger’s Breadth … and if it takes lopping off the tip of my little finger then I’m gonna do it,” he says.

When asked if the planned amputation is simply a publicity stunt, Christian responded with faux outrage: “A stunt?  A STUNT?!  Of course it’s a publicity stunt … these days writers have to be creative and, let’s be honest here, more than a bit outrageous if they are going to get noticed.  The book’s about a mysterious figure cutting off the tips of little fingers in a near-future noir San Francisco so a pretend self-amputation is just too damned perfect!”

In answer to his admission that the whole thing is nothing but a publicity-seeking prank, Christian shook his head: “That’s not to say that it still won’t happen; they say that a good writer has at least a few good books in them, so if a finger is all it takes to get the word out about this novel … well, I have 19 more fingers and toes to go.  Seems like a small price to pay.”

M. Christian can be reached at zobop@aol.com or mchristianzobop@gmail.com.  His website is http://www.mchristian.com

To receive a review copy of Finger’s Breadth send an email to publicity@zumayapublications.com.

#

More Finger’s Breadth reviews:

It is not that hard to come up with an idea that can be turned into a horror story and that is why horror has been part of the folklore of America and why these stories are so popular on camp-outs as we sit around a campfire. To successfully do this, we need a combination of characters and plot but more important than all else is a novel way to relate the story. For me that is the definition of M. Christian. This book is unlike anything I have read before and I suspect that it will stay with me for quite a while.
– Amos Lassen, reviewer

Finger’s Breadth creates a vivid portrait of a community torn apart by suspicion, where the thrills of hot, anonymous sex go hand in mutilated hand with the chill of fear, and no one is entirely what they seem. M. Christian skillfully mixes a dark, potent cocktail of lust, longing, paranoia and an overwhelming need for acceptance…
– Liz Coldwell, author of Take Your Slave To Work

To be effective, the act of literary intercourse between horror and erotica should be deeply unsettling. It should leave the reader feeling uncomfortable, overwhelmed by equal parts dread and anticipation. M. Christian understands this better than most, weaving a tale that permits the reader but a finger’s breadth of space between fear and arousal. His deft control of the story makes us feel the blade, but it’s his subtle manipulation of our emotions that makes us want the cut.
– Sally Sapphire, Bellasbookslut

M. Christian has seen the future – and it is hardboiled! If you love crime stories – gay or otherwise – and you love science fiction, you will love Finger’s Breadth. No other storyteller nails it quite like M. Christian does. This is a real page turner.
– Marilyn Jaye Lewis, author of Freak Parade

M. Christian is a force to be reckoned with. Just when you think you understand the path that his narrative and characters are taking, Christian throws a monkey wrench, or a limb, or a head into the works and you have to get your bearings and start all over again. No matter which book of his you pick up, prepare for an intoxicatedly weird ride.
– Ily Goyanes, author and filmmaker

Finger’s Breadthis mesmeric storytelling, riveting in execution and appalling in implication.  M. Christian’s tale of erotic terror in a near-future San Francisco is imagined so skillfully that it grabs the reader with its easy familiarity, then refuses to let go as it careens to its shocking yet completely believable conclusion.  Evoking such Grand Masters as Armistead Maupin, Thomas Harris and Rod Serling while remaining strikingly original, Finger’s Breadth is Christian at the height of his considerable powers.  Like Charon the ferryman, the author takes the reader down the dark rivers of human sexuality and shows us things that would normally never see the light of day.  Ultimately the most compelling aspect of this fiction is how fascinatingly and terrifyingly plausible it is. Finger’s Breadthshould come with a warning label: Read this before clubbing.
– Christopher Pierce, author of Rogue Slave, Rogue Hunted, and Kidnapped By A Sex Maniac

#

M. Christian is – among many things – an acknowledged master of erotica with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many, many other anthologies, magazines, and Web sites.

He is the editor of 25 anthologies including the Best S/M Erotica series, Pirate Booty, My Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica, The Burning Pen, Guilty Pleasures, The Mammoth Book of Future Cops and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi) and Confessions, Garden of Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant) as well as many others.

He is the author of the collections Dirty Words, Speaking Parts, The Bachelor Machine, Licks & Promises, Filthy, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Coming Together Presents M. Christian, Pornotopia, How To Write And Sell Erotica; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Brushes, Fingers Breadth, and Painted Doll.  His site is http://www.mchristian.com.

Fingers Breadth
Zumaya Books
Paperback: $15.99
ebook: $6.99
ISBN-10: 1934841463
ISBN-13: 978-1934841464

This is simply beyond wonderful: check out this very touching review of Fingers Breadth by Zee of Firepages.  Swoon!

Someone is abducting young gay men in San Francisco, drugging them and cutting off the tip of their pinky. The entire city if on edge, especially after dark. The gay community fear for themselves, as they know that anyone could be next. Even though the police are looking for the Cutter, no one really knows who this person is nor the motivation of cutting a finger. Suspicion divides the community. There are people who have only nine-and-a-half fingers, and those who have ten fingers. The niners suspect the Cutter may have ten fingers and those who walk around with ten fingers hope they are not next.  

