What a charming, wise, heartwarming, insightful book of poems. This writer's attention to craft, his gifted voice, will inspire all readers. An important and powerful, warm and beautiful book.

The range of these poems is astounding, and they gain power with rereading. The poems mourning the loss of the author's family members to illness as well as the loss of friends to AIDS are a moving and artistic revival of the elegiac form. And yet there is humor, as well, attention to nature. Few poetry books stretch all the way from exploration of language a la Language School formats, (with a deliberate nod to Frank O'Hara, New York School poet prototype) to the unjustly maligned "emotion recollected in tranquility," but this books does, and does it right. An exemplar for contemporary writers and students of poetics.

William Reichard is a master of intense, passionate, articulate, lyrical language cased in lyrical verse and imagery. An Alchemy In The Bones is a superb anthology introducing a major talent to an appreciative audience. Without Translation: With sewn lips he speaks/in a dazzling code that I cannot translate./But the body has other mouths from which to speak,/and these, I do comprehend:/How the blade of the should has a tongue,/and speaks./How the abdomen, sweetly heaving, has a tongue,/and speaks./I wish I had a key, the proper code to unlock/the door to his desire,/a dictionary to decipher the distance/which my mind cannot span,/but my dry heart, my lips, my clumsy instinct,/can.

The first amendment gives us the right to free speech and for the most part this is a fairly simple concept right? Well in 1994 in Massachusetts this became a complex legal issue that turned a simple parade into chaos.

Riveting from beginning to the very end, this 600-page fact filled legal expose on how our court system really works, is like nothing else you'll ever read. The authors take you on a journey from the state court right the steps of the highest court in the land.

Using actual trial transcripts and painstaking detail, the author's leave no stone unturned. I was simply amazed at how much information was packed into the book. I was simply astounded by the way the system works.

Law professors and students of law need to take and read this work. It is most likely the best book of the first amendment law. A great work in the legal field and a very good read - well done!

As an attorney, what I found most interesting about this book was the use of trial transcripts to help frame the debate on the larger First Amendment constitutional issues. The authors did a superb job of telling a complex story from beginning to end. I would recommend some of my old professors take a close look at this work, and consider using it in trial advocacy and constitutional law classes. I don't remember anything like this when I was at school, but can say it told me a lot more about how the judicial process works than I learned in the classroom.

By far, this book tops all others on how our courts operate. The authors have given a detailed look at the legal system at every level, state and federal, and cover so much territory in so short a space that the book borders on being overwhelming. This is the definitive book on "process". Using rich citation to trial transcripts the authors show in meticulous detail how some judges try to unwrap constitutional guarantees to achieve what they think the law shoud be. I read three other works which aspired to this detail: "Out of Order", "Civil Action" and "Closed Chambers" and can state that none were as insightful as this. This is truly a remarkable work, and should be mandatory reading in every law school in this country.

Just last year, through a recommendation from author Marlin Barton (also a fine writer), I discovered the amazing work of William Gay. I read his two novels, THE LONG HOME and PROVINCES OF NIGHT, and I stood in awe of his creative abilities, the seemingly effortless depth of his descriptive passages, and the glow of truth that shone from within his characters. I purposefully waited a bit to read his short story collection, just to give myself a little space to 'step back' and absorb the work contained here on its own merit, without considering the novels. I was not disappointed - the stories in this volume are every bit as finely crafted as his longer works, every bit as rewarding.

Gay presents an amazing panoply of characters and situations here for the reader - all within the 'confines' of his realm, rural Tennessee. Several of the stories are populated by characters that also appeared in the novels - but the works here stand on their own. The area of the country with which Gay concerns himself is a rich one - he knows it well, obviously. No one could write like he does by simply inventing every single detail. He is a master at his craft - I suppose becoming a writer well into his adult life allowed the 'juices' to steep and age and mellow. Whatever the process, the results are astonishingly rich - as with his novels, I found myself re-reading passages here and there, marveling at the craftsmanship they contained, at the natural flow of the words. They seemed to roll gently and powerfully into my mind as I read, carrying me along with them.

There is both humor and pathos contained in these stories - along with every shade of emotion and experience that lies in between the two. Gay's humorous passages never make fun of his characters - he has far too much respect for these people to allow that to happen. Likewise, the touching sections never become maudlin. The balance that he strikes is deft and skilled. Many of these tales are dark, but even within these, there is an abundance of light to be found and experienced. There is violence here - but there is also love and tenderness. There is adultery and betrayal - but there is also deep-hearted, blind-force devotion. There is family - joyous and painful scenes, just like in 'real life'.

