Customer Reviews

Best Gay Love Stories 2005

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read Best Gay Love Stories 2005 whenever I went into a restaurant alone for some coffee, a short meal, etc. The stories were just long enough that I could read one or two easily before the meal was over. And the stories were excellent as well. They ranged from young to not-so-young love, longterm and not-so-longterm relationships and everything in between. There were even a couple of stories about failed relationships.
The best thing about the stories is that they portrayed gay men having much more than sexual trysts with each other. A fairly recent French film title said it best: (It's,,,)Just a Question of Love. Perhaps societal attitudes toward homosexuality would be more positively affected if more people could see gay men as loving one another instead of just having sex. This book does just that. It's a definite find.

I will admit I bought this book because Scott Pomfret was one of the writers. I throughly enjoyed most of the tales but my favorite story was Passing by J.A. Deveaux. The sweet haunting tale is one I won't soon forget.

This collection starts with a bang, from bittersweet (J.A. Deveaux's "Passing") straight to harshly physical (Vincent Diamond's "Deep Trouble Undercover"). It also covers sweet, jaded, sappy, and silly. "Best Gay Love Stories" showcases the diversity within the genre. Tone, characters, and plot vary widely but it's all good writing and I read the whole book the first day I had it.

(FOR ROMANTICS ONLY) // FOLLOWING APPLIES TO 2005 EDITION:

3 Cheers for Chase + Diamond.........

Author Dale Chase ("The Love of My Life") and writer Vincent Diamond ("Deep Trouble Undercover") truly know what good old fashioned love is all about. No fanged flying bat plots, no twilight zon-ish twists, no tale set on some distant twin-sunned planet..........these two penman give us what the old "romanticals" amongst us want--a down to earth and believable love story. Of the near 25 short tales in this edition, these are the two which I can, and do, read of a morning and by mid-afternoon am ready to pick up and start again. How many authors can you say that of?

One bad note: after falling for what these 2 guys so capably do, when you rush to your favorite book seller to grab up other of their works, you're going to be terribly disappointed to find nothing. C'mon, Dale and Vincent, we know you've got that "great novel" in you, get with it.

(NOTE--Chase and Diamond are 5-Star writers; other works in this Edition are 3-Star level)

PS--I like that romantic glow these two stories leave. See if that may be true of you, too.

===================================================================

(FOR ROMANTICS ONLY) // FOLLOWING APPLIES TO 2006 EDITION:

They're baaaaaaacccccckkkk.....and better than ever.........

What luck! Characters, "Steven & Conrad" are back....big time.....in author Vincent Diamond's "Tropical Daze." If ya liked this duo's arousingly romantic get-together in the 2005 Edition, 'yer gonna git excited enuff to fall off a horse' over what they do in this 2006 version. I so like that this writer so gets it right.....so puts words together as most other writers can't. While he shared top honors with penman, Dale Chase ("The Love of My Life") in '05, he now has some pretty stiff (no pun intended) competition, of the "I'm gonna want to read and re-, re, re-read" type, in Mark Wildyr's "The Sun and the Moon." This is probably 'the' most romantic tale of the group. Mark's one of those guys you wanna rush to look up and find a novel by at any of the online book sites. Good luck in doing that, though! Why are some of these very best writers satisfied with 'keeping it short' (oops)? Give us some novels, guys. (Oh, and the editor of this collection doesn't even suffer to include Wildyr in his compendium of writing contributors).

(NOTE--Diamond retains his 5-Star rating; following authors are at the 4- or 3-Star level; remaining works are lower)

PS#1--And Raymond Yeo ("The Real Magick") provides a pretty interesting take on directions in which male-male friendships can evolve......tho when all was said and done I wasn't at all sure which way the wind was blowing at the end of this one (one always hopes for the continuation of a 'spark' discovered between two friends......despite indications to the contrary).

PS#2--And for all we "Maurice" lovers, Paul G. (P.G.) McCurdy does us, and his early twentieth century predecessor-writer, proud with his little "if only" tale entitled, "We Shan't Never Be Parted." And here's a romance writer honest enough to give us a character with "warts and all." I very much like that about any writer.

PS#3--Plus a coupla "Good Goings" to authors, Eumenides and Sheppard. (Oh, and Scott, you came across deeper than I would have expected of you).

PS#4--While editing of this "pub" is credited to Nick Street, he bobbles the ball, "grammatical" and otherwise," a number of times (words dropped, words doubled / flip-flopping character names, etc.). "Editing?" Is that what Street calls it?

****

When I picked up my copy of Best Gay Love Stories I never expected to many of the stories to be completely depressing. While all the stories do deal with love in one form or another, most of them have a saddness about them and most don't end on a positive note.

All the stories are well written and interesting but I would hardly call this a collection of love stories.

I bought this book for my special friend Billy a couples of months ago, and although he was is the terminal stage of his battle against aids (aids won) hie enjoyed it thouroughly. Recomended to all gays like Billy.