M. Christian has to be the most amazing writer I’ve ever read. He is a master manipulator with his words. You read his stories and begin to feel exactly what he wants you to feel - arousal, desire, anger, fear, hope. Readers find themselves surprised to feel this way, yet it is M. Christian’s way of pulling dormant and primal emotions out of you. And the crazy part is that you don’t mind embracing these perverse feelings as you are that pulled into the story. Not only does M. Christian push his characters in his stories to their limits, but he also pushes his readers minds to meet him in these faraway places. 

I loved how M. Christian addressed multiple facets of storytelling, like horror, thriller, and societal issues. The way the community split between those with 9.5 and 10 fingers was genius, and the horrible experience that the victims go through is downright chilling. Finger’s Breadth has a way of getting under your skin and sending chills to your bones in both a terrifying and arousing kind of way. Finger’s Breadth is not a story; it is an experience I highly recommend. 

The wonderfulness (is that a word?) just keeps coming: check out this very nice review of my new gay erotic/thriller/horror/sf novel, Fingers Breadth by the respected (and very talented) Lisabet Sarai!

Most men are within a finger’s breadth of being mad. - Diogenes 

A lunatic is loose in San Francisco, seducing gay men, drugging them, then slicing off the tip of one of their fingers at the first joint. At first, terror grips the city. Bars and clubs catering to the gay community close; no one dares venture out at night, for fear of encountering the Cutter. A chance hook-up with an attractive stranger could make you the next victim 

As time goes on, though, and more men join the ranks of those with nine-and-half-fingers, the mood shifts. Fear morphs into a sort of desperate heat. New venues open, more vibrant and raw than ever. Men with all their fingers intact become objects of suspicion – perhaps they are the one responsible for the plague of mutilation. The gay community develops new rituals to deal with the horror. But who is the Cutter, and why does he pursue his macabre crusade? 

In Finger’s Breadth, M. Christian has created a creepy and compelling narrative that, like so much of his work, defies categorization. The book offers elements of horror, erotica, science fiction and social commentary. Christian’s San Francisco is recognizable but weirdly skewed from the real city. Its dark streets are haunted by free-lance cops and merciless predators, newly-outed kids fresh from the boonies and jaded veterans of a thousand blow jobs. 

There’s no single hero. The novel proceeds as a series of vignettes, views of the world through the eyes of various men affected by the explosion of violence. Snippets from newspapers and radio programs move the plot forward. Each character holds a piece of the truth without necessarily being aware of that fact. By the end, the reader has a pretty clear idea of what’s going on, but Christian never actually comes right out and explains.

M. Christian understands the dynamics of fear as well as the fascination of extremes. He transcribes chilling Internet chat sessions, between a man who might or might not be the Cutter, and a man who longs to be. 

TRANCHERMAN191: I’ll only ask one more time. Why do you hope it’s me?
CONRADICAL02: i don’t know!
TRANCHERMAN191: You do know. You just won’t say it.
CONRADICAL02: i want more. i want something different. Is that why you do it?
TRANCHERMAN191: Answer my question or stop bothering me.
CONRADICAL02: i want something different. i want 2 do what you do.
TRANCHERMAN191: Because?
CONRADICAL02: i want it to mean something. Sex, i mean. Or something like that. It doesnt do anything. Its fun. But it doesnt last. It’s what everyone else does. Its not special. i like it, but i mean, its like what everyone else does. Is that what you mean?
TRANCHERMAN191: Go on.
CONRADICAL02: i dont know. Fuck. Its not enough. ive done it all kinds of ways but its not…it doesn’t stay. Thats not right. Fuck, i dont know. i want to feel more. i want to be more. i dont want just tricks. i want risky. i want to do more than fuck and suck. i want to feel real big real powerful. Nasty. i want to be different like you.
TRANCHERMAN191: You don’t know anything about me. 

Finger’s Breadth is simultaneously terrifying and arousing. M. Christian has tapped into the subterranean founts of desire, where the primal urges - lust, anger, fear, hunger - flow together. At the same time, the book dwells on more existential issue - the need for meaning and recognition, the urge to belong to a tribe. Like his previous work, the controversial novel Me 2, this book considers how far one might go today in order to fit in.

If you’re looking for an easy, sunny, sexy book with a happy ending, don’t pick upFinger’s Breadth. If, on the other hand, you want a scary but enlightening ride through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, I highly recommend this book.

M. Christian started with a mystery and ended with a psychological thriller. There is a mad man out there picking gay men, drugging them and cutting their pinkie finger. Nothing else. It doesn’t seem a great crime, but it’s still a crime, and the police had to investigate. Problem is that the only main trait of all victims is to be gay, aside from that they are black and white, young and old, poor and rich. People is scared, private clubs close down every day and in the meantime, day after day, a new victim joins the club… since now, being a victim of the Cutter is trendy, if you are not one, then probably you have something wrong. Now it’s not only the police that is searching for the Cutter, they are the same victims who WANT to be found. In a kind of ironic twist, the villain becomes the hero, and the reader starts to understand that everyone can be the villain, as everyone could have been the victim. 