In the title story, we meet old man Meacham - 'older than Moses', according to on character. He has been put into a nursing home by his son, a lawyer for whom the old man sacrificed to put through law school. He finds the nursing home to be a 'factory that makes dead people', and flees to his homestead, only to find that his son has attained power of attorney over him and rented it out to family that Meacham sees as 'white trash' and lazy, 'all the way down to his walk'. The old man sets up housekeeping in a tenant shack on the property and sets about to annoy Choat, now living in Meacham's house, with the perseverance of a bedbug that can neither be found nor killed. Several of the incidents related in this story actually made me laugh out loud - and parts of it caused a stone to appear in my heart.

'A death in the woods', Bonedaddy...', 'The paperhanger', 'Crossroads blues', 'Closure and roadkill on the life's highway', 'Good 'til now', and 'My hand is just fine where it is' all deal with aspects of adultery and love - but, as with the vast array of humanity that walks this ball, it's too easy just to condemn any one of them for what they've done. Life - and these characters, thankfully - are more complex than that. There are good and bad aspects, strengths and weaknesses, within each and every one of us - and Gay's characters are created and drawn in such a way as to make all of these facets known to us.

There is murder here - 'A death in the woods', 'Bonedaddy...', 'The paperhanger', 'Those Deep Elm Brown's Ferry blues'. There are a three of the most touching portraits of aging humans I've ever read - 'I hate to see the evening sun go down' and 'Those Deep Elm Brown's Ferry blues' and 'Sugarbaby'. 'The paperhanger' is also one of the most tension-filled mystery stories I've ever come across.

In sum, there's a bit of something here for everyone's tastes - all written with Gay's lapidarian care, all treasures. I can't recommend this man's writing highly enough, and I can't wait for him to produce more - but I have a feeling he'll be taking his time, making sure things are just right.

'You hush now, Nipper...'

In this collection, smart old men outfox their educated sons, wives, lawyers and the law. The dialogue is hilarious and action is often comic--William Gay is a witty writer in the way of southerners who are much smarter than they let on. But he can't hide his brilliance--his prose is much too good. Savor these stories about the raw truth of human emotion, of characters who have the courage to act on their passions, despite the consequences. His characters erupt in violence but there is always a reason for it, perhaps incomprehensible to readers who have not dealt with the extinction of their way of life. Several characters are not sane, others have bouts of Alzheimers, and others confront marital infidelities. In each case a force larger and more deadly than the character pushes him or her into a horrific decision. Gay is masterful in dipping in and out of these "insanities," which gives some of the stories an eerie surreal quality. No other writer has written so passionately about the Tennessee landscape--through Gay's eyes, it's seductive, ruined, ebullient, and haunting. The final story is bittersweet and beautiful, and gives hope that perhaps William Gay does believe in love, if only for a short time before it, too, is snatched away.

William Gay's stories woven from the fabric of rural Tennessee depict flawed Southerners trapped by wrong decisions, yet his writing embraces the reader with a visual landscape blending the natural terrain with tormented souls. I discovered his fiction first in the Oxford American, then read with enthusiasm his novels The Long Home and Provinces of Night, finding from them an honest storyteller who appreciates the older, traditonal elements of good fiction--placing the reader in the bosum of nature and delving into the soul of unique characterization. You find yourself wanting more, trapped by his engaging style, straight-forward dialogue and prose about country-bled commonfolk as clear to the ear and the eye as a Tennessee morning and as absorbing as the frozen blue ridges. He has a way of mystery that feeds the imagination and you feel the torment in the underbrush of stories that ring in your head long after finishing the last paragraph.--Jesse Earle Bowden, author of Look and Tremble: A novel of West Florida and Always the Rivers Flow.

To follow Walker Avery through The Rest of the Earth is to take a spritual voyage through a dreamy American landscape. Henderson's etherial prose evokes deep longing, but does it honestly, without manipulation or trickery. Henderson suprised with new spiritual possibilities, and forgotten emotions from deep within. With this book, Henderson has honed his craft to a level uncommon in modern American literature. Experience its magic. I have never read anthing like it and cannot wait for his next.

