| Title | : | Fear the Fever (Hot Blood, #7) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0786016493 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780786016495 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 352 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1996 |
Fear the Fever (Hot Blood, #7) Reviews
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I think I enjoyed this one much more than other short story novels because I stopped after every one and wrote a review. That took really great willpower! And without further ado, I present....Fear the Fever:
The Five Percent People
An interesting tale of a love triangle (plus some) that goes horribly wrong during a conference in London. At first, I thought Gwen was pathetic and needed to just get over Caleb. After all, she only had 5% of his love when Alecia had 95%. And I thought Alecia was dumb for allowing Caleb his 5% to go to any other women and have sex with them. Alecia does finally wake up and realize that neither her nor Gwen ever really had Caleb to begin with.
Feeding the Beast
Bruce never comes out and tells you that Franklyn is a lupine, a werewolf, nut it's obvious from the very beginning when Trisha awakens to find his furry form in the bed next to her instead of the john she accidentally fell asleep with. After her initial shock, she falls in love. Not with the man, but with the hairy phallus that emerges only at night after the beast feeds. She uses Franklyn for her evil deeds only to find one night that he has discovered her secrets and has a solution to them all...that ends horribly wrong.
Purple Hearts and Other Wounds
Billy's phantom limb is his missing penis, shot off during the Vietnam war. The day before his accident he is having glorious sex with Tian, a Vietnamese hooker. He knows he doesn't love her, as his high school sweetheart is waiting for him at home in the good ole USA. After spending some time in the hospital, he is sent home where his love leaves him as she wants children and a real man. Billy experiences erection and orgasms from his phantom limb. He decides to travel back to Vietnam to find Tian and hopefully have her make some sense of these inexplicable feelings. What he finds there is nothing short of unbelievable.
The Sinister Woods
A young boy seeks the approval of his father - an unloving, non-emotional man who rules with an iron fist. The boy emulates his every gesture from the books he reads right through to his order of foods that are eaten at dinner time. At first his father approves of his friendship with Daniel but later senses their is something not quite right with the friendship and bans Jack from seeing him. Did Jacks's father witness the kiss or the touching the two boys shared? Jack and Daniel meet for what will be their final time and run off into the sinister woods where father can't see them. Only one will return.
Love Letters From the Rainforest
Clara doesn't love Howard. In actual fact, she never did. She just loved his money. Howard is a botanist who went to the unchartered rainforest to discover some new fungi. And he did find some new strains, which killed him. Back home, Clara receives his love notes and reads them in between the gymnastic bouts in bed with all those strong men (unlike Howard). Until one day security is called to her campus room to check on a strange smell. I liked the story unfortunately it was too obvious what would happen to Clara.
Orifice
A man, his girlfriend and a tattoo artist called Mutt. A story about letting someone into your head and letting your love out. I guess I prefer my horror to be more realistic and this one seemed really far fetched with a typical horror ending (which isn't really an ending more like just the beginning.)
Sole Man
A foot fetishist who has never told a soul about his proclivities finds one of co-workers undeniably sexy. When she comes on to him he realizes that he needs this affair. His wife Monica no longer takes care of her feet and is no longer a turn on. All hell breaks loose when his wife shows up at the steam room and interrupts his best night of his life.
The Portrait
A young college student only has two months left to get laid before he loses the bet to his roommate. He awakens in the park from an acid trip, only to see an angel. He approaches her in his acid dream to ask if he can draw her portrait. She reluctantly agrees and his plan is pushed into play. What he hasn't figured out is that Dan, his roommate, will throw a wrench into his plans and during his next acid trip all will be revealed. This too had a rather predictable ending.
Two Hands Are Better Than One
The leading man of masturbation has agreed to an interview for a well known skin mag. He tries to explain why he's never had intercourse and why it's not necessary. The reporter, an unbeliever, is given a gallery tour and becomes a believer. Down the road, the reporter is given the final interview before the king of visual erotica dies and finally understands the whole exercise. Unfortunately I don't. I didn't get it at all. Maybe because I'm a female so I don't understand the inner workings of the male anatomy and psyche.
Untamed Sex
It begins with a tv commercial that tickles the married couple's fancy. Married for years, their sex life had become lackluster and unfulfilling. The choose to sample the offerings from Untamed Sex and find their options virtually unlimited. They are offered 15 minutes of virtual plug-in in the animal kingdom as any animal they choose at the height of coitus. They choose wisely, return home to rut and ravage like animals and crave more visits to Untamed Sex. What they don't realize is just how addicting and expensive those sessions can be. Not to mention destructive.
Metalica
The easiest way to describe this one is: a slightly deranged woman gets off on PAP smears and visits numerous gynecologists until she manages to steal forceps from one. What she does with so called lover when she gets home is beyond my words.
Call it
A man enjoys phone sex with a married woman...until her husband comes home and nearly catches them in the middle. The man listens intently to the lovemaking that should be his as the phone hasn't quite disconnected properly. He grows jealous and wanders to he kitchen drawer to find a knife. I think I missed something with this story as I don't understand why he's cutting his own hands, stabbing himself and playing heads and tails with the flipping knife.
Daddy's Dirty Books
An interesting take on the first person narrative. The child obviously has a friend over to his home when his daddy is at work. Like all curious boys he has discovered the hidden girlie mags in his dad's underwear drawer and wants to show his friend. But the other things they find hidden are truly frightening and leads to a by tragic ending.
Restin' Piece
Imagine a dead man who passes away while porking. That's not unusual you might say. However this particular dead guy can't quite croak until he has finished his business. And his business happens to include a happy ending. He keeps showing up at his friend's place who helps him to meet his unfinished business...in whatever way he can, with no expenses pared.
Flesh and Blood
You know from the beginning that nothing good will come from this story. You also know there is more to the story of Caroline bad Rusty. Thy are madly in love but in the South a black and a white just cannot mix, even if the Creoles are themselves a mixed race bunch of folk. Even after all of the tragedies have struck, past and present, the very last paragraph will make your jaw drop with disbelief and disgust.
Fantasies
Fantasies can come true. Just ask Jack. After 6 months of wooing, he marries the woman of his dreams, only to find out that in the same amount of time in arrived life she doesn't do it for him anymore. In order for him to sustain an erection he must create new fantasies. It miraculously works and they have a darling daughter, Sheila. But watching her grow up is painful for Jack, for she reminds him of those fantasies he used to produce years ago. And if he thinks they stop there, just wait until Sheila has a child of her own. An impossible tale that was still quite likable.
The Secret Shih Tan
The world's best cook, young, meets his culinary critic match who invites him to come read The Shih Tan, a cookbook of Chinese descent. There were no known copies however Craig had been taught of its existence from the Asian side of his family. He is intrigued and agrees to the ultimatum after a night's sleep - if he reads the book he must create one of the recipes for the book's owner. The recipes are not what one would have imagined and after another night's sleep he chooses the one...and he chooses well with only a slight change in ingredients.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book even if out of 17 tales there were 2 I didn't understand and 1 I detested. The remaining 14 were wonderful, all completely different from each other. They were well written and many were executed by the finest horror authors - Jeff Gelb, Graham Masterton, Jack Ketchum and Edward Lee to name