There are various life intertwining their destinies, Fanning, the freelance cop who wants to find the Cutter, but maybe he is not searching for justice; Varney, the first victim, a newspaper reporter who is now following the case and who apparently is the only one who can see that being a victim is not a great thing; Taylor, the only victim who escaped with all his intact fingers, but who is not more scared than before; Trancherman0191, who trolls the gay chats in search of “victims”… but in the end, all of them can be a victim and all of them can be the Cutter, and truth be told, you will realize it’s no more important to know who is the Cutter, because he realized what seemed impossible to achieve, he levelled all men to the same point, he allowed the shy to be bold, the bold to be scared, the victim to be aggressor and the aggressor to be victim. Removing that “finger’s breadth” that separate men from madness, he also removed the reason why they were different. 

Not all the men in this story will find their balance, but I think some of them did. I have high hope for Varney and Taylor, that they will be able to understand what is really important in life and that maybe they will give a chance to love, a chance that till now they were too scared to see.

Wonderful!  I’m proud to announce a brand new collection of my gay smut, from the always-wonderful Renaissance EBooks/Sizzler Editions: BodyWork - Gay Erotica!

There is simply no one better at writing hotter-than-hot gay erotica than the Lambda Literary Award Finalist M.Christian, and with this — his newest collection — you’ll see why!  From cowboys looking for some same-sex love on the range to jocks working out in unique ways this book is guaranteed to reach out and give your gay desire a good tug!  Check out this brand new book my an acknowledged master of genre and see why everyone says he’s an wonderful erotic writer. 

M.Christian is a literary stylist of the highest caliber: smart,   funny, frightening, sexy — there’s nothing he can’t write about …  and brilliantly.- Tristan Taormino 

M.Christian is one sick fuck – the reason I still read erotica- Shar Rednour 

Reading these tales is like climbing on for a sexual magic carpet ride through different times and places, diverse bodies, and infinite possibilities.- Carol Queen 

Rarely is raunch paired with such style and wit, M.Christian’s stries offer the sizzle of stroke-book sex combined with the dark lyricism of the perverse.-  Lucy Taylor 

M.Christian’s fiction has a sexy logic all its own.  He’s inventive and he’s irreverent.  His language can seduce, surprise, and body-slam you.- Cecilia Tan

Continuing my excerpt-fest, here’s a juicy little queer cyberpunk number from my collection, The Bachelor Machine (out now in a new edition by Circlet Books).

Technophile

I almost lost my virginity at fifteen, but his batteries ran low.

He’d showed me the unit, zipped open tight jeans and flashed out the Long Thrust. State, top-of-the-line, implant augmentation. He’d had himself castrated for the best science had to offer. I wanted it. The instant I saw it, the polished, burnishing, gleam of it. I wanted it bad. Now. Hard. Fast.

My squat was old-wired 220 so its juice-pack couldn’t take the flow. In playback, wet-memory, I see him – planes of his face dead in the cheap florescents, as he hunts in his bag for the adapter he didn’t bring.

In the end, we lit expensive candles and he put his mouth on my cock.

His mouth was shocking wet, not like my dry hand or the spit sometimes to make it easier. It was too slippery, and too hot. I was blazing with shame and self pity, eyes fake closed and instead watching his head dip down. First a quick spray of over-the-counter anti-viral fog, then  it was a wet test embrace on my cock, gentle kisses, then a wet socket over my cock. 

Brent, friend of my dealer. I’d been taking longer to slip the black market yen, and taking the tiny plastic bags, just to watch him stand and pose: first time spotting was like that first time there in my squat. Thick leathers hiding old cop impact vest, skin-jeans slit to show off log legs, too-tight tee (“YANKEE IMPERIALIST VICTIM”) paint on a stone-mason chest, face cragged and street-scarred but with museum planes. Eyes then on the street as they were in my recall of the squat – hidden and refrigerator cool behind convex mirrors of mandatory shades. He may have been handsome, might have made girls wet, boys hard – but I’d heard, and then he’d heard that I’d heard and there in that alley he zipped and flipped it out. Fuck, I wanted it in me right there.

I was smiling when he lifted from my hardening cock. Smiling back at his smiling face, at my smiling face reflected in his shades. We smiled at each other reflected over and over as he gently stroked my cock, kissing it, and sucking a mouthful of the ridged head (Momma thought cutting sanitary).

The squat was cold and my futon too fucking hard on my back. My jeans were bunched around my legs and my back was crooked funny against my pack. So I put my hand on his head and pushed myself down. So mature for that first time, so controlled from the burning pity and disappointment of that unit, dead and powerless between his legs.

Sloped down onto the futon, I let him suck my cock. The kisses got harder, his tongue began to play with the tip, that little hot hold in the end that sometimes felt like prickles and sometimes like warm steel. I was hard from his mouth there, from his hand gently holding and stroking, from his breath stirring the cool skin from my shaved balls and belly. I was deep inside, eyes really closed, letting his hands and mouth work me up and higher and harder.

My balls begin to swell and heat. Something in me wanted, and because, I guess, I let myself put a hand on the crotch of his hot jeans. He closed them on my fingers, trapping them in a denim vice as he made negative moans around my hard cock.

I let him suck more, letting myself burn deep and pissed and disappointed. I felt his teeth slide every inch across the skin of my shaft. I couldn’t decide if it was on purpose or accident. And when I thought about it, anticipating it, or trying to block the hardness of his teeth it just added something to it. I was harder and harder.

I wanted something again, I could have what I really wanted but this would do – and from the heat of him on my cock I pushed a sweet little virginal “please” out. I opened my eyes and saw that I had slid myself down to his jeans. I could smell it, that sweet sting-smell of brand-new plastic and his sweat through the thin denim of his jeans. No negative this time. No refusal for the poor virgin boy. The sucking never stopped the teeth didn’t glide (so I guessed he must be pretty fucking good at this), but the hands came out and slipped the jeans down.

Made in the best labs in Shadow Tokyo. Fucking pure lines – a curving, shining downward turning tusk of high-impact plastic nested into a shield of gleaming black chrome. I traced the inert row of decorative indicators that ran along the side of the shaft (as he sucked the head of my cock, just the head, stoking me wet and thumbing like a metronome beating against my balls and stomach), feeling their dimples, and wanting them to light. I kissed the dead head of his unit, tasting a lingering of lube from the last time he’d fucked with it (boy, girl, fist, unknown).

He was sucking so hard now – the coolness was gone, and all I could feel was his hot mouth sucking and licking and sometimes (there, there) the hard glide of those special teeth in that trained mouth. His fist was still pumping, and my stomach ached the good hurt of a rough jerk-off.

The head of his unit was a different plastic, something so close to skin I could see with half an eye the unit just a steep pole, an extension of his cock. The head was anatomically correct and lifelike.

I stoked it, wishing so hard that it was juiced up and likewise. I wanted it so bad. Wanted it in my own mouth, wanted to really taste that old lube down deep in my throat. Didn’t know how to do it, natch – but knew I could I wanted it so bad. Laying there on the hard futon, smelling of years of mildew, I wanted my virgin ass to take this sweet machine.  I wanted it. I could feel it – so hard and buzzing softly with all those marvelous features. Closing my eyes, I could feel it, a great background to his sucking sucking of me. Yeah, I felt it, laying there. Could imagine so perfect, crisp and clear as I raised my ass up to meet it. I closed my eyes and dreamed it – that first great touch of it against my asshole as I opened for it, swallowed it and felt the spasmic vibrators, the asymmetric rhythms, the neural stims all start to work on the inside of my asshole. I imagined him taking me deep and hard, only letting the Long Thrust (the Extension Delux Model with the Dynamic Action Features, coupled with the hottest Joy Buzzer software) do some of the fucking. My ass, I thought, would go all jelly, my cock would be, and was, steel. I could feel him slide it into me and out and in and something powerful would start in my ass and it would travel up my spine and out through my cock via my brain – just like they said in their ads on the net –

Fuck, fuck, fuck … I wanted it in my ass and I wanted it in my mouth – but the shaft stayed down, the head stayed slightly cold – like a hot-dog from a broken and cold vending machine.

Too late for the reality, I was lost in my fondling, his sucking, the beautiful cockness of the Long Thrust. I felt myself start, felt the rocket start to climb from balls to tip. I could feel the come start to shake and close my eyes. But I kept them open and stared: a Long Thrust Delux there, in the crotch of his hairy thighs. This was one – right in front of me. This was one.

Come jetted from the head of my cock, into his sprayed, disinfected mouth. The come was as hard and hurt as much as my fucking cock. My legs danced. He put his hand on my cold chest as he pumped, sucked and jumped his fist along my shaft. I came and coated his mouth with my stickiness.

I came, all wet and sticky, and all I could think of was Long Thrust between his legs – dead, cold and inert.

I’m pleased to announce that the very-cool Gay/Lesbian Fiction Excerpts blog has just posted the first chapter from my new gay thriller/erotic novel, Fingers Breadth.  Here’s a taste - for the rest just click here.

#

Looking from the window of the coffee shop. Watching from the windshield of a parked car. Staring from the glass of a very rare unbroken bus kiosk. Glaring from the side of a passing bus.

A brief summer rain had painted the city that night in reflections. Fanning saw himself everywhere, and everywhere he saw himself his expression said the same thing—Why haven’t you caught him yet?

In his ear, a Bluetooth bud whispered the Officer Wertz inquiry’s soundtrack; in his pocket, the video was playing on his phone. He didn’t need to hear or see it. No one would, but if asked he could probably rattle off every verb, every noun, every linguistic bit from when Knorr started it to when he stopped it. Knorr was good at what he did, just like the lab mice who studied crime scenes and picked up tiny bits of DNA with their finely honed tweezers.

Welcome to the decentralized world of the new San Francisco Police Department, where your specialty was all you did and generality was extinct.

Fanning was a freelancer but was supposed to be good at what he did, too. Sneering at himself reflected in the coffee shop window, he gripped the phone in his pocket. If he’d been stronger, or the plastic less durable, it would have cracked.

Glowering for an instant at his reflection in the windshield of the parked car, he pulled the phone out and flipped through a few key digital pages. As with the inquiry, he didn’t need to look at it again, but he did anyway. Better than sharing the street with his scowling mirror images.

