MUSINGS FROM THE MIND OF AMANDA

I love to read. Fiction. Non-fiction. Historical. Current. Comedy. Romance. I’ve read some wonderful books. Friends recommend them, or I see a blurb that looks great or I look up an author I like and then get suggestions from whatever website I’m on.

For instance, a friend recommended Jodi Taylor’s “Chronicles of St. Mary’s” series and I loved it. It’s not as good as it used to be because she changed the whole plot, but it’s still ok. The same friend recommended the Hell Divers Series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith. I don’t usually like apocalyptic stories, but this one was great. Sometimes I like to read a little paranormal stuff, but not as much. It’s too weird.

Enter Amazon and their deals for the day. Lots of websites will send you lists of discounted or free ebooks everyday. I love this. Some of my favorites have come from these lists. But sometimes…sometimes I just wonder what the heck they’re thinking.

I’ve been offered books about aliens who fall in love with humans who fall in love with aliens. It’s always some extremely busty blonde in skimpy clothes who signed up as a housekeeper or nanny or mail order bride for some gigantic vaguely humanoid…person, who is maybe blue or has ram’s horns or maybe three arms, or sometimes maybe three other appendages we won’t speak of here. And of course, despite the scary exterior, he melts into a pool of alien flavored butter when Busty Blonde shows up on his home planet. Why, the men of earth never made her feel what Gorgondeerox the Destroyer does, and when he gets out his fancy alien-smiter, why she just quivers.

Y’all. C’mon. Good fiction requires a willing suspension of disbelief. I couldn’t suspend my disbelief for Busty and Gorgondeerox if you hit me over the head with a bookshelf. I just can’t buy it. I can’t even stand it when guys have those little crusties in their nose, much less ram’s horns on their heads.

Of course there are more. The human falls in love with various supernatural / paranormal beings: Vampires, Werewolves, Demons, Ghosts, and various other shapeshifting beings. I saw one about a Were-Flamingo, and I HAD to read that one. It was pretty funny, so I’m calling it a win. I guess if he marries his woman, and he’s bad, she can always make him stand out in the yard of a trailer park somewhere. I also saw one with an Orc. I don’t even know what an Orc is, and I’m afraid to look it up.

Multiple partner romances are also popular. They give them trendy initials, like, MMF (male-male-female) or MFM (two women, one man) or OMGICBTSWTC (Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe that someone wrote this crap.). I mean, I don’t know all the details, because sometimes when you’re old and fat like me, just working with one other person is tricky, but seriously, there are only so many places to put stuff, and eventually someone is going to get their feelings hurt at the very least. The only ones who win in this situation are the chiropractors and STD clinics.

I mentioned earlier that I don’t really read the post-apocalyptic stuff. That’s a personal preference based on the fact that I think we’re almost there anyway, and I prefer to be as surprised as everyone else. I do, however, plan to move into our local Sam’s Club if there’s a zombie outbreak. There’s tons of space and food and clothing and zombies can’t get in without a membership.