I was fortunate enough to have taken The Rest of the Earth with me on a trip to Montana. Having the time to read the novel alone and uninterrupted was one of those literary pleasures that will be remembered forever. I entered the dreamscape of young Walker Avary and flowed with the beautifully written tale of a sensuous drifter. I marvelled at Mr. Henderson's ability to craft a story with a plot that moves mysteriously from the subtleties of deeply buried emotions interwined with the inevitability of landscape and weather.

Henderson's writing has improved since his first novel "Native," which was no slouch in the prose department itself. Despite the adventurous and even sexy plot, this is not a book to zip through in one sitting. Henderson's unique groove needs to steep in the sun or laze in the shade to come into its full splendor. Take your time with this one, savor its tastes and hum its melody, and it will change the way you look at landscape forever

If I say "I wanna go to Mi-yami!" will it make me sound too whiny?

Who cares? After paging through "Miami Heatwave," the first book to feature the work of talented videographer and photographer Ron Williams, and set against the backdrop of South Florida, who wouldn't be saying the same thing?

Anyone who has ever sampled Williams' video work will appreciate this collection of still photographs. The artistry of Williams lens, the absolute physical perfection of every single male model, and the fine quality of printing (by Bruno Gmunder publishers) combine to make this one of the best collections of beautiful male photography seen in a long time.

The only quibble I have with "Miami Heatwave" is that some models are featured more than others, and the book isn't nearly extensive enough. But then, how could you ever get enough of Manny's big grin, Darren's silken, shelf-like pecs with their chocolate brown nipples, and blond Mark's amazingly perfect torso and six-pack abs? And then there's the famous Aaron, with his blond, boy-next-door gone bad hunkiness. Sigh.

With Williams' discerning eye, I can imagine he probably has material for 40 books in his (no doubt) enormous files, but his reputation for showing only his very best work may prevent most of what he has done to ever see that light of day. What a shame for his fans like me, if only because Williams' work, even on his worst day, easily outshines the best offerings of others working in the same field.

For now, anyway, we will have to be content with what Williams offers us - but let's hope that soon there will be a "Miami Heatwave II," - and III, and IV . . .

The blurb on the back cover is absolutely right, these guys do create " a desire for summer adventure" If you've never seen a Vista Video this book will certainly get you in the mood to watch one. Many of the Vistamen are here including Aaron, one of the models whose most synonymous with Vista Video, Carlos and Eric (two of the longest serving) and many others. These portraits are sheer works of art thanks to the models themselves and also to Ron Williams' skill as a photographer. The best picture in my opinion is of Jeremy, in a close-up with his arms hugging himself and his head at a cute, almost inquistive angle, as he looks into the camera with a warm heart-tugging gaze. But then all the guys look wonderful and even manage to keep most of their clothes on, except Mark, another of my favourites who cheekily stands nude behind a strategically placed surfboard. Some may find the lack of nudity boring, I think it makes an agreeable contrast to the more revealing nature of Vista Video productions.
This photobook is superb; A stunning book full of stunning men, which should appeal to anyone who likes good looking men.

This book of male models is not a "Heatwave" it's a "Miami Scorcher." Ron Williams has gathered together 14 very handsome, muscular young men, photographed in brilliant color. I usually like black and white photography better because I believe it has more feeling, but this new collection of Ron William's is breathtaking in its exciting photos of men in outdoor surroundings. I especially enjoyed models, "Federico, Aaron & Carlos." What handsome & masculine men they are. Most models are photographed in swimwear, shorts, jeans & underwear. There is no need for frontal nudity, the men are much more erotic shown this way.

Ron Williams is an Emmy Award winning director living in Miami, who has created many corporate commercials in the last 20 years. He is well-known for his VistaMen series of physique art videos showcasing many stunning sensual men who are physique models. I really enjoyed this book & hope to see more books published of his fine photography in the near future.

This is one of the best books you can find on this subject matter

Finally, I found a book that speaks the truth about my people. It is extremely rare to find books that cover the issues of the two-spirit people. Williams does an amazing job of fully researching the topic . . including living with/among the people he interviews. Read this book!