It hadn’t changed—Wertz’s home address and where he worked were still the same. The first was across town, in the Mission. The second was just down the street, at a Gap Store.

Ten a.m. to six p.m. His shift hadn’t changed, either. But it was 6:17, and there was no sign of Wertz.

Fanning paced the wet sidewalk, searching up and down the street but mostly the blue-and-white bright- ness of the Gap store. In his ears, Wertz’s voice clicked into silence; then, as it was set on “loop,” it began again.

Just like the others. Same MO, same kind of pick-up place, same amount of Eurodin in Wertz’s system, the lab mice doing their usual fine and precise work, and the same mutilation—right hand little finger amputated at the first joint.

Again, his phone threatened to break in his hand, but again, he wasn’t strong or determined enough to do it. The beat cops who’d found Wertz sound asleep on the J Church train; the lab mice who’d analyzed the drug in his system; Knorr, who’d asked his carefully prepared and expert questions…

But then there was Fanning, who was supposed to assemble piece after piece after piece after piece until they made a picture of someone’s face.

Cutter’s face.

Looking up from where he’d been looking down, he saw a silhouette come between the blue-and-white of the Gap store. A dark shape that was about the right height, about the right build, about the right age, to be whom he was looking for. Fanning carefully released his tight grip on his phone and stepped back into a nearby alley, one carefully chosen for its heavy solitude.

Heavy solitude was just what Fanning wanted.

[MORE]

Zumaya Books and M.Christian are pleased to announce the publication of a brand new gay erotic horror/thriller by M.Christian:

Look at your hand: four fingers and a thumb, right?  But what if you woke one morning and rather than four fingers and a thumb you are … short?  How would you feel?  What would you do?  What would you become?

The city is terrified: a mysterious figure is haunting the streets of near-future San Francisco, drugging and amputating the fingertips of queer men.  But what’s worse … this terror or that it can, so easily, turn any of us into something even more horrific?

Erotic.  Nightmarish.  Fascinating.  Disturbing.  Intriguing.  Haunting.  You have never read a book like Finger’s Breadth. 

You will never look your fingers - or the people all around you - the same way again.

Here’s what some people are saying about Finger’s Breadth:

Finger’s Breadth may well rank as one of the most psychologically astute erotic novels since Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, and it deserves to be just as widely read.
- JKB, from the Circlet Press site

Finger’s Breadth is a real wild ride, the sort of novel you turn to when the apocalyptic mayhem out your window gets dull, and you lust for something to remind you of what it’s like to live life at full-throttle. M.Christian sends the reader hurtling like a hockey puck through a world of crime, out-of-control passions, mutilation, and madness. Terms like noir and hardboiled don’t quite fit - this is more like ultraviolet, the invisible light that makes the scorpions glow in the dark.
- Ernest Hogan, author of Cortez On Jupiter and High Aztech

It is not that hard to come up with an idea that can be turned into a horror story and that is why horror has been part of the folklore of America and why these stories are so popular on camp-outs as we sit around a campfire. To successfully do this, we need a combination of  characters and plot but more important than all else is a novel way to relate the story. For me that is the definition of M.Christian. This book is unlike anything I have read before and I suspect that it will stay with me for quite a while.
- Amos Lassen, reviewer

Finger’s Breadth creates a vivid portrait of a community torn apart by suspicion, where the thrills of hot, anonymous sex go hand in mutilated hand with the chill of fear, and no one is entirely what they seem. M.Christian skilfully mixes a dark, potent cocktail of lust, longing, paranoia and an overwhelming need for acceptance…
- Liz Coldwell, author of Take Your Slave To Work

To be effective, the act of literary intercourse between horror and erotica should be deeply unsettling. It should leave the reader feeling uncomfortable, overwhelmed by equal parts dread and anticipation. M.Christian understands this better than most, weaving a tale that permits the reader but a finger’s breadth of space between fear and arousal. His deft control of the story makes us feel the blade, but it’s his subtle manipulation of our emotions that makes us want the cut.
- Sally Sapphire, Bellasbookslut

M.Christian has seen the future — and it is hardboiled! If you love crime stories — gay or otherwise — and you love science fiction, you will love Finger’s Breadth. No other storyteller nails it quite like M.Christian does. This is a real page turner.
— Marilyn Jaye Lewis, author of Freak Parade

M.Christian is a force to be reckoned with. Just when you think you understand the path that his narrative and characters are taking, Christian throws a monkey wrench, or a limb, or a head into the works and you have to get your bearings and start all over again. No matter which book of his you pick up, prepare for an intoxicatedly weird ride.
-Ily Goyanes, author and filmmaker

Strange and sexy, Finger’s Breadth is a seductively suspenseful read.
- Paula Guran, Darkecho

Finger’s Breadth is as dark and rich and well-blended as good bourbon. Sexy, suspenseful, and believable in the details and elements of its world. Great stuff!
- Angela Caperton, author of Darkness And Delight

Finger’s Breadth is mesmeric storytelling, riveting in execution and appalling in implication.  M.Christian’s tale of erotic terror in a near-future San Francisco is imagined so skillfully that it grabs the reader with its easy familiarity, then refuses to let go as it careens to its shocking yet completely believable conclusion.  Evoking such Grand Masters as Armistead Maupin, Thomas Harris and Rod Serling while remaining strikingly original, Finger’s Breadth is Christian at the height of his considerable powers.  Like Charon the ferryman, the author takes the reader down the dark rivers of human sexuality and shows us things that would normally never see the light of day.  Ultimately the most compelling aspect of this fiction is how fascinatingly and terrifyingly plausible it is. Finger’s Breadth should come with a warning label: Read this before clubbing.
- Christopher Pierce, author of Rogue Slave, Rogue Hunted, and Kidnapped By A Sex Maniac

Zumaya Books
Paperback: $15.99
ebook: $6.99
ISBN-10: 1934841463
ISBN-13: 978-1934841464

About M.Christian:

M.Christian is - among many things - an acknowledged master of erotica with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many, many other anthologies, magazines, and Web sites.

He is the editor of 25 anthologies including the Best S/M Erotica series, The Burning Pen, Guilty Pleasures, The Mammoth Book of Future Cops and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi) and Confessions, Garden of Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant) as well as many others.

He is the author of the collections Dirty Words, Speaking Parts, The Bachelor Machine, Licks & Promises, Filthy, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, Coming Together Presents M.Christian, Pornotopia, and How To Write And Sell Erotica; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Brushes, and Painted Doll.  His Web site is www.mchristian.com.

Interested in reviewing Finger’s Breadth?  Write M.Christian at mchristianzobop@gmail.com for a copy

I really, truly, honestly have some fantastic friends - take, for example, this very touching review of my neo-noir queer vampire novel, The Very Bloody Marys, by my pal Kit O’Connell … thanks so much, Kit!

It’s no secret that M. Christian and I are friends. I’ve introduced one of his books and we’ve guest blogged for each other too. So even if I’m not the most unbiased critic, I still like to highlight interesting books I read from time to time even if they are by friends of mine.

One of Chris’ many recurring themes are alternate visions of the police. One of the characters in his wonderfully weird novel near-future novel Finger’s Breadth is a freelance officer who receives his orders and files reports via a distributed police ap on his smartphone. “Bluebelle” in The Bachelor Machine explores a future cop’s intimate relationship with his police vehicle, and Christian even co-edited the anthology Future Cops.

The most recent book I read by him is The Very Bloody Marys. Like Finger’s Breadth, it takes place in an alternate San Francisco but  creatures of the night. Our hero is Valentino, a young gay vampire so uncertain of his place in the world that he can’t even decide how to start telling his story at the beginning of the book, so he begins again 2 or 3 times. Somehow, despite his Lestat-like confidence or prowess, he’s been selected to join an undead police force charged with maintaining the secrecy of the undead and the weird. Here, Valentino laments his own impending doom after his superior officer disappears:

Two hundred years. It’d been a good run. Lots of … well, there’d been blood of course. Moons. Stars. Rain. Fog. Hiding, too: all-night movie theaters, bars, discos, stables, warehouses, churches, a few synagogues (even a mosque or two) […] Lots of … I was going to say friends but, to be honest, the nightlife might be advantageous to boogying but doesn’t make for long-term relationships. Some back-alley assignations, sticky stuff in my mouth or pants; not blood, or at least not up until a few years ago. 

Two hundred sure sounds like a lot, but … the time just seemed to have hopped, skipped and jumped by. Never skied, never sailed, never surfed, never had two guys at once […] What surprised me the most, though, was what I wanted more: orchids, bow ties, potato salad, string, oil or watercolor, hooks and line, two of everything.

The book has a breezy, playful noir style which would make it perfect summer reading. Though it doesn’t have the usual romance (though it has a handful of interesting unrequited ones), I found it especially interesting as a queer take on the torrid vampires-and-werewolves subgenre of urban fantasy.

Now here’s a real treat: a very nice review of my neo-vampire novel, Running Dry, by Book Wenches!

He might be immortal, but artist Ernst Doud detests his state of being. The method he must use to stay alive fills him with guilt and makes him more a monster than a man. Although his loneliness is crushing, Doud has found that all his attempts to transform a lover to immortality have resulted in disaster, so Doud has chosen to live solitary life. The only person he is close to is his friend Shelly, the jaded and outspoken owner of a Los Angeles art gallery. 

When a man appears at Shelly’s gallery searching for Doud, Doud knows that Sergio has finally found him. Decades ago, Doud converted Sergio into a creature like himself in the hopes of having eternal love and companionship, but instead of remaining his gentle lover, Sergio became a bloodthirsty beast. And now that beast is seeking revenge against the one who made him and who subsequently tried to kill him.

Fearing for Shelly’s life now that his old lover has seen her, Doud snatches her away from her everyday world and runs. He wants to keep his friend safe from a monster who won’t think twice before draining her dry. But when Doud’s own hunger increases and his control grows thin, can he also keep her safe from himself?

#

When I opened M. Christian’s Running Dry for the first time, I expected yet another vampire story. A little extra angst, perhaps, and a GLBT twist but bloodsucking creatures of the night nevertheless – the same old same old. To my surprise and delight, I was completely wrong. This story about love, hunger, self-control, and the terrible cost of immortality is a fresh and intriguing take on the ever-popular vampire. This novel strips vampires of the pointy teeth, holy water aversion, and extreme photosensitivity that we have come to expect and instead offers readers a creature who is a hybrid of human and monster, whose sensitivity and emotions make him real but whose visceral need to kill makes him terrifying as well.

Mr. Christian has a literary and precise writing style that brings the action and the emotion into sharp focus and makes both the story and its characters feel completely real. He writes the way we might think, sometimes slightly stream of conscious but always intelligent and comfortable to read. He very expertly shows instead of tells, giving readers a chance to share in the discovery experience, drawing us in to the story until we feel almost a part of it.

Running Dry is one of those books that begins at a deceptively slow pace but then builds momentum as it goes along. Its short chapters keep the story moving forward at a fast clip, offering many tiny cliffhangers that keep us in constant suspense. I also found myself connecting with both the emotion and the horror of the story. The character Doud’s mental anguish permeates the entire narrative, coloring the simplest items in bleak tones. But even though Doud earns our sympathy, we can’t help but acknowledge the monster within him, because parts of the story are quite gruesome indeed.

I found Running Dry to be a very good read indeed and especially enjoyed its message. Carpe diem, this story tells us. Love is a rare and wonderful thing; use the time that you have in this life to find it instead of reaching for the unattainable. Because where is the joy in a life lived alone?

- Reviewed by: Bobby D Whitney

I can never say this enough: I truly have wonderful friends — just look at these two amazing Finger’s Breadth blurbs I got from Theda Hudson and Jardonn Smith (and who are both amazing writers)!  Thanks so much!

“M. Christian is a writer whose style reminds me of film director J.J. Abrams — quick edits, flash scenes shown from varying angles and distances. Unlike Mr. Abrams, however, M. Christian holds his camera steady. No jerking you around. His carefully-chosen words take you to the scene, allow you time to absorb and analyze, and then he gets you the hell out of there so he can repeat the process elsewhere. When you read M. Christian, nothing is wasted, everything is gained.

“His latest, Finger’s Breadth, centers around a serial sicko who has a funny way of treating his tricks. First he drugs them, and then he severs their pinkie finger. Yes, gay San Francisco is terrorized, and a cross-section of those involved are psycho-analyzed by M. Christian — victimizer, chasers of the victimizer, victims, victims of the victims, and wannabe victims. Sounds like a heavy load of information, and it is, but with the no-bullshit storytelling style of M. Christian, this hair-raising roller coaster is all whoops, no loops. So, take my advice: do not miss this ride.”
- Jardonn Smith, author and pornographer

“M.Christian dives into the mystery and horror of act engenders and explores in loving, poetic detail how it tears lovers and the gay community apart with no apologies and no lube beyond his lush descriptions of his beloved San Francisco, relationships, flirtations, and sex, always hot and honest however, deceitful or hidden the people or circumstances.

“He carries us along slickly through the coarser, ugly, and sorry details of the ways the victims and the community cope with fear and need and intimacy all the way to an ending as surprising as it is unexpected.”
- Theda Hudson

Remember how I was just saying that Ernest Hogan - who is one of my all-time favorite authors - is a real star-in-the-heavens for his wonderful blurbs for The Bachelor Machine and Love Without Gun Control?  Well, he just sent me … hang on, I have to sit down for this … okay, my head’s cleared a bit: a fantastic blurb for my brand new novel, Finger’s Breadth:

“FINGER’S BREATH is a real wild ride, the sort of novel you turn to when the apocalyptic mayhem out your window gets dull, and you lust for something to remind you of what it’s like to live life at full-throttle. M. Christian sends the reader hurtling like a hockey puck through a world of crime, out-of-control passions, mutilation, and madness. Terms like noir and hardboiled don’t quite fit — this is more like ultraviolet, the invisible light that makes the scorpions glow in the dark.”
- Ernest Hogan

As I’m starting to ramp up the promo for my new queer erotic thriller/horror novel, Finger’s Breadth, I thought I might start by sharing  some of these flat-out-fantastic pre-release blurbs some of my favorite writers (and people) were good enough to do for me.

“M. Christian is constantly expanding his game, giving us stories which joyfully play with genre while remaining as literate, complex and human as any mainstream work.  He is far more than an erotica, SF or horror writer; each new book bearing his name should be anticipated, acquired and savored by those who love good fiction.”
- Jason Rubis, author of STRANGELY MADE

“‘Fingers’ Breadth’ creates a vivid portrait of a community torn apart by suspicion, where the thrills of hot, anonymous sex go hand in mutilated hand with the chill of fear, and no one is entirely what they seem. M. Christian skilfully mixes a dark, potent cocktail of lust, longing, paranoia and an overwhelming need for acceptance…”
- Liz Coldwell, author of TAKE YOUR SLAVE TO WORK

“To be effective, the act of literary intercourse between horror and erotica should be deeply unsettling. It should leave the reader feeling uncomfortable, overwhelmed by equal parts dread and anticipation. M. Christian understands this better than most, weaving a tale that permits the reader but a finger’s breadth of space between fear and arousal. His deft control of the story makes us feel the blade, but it’s his subtle manipulation of our emotions that makes us want the cut.”
- Sally Sapphire, BELLASBOOKSLUT

“M.Christian is irritating the hell out of me. It’s bad enough that he’s such a prolific writer but why does he have to be so damn good? I try to keep track of where he’s going, but it’s impossible. He’s written novels about vampires, “Running Dry” and “The Very Bloody Marys”. He’s turned me on with his sexy erotica. “All Eyes On Her,” then he writes science fiction in “The Bachelor Machine.” He delves into contemporary angst with the fast paced “Me2”. Did I mention “Brushes” and “Painted Doll”? He skips happily and effortlessly from genre to genre, like a gazelle on crystal meth.

“As if that weren’t enough he’s now written what I think is his best work to date, “Finger’s Breadth”. A mystery that could come straight from the pen of Agatha Christie. As much as a whodunnit it’s “what the hell is going on”? Why so many gay, three fingered men around? Who’s responsible? Who is amputating fingers?

“M.Christian’s “Finger’s Breadth” is as compelling as it is a piece of carefully crafted writing. He knows how to keep his reader’s attention and he does it beautifully.

“I’d use words like “talented” and “gifted”, I know he doesn’t believe in that kind of stuff, but hell, who cares what M.Christian thinks? I’m going to use them anyway.”
- Billierosie, author of FETISH WORSHIP

“Finger’s Breadth is a tale of what happens when accident begets fetish, what happens when that fetish turns fad, and how a near-future city of queers reacts to change. I couldn’t put it down!”
- Kit O’Connell, author and editor

“The work of M. Christian is extraordinary not only in its quality and originality, but also in its versatility. This is a writer who goes beyond the mere challenges of writing convincingly from different genders and orientations and psychologies and walks of life, in different settings, subgenres, moods, and tones; this is a master of the craft who can thoroughly reinvent himself, as a voice, every time he picks up the pen—always with glorious results.”
- Jeremy Edwards, author of ROCK MY SOCKS OFF

“M.Christian has seen the future — and it is hardboiled! If you love crime stories — gay or otherwise — and you love science fiction, you will love Finger’s Breadth. No other storyteller nails it quite like M. Christian does. This is a real page turner.”
— Marilyn Jaye Lewis, author of FREAK PARADE

“M. Christian delivers a tale of terror, suspense and erotic gay love in fresh, satisfying ways.  No other writer combines genres like this master storyteller.  A gorgeous thriller and a thrill to read!”
- Olivia London, author of SAN FRANCISCO LOVIN’

“M. Christian has done it again!  He’s managed to successfully throw queer, horror, suspense, and science fiction with a dash of erotica to create a total mind bender of a book, “Finger’s Breath”. 

“Missing fingers + Queer men = Determined cops who want to end this horrendous crime sweeping across their town.  “Finger’s Breath” is a total mindfuck and will leave you gripping your covers tight (that’s if the criminal mastermind hasn’t claimed them already) – just so you can ensure no one will come after your digits.  But remember – the men who lost their fingers did the same and fell prey.  So, I ask you – how well are your fingers protected when you’re not looking?

“Are you sure?”
—Dr. Alyn Rosselini, author and editor

“M. Christian is a force to be reckoned with. Just when you think you understand the path that his narrative and characters are taking, Christian throws a monkey wrench, or a limb, or a head into the works and you have to get your bearings and start all over again. No matter which book of his you pick up, prepare for an intoxicatedly weird ride.”
-Ily Goyanes, author and filmmaker

“Strange and sexy, Finger’s Breadth is a seductively suspenseful read.”
- Paula Guran, Darkecho

“Finger’s Breadth is as dark and rich and well-blended as good bourbon. Sexy, suspenseful, and believable in the details and elements of its world. Great stuff!”
- Angela Caperton, author of DARKNESS AND DELIGHT

“Finger’s Breadth is mesmeric storytelling, riveting in execution and appalling in implication.  M. Christian’s tale of erotic terror in a near-future San Francisco is imagined so skillfully that it grabs the reader with its easy familiarity, then refuses to let go as it careens to its shocking yet completely believable conclusion.  Evoking such Grand Masters as Armistead Maupin, Thomas Harris and Rod Serling while remaining strikingly original, Finger’s Breadth is Christian at the height of his considerable powers.  Like Charon the ferryman, the author takes the reader down the dark rivers of human sexuality and shows us things that would normally never see the light of day.  Ultimately the most compelling aspect of this fiction is how fascinatingly and terrifyingly plausible it is. Finger’s Breadth should come with a warning label: Read this before clubbing.”
- Christopher Pierce, author of ROGUE SLAVE, ROGUE HUNTED and KIDNAPPED BY A SEX MANIAC

“M. Christian is one of the most fantastically inventive authors out there. And do I mean out there!  Buckle up for another ride into a great imagination.  Don’t miss FINGER’S BREATH.”
—Adam Carpenter, author of DUDE RANCH and the European Flings Trilogy