A throughly documented and detailed historical and socialological account of American Indian society's andorgynous Benache, sex and sexual interactions. This book takes you back in history to understand how the Benache fit in the Indian culture and how that culture's sexual norms were very inclusive and accepting of what our society would label "diverse" people and actions.The historical prespective includes the invasion of european westerization and "Diversity-cide" of the indian culture.If one wants to be spiritually awakened to the possibility that our culture's (society) rules and norms aren't natural and that there are (were) societies where diverse individuals can feel good about themselves then this is the book for your soul.You'll feel good about yourself after reading this book. It might not specifically relate to you but you'll see that maybe we're headed back in the right direction

This is a fine prayer book that is simultaneously steeped in the tradition of Christian hours and sensitive to the lives of lesbians and gay men. It contains the time-honored morning and evening prayer, but it is more than just a conventional Psalter. With its devotional prayers, this book of hours marks the times of joy and sorrow in the lives of gay and lesbian Christians. Bill Storey has included prayers for a coming-out party, the gift of a spouse, and a holy union; he has also incorporated prayers for times of sickness and abandonment by family and friends, as well as prayers for enemies. In these prayers for special occasions and for the everyday, Storey demonstrates a deep awareness of the spirituality, the joys, difficulties, and the predicaments of lesbians and gay men. His prayers tenderly address a God who loves the hearts, minds, and bodies of gay people. Storey's "Book of Prayer" will nourish those who use it and make them clap their hands with holy glee.

A saying of Jesus applies well to Dr. Storey's "A Book of Prayer": "Every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of Heaven is like the steward who brings forth from his store room things both old and new." The "new" in this book include eloquent prayers for the good stewardship of our human sexuality, and laments for the loss of certain dear relationships that coming-out usually entails for gay people. The Ceremony of Holy Union, offered with many prayer alternatives, will surely influence most future gay ceremonies of life commitment. "Old" in this book is the masterful marshalling of scripture and liturgical tradition is every section--and, going back to Jesus Himself is a confidence, visible throughout Dr. Storey's book, in the almost reckless accessibility of God.

This is an interesting and fascinating memoir of one man's life who happens to love sailing and who is also a gay man living in a caring and loving relationship. You don't have to have a knowledge of sailing to enjoy this book. Although I have gone sailing a few times, I wasn't familiar with a lot of the sailing terms, but the author explains them very well. The author writes with dry wit, a questioning self-analysis, and deep passion. It was a pleasure to read his story, and it was never boring. This is a true-life story that will have broad appeal to many people.

Storandt tells in vivid detail the story of his transatlantic sailing adventure from Saybrook, Connecticut to Ireland, then on to Scotland aboard his 33-foot cutter named Clarity. He made this journey with his longtime partner Brian, and their friend Bob. It's an adventure that turns out to be exciting, unpredictable, and even life-threatening. They certainly get to test their sailing skills through rough seas, gale force winds, and a fierce storm. It's not "The Perfect Storm", but it's close. Interwoven throughout his sailing adventure we learn all about Storandt's earlier life; his marriage, being a freelance musician, living in the Vermont woods in a geodesic dome, leaving his marriage, coming out, and meeting his soon to be life partner, Brian, a Scottish doctor.

So whether you're hooked on sailing or just want to read a well-written passionate coming out story, this book is for you. I was disappointed when this adventure ended. As good a writer as he is a sailor, Storandt tells a wonderful story I couldn't put down till finished.

I bought this book because I was blown away by Storandt's first fictional novel, "The Summer They Came." However, as a straight male who does not know the first thing about sailing, I did not know what to expect from this work. My enjoyment of Storandt's effort is all the more impressive, given my lack of knowledge about the subject matter. Like all master story tellers, Storandt lets the reader enter his world by describing the situation in detail, with references to more familiar subject matter. For instance, when explaining why he cannot get out of bed during a severe storm, Storandt says that he can no more get out of bed than a potato worm can unfold in your hand ... brilliant! Storandt has 2 running stories in this book. In the foreground is his gripping account of his sailing adventure to Scotland (the homeplace of his life partner) across the Atlantic. In the background, is a discussion of his and his life partner's lives up until the time of the trip, with particular focus on how they came to realize they were gay. I highly recommend this book to even the most staunchly conservative "straights," and to the landlubbers most prone to sea-sickness!

Crossing thresholds, living dreams, staying steady and listening within! He did it! He writes it as only a person who has felt it all deeply and directly can do-it's not an "about" something book! So glad he wrote it for all of us-couldn't put thebook down!!!! Spellbound by all the possibilities it opens for each of us!

It took me twenty years to finally pull Isaac Bashevis Singer's novel, Shosha, about Jews and the Holocaust from my bookcase and read it. One week later I had finished it and moved on to read Clifford's Blues. Two compelling and distinctive plys coil together to offer up complementary perspectives on the rise of Nazism in Germany. Singer puts a face on pre-World War II European Jews, richly depicting what it meant to be a Jew in western Europe in the years prior to and during the Holocaust. For most modern Americans this is a fairly familiar story.

Williams offers up a tale much less familiar. He introduces us to Clifford Pepperidge, a gay, black, American jazz musician who spends a dozen years incarcerated in Dachau prison, one of the many labeled undesirables who were captured as the Nazis rose to power. While other prisoners suffer the misery of prison barracks and captor abuse, Clifford sits in the comfortable home of a gay Nazi officer and his bovine German wife. There as a servant, Pepperidge allows himself to be used sexually and musically by both husband and wife, the price of survival. In his daily interaction with other prisoners he sees that good men, those with the character and ethics to stand up for their fellows, rarely survive long. It is those who capitulate, who sink down into the muck, who lose their humanity who will endure.

Williams provides us with a fascinating picture of how people react to power and influence, even when it clearly is evil. We see the German burger who blinds himself to the fate of those caught up in the hungry trap of Nazism. The German officer who grasps at every opportunity to accumulate wealth and power. The many who stumbled forward in step with a horror that grows ever larger and more malignant. Where Singer presents a picture of people desperately trying to hold onto their hopes and dreams even in the face of rising oppression, Williams shows us the convolutions that strip away humanity in both victim and oppressor.

The writing is strong, and Williams clearly took the time to do the necesary research to bring his story to life. Richly developed characters hold the reader's interest. It is not a book to be quickly forgotten. Williams holds a mirror up and asks us to look at ourselves and think about how we can be shaped and influenced by people and events. His darkside tale underscores the possibility of our own tumble in inhumanity and evil.

I read this book a year ago and it haunts me still.

John A. Williams has crafted here a story so compelling, so engrossing in its depiction of life lived on a razor's edge, that you loathe putting it down; you may feel chills when you've finished it. It's that disturbing, and that good. CLIFFORD'S BLUES affirms that Williams retains his gifts (fresh as ever in his mid-70s!) and mastery of his craft.

Clifford Pepperidge is triple-crossed: condemned as "decadent" - for being American Negro, jazz musician, and active homosexual (especially impolitic when he's caught in bed with a prominent white man) - and interned "indefinitely" in a German concentration camp by Nazidom as it rises to power in the early 1930s.

This is a historical possibility we'd not thought of. Yet Williams, no stranger to historical fiction (see, for example, his novel CAPTAIN BLACKMAN), footnotes his text with incidences of real life black jazz musicians detained by the Nazis prior to the outbreak of World War II; I'd never heard about this.

John A. Williams has been publishing books, mostly novels, over 40 years. His heroes have tended to be "manly" black men: uncompromising, heterosexual, hard-loving, hard-drinking and cigarette-smoking urbane sophisticates. I've always taken them to be stand-ins for the author himself; perhaps they represent the image of manliness of a day not quite gone by.

Stepping out of his usual bounds and into Clifford's skin, however, Williams exhibits an even greater sense of manhood, an empathetic virility. Clifford may not fathom how he managed to get himself into such a mess, but he doesn't make excuses. He's as resolute about his sexuality as his racial and artistic makeup, though all combine to make him particularly alienated - and vulnerable - as he faces down brutal imprisonment with other Nazi-dictated "undesirables" (Communists, gays, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews and gypsies) for twelve long years. He lives to see, almost veritably, the walls of his dungeon shake, practical escape, the possible passing on of his testimony - but at what cost?

I can say, with modesty and with pride, that I've read all John A. Williams' published novels. This is, for my money, his most powerful, arguably his greatest book since THE MAN WHO CRIED I AM.

Williams has always been a thinking person's writer and a darn good storyteller. In this extremely well written and deeply felt book he's rendered the poignant story of a character he made me truly care about. Clifford Pepperidge could be the long-feared-lost-or-dead relative whose tattered diary of surviving hell on earth has just been plopped down in your living room. How can you embrace all of what he's been through? What if it were you? The really eerie question is that, given history, or the record of human events, it's apparent that no one has a corner on inhumane depravity - we're each just as likely or capable of being captor or captive when, if, we allow a new holocaust. But when you look in the mirror, do you recognize the humanity within and extending beyond yourself? Will we remember?

If only half of what is published were half as well crafted. By the way, the Kirkus Review at the top says this is Williams's first novel. But this is John A., the author of The Man Who Cried I Am, right? Does Kirkus have him confused with another John Williams?

Read this book for what it is, and you'll enjoy it very much. This is not meant to be a literary masterpiece. That much should be clear from the subtitle of the book: "Erotic Tales of the Vampire". Don't expect an all new and brilliant monster epic, and you'll like this book.

I want to praise the publisher for mixing two well-known names (William J Mann and Micheal Thomas Ford) with two names I am not familiar with (Sean Wolfe and Jeff Mann). The diversity of the stories and writing styles are fresh and keep the reader engaged. Much better than reading a long book with one style from one author.

The two Manns (William J and Jeff) have a similar style. Both of those stories, though decent, are my least favorite. They seem to try to be more than what they are. A little superficial for my taste, but not badly written.

I like Sean Wolfe's story very much. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and is comfortable being a short entertainment piece. It doesn't try to be more than what it is. I was entertained and appreciate the "humanness" that the story brings to erotic vampirism. It is both erotic and interesting. Though I haven't heard of Wolfe before, I'm sure we'll hear more from him in the future.

It is Ford, though, who is the star of this book, and a good reason for naming him as the main author. Most of us are familiar with his non-fiction material, which has won several Lambda Literary awards. His fiction writing here is no less brilliant. Ford's talent for putting the reader in the middle of the story and for character description are perfect. I love his story, and look forward to more fiction from Ford in the future.

If you're a fan of vampire fiction at all, you'd be crazy not to get this book. The variety of stories and writing style is fresh and refreshing. The writing is good. It is both erotic and frighteningly engaging. A must have for serious fans of horror, and especially vampire fiction!

MASTERS OF MIDNIGHT contains four novellas in which vampires play a prominent and erotically gay role. The authors have different visions of vampires leading to highly original and entertaining tales.

"His Hunger" by William J. Mann. Thirty years ago in Cravensport, Maine murders and disappearances occurred with no explanation. Jeremy thinks the story will make a good human-interest piece, but he also has a personal stake in the story as one of the vanished was his father. However, he is in peril after visiting Bartholomew, a vampire who plans to enslave Jeremy and convert the writer's lover.

"Sting" by Michael Thomas Forge. Following the suicide of his lover, Ben becomes head librarian in Downing, Arkansas. He sees customer Titus put his hands into beehives. When the two men become lovers, Titus explains that he is a vampire and the bee venom prevents his blood craving. Titus feels strongly about stopping his kind who kills innocent children.

"Brandon's Bite" by Sean Wolfe. His father was a vampire while his mother was mortal. His father taught him how to survive as a vampire. As an adult Brandon discovered he was gay so his father disowned him. Brandon can choose any victim he wants but fears love because he believes he cannot control his urge for blood.

"Devoured" by Jeff Marin. Three centuries ago two Scottish lords shared a secret passion for one another. When they were caught, Angus was killed but Derek was changed into a vampire. He avenged his friend's death before immigrating to West Virginia. Now an affluent businessman, he finally has a chance to love again but must first take care of Matthew's homophobic enemies.

Harriet Klausner

Unlike a previous reviewer, I AM a fan of gay vampire fiction, and of gay horror in general. I picked this book up because I'd read some of the authors' previous work in books like QUEER FEAR I and II, SONS OF DARKNESS, and BROTHERS OF THE NIGHT (all edited by Michael Rowe, in case you want to look them up). So how does this collection stack up? William J. Mann's contribution is an obvious ode to the glorious old cult supernatural soap opera, DARK SHADOWS, and if you read it that way it's a lot of fun. Sean Wolfe and Jeff Mann are new names to me, and although Wolfe's story didn't grab me, I really liked the second Mr. Mann's ability to bring out the most in his setting. But I have to say, it was Michael Thomas Ford's "Sting" that kept me up way past midnight. I saved it for last, because it sounded the most interesting, and was it ever. This novella is totally unique, not just in gay horror but in ALL horror. His writing is gorgeous, and the imagery he creates is both beautiful and terrifying. I defy anyone to read his descriptions of the Death Puppet and be able to sleep with the lights on. I, too, would love to see this story made into a film, especially if George Clooney plays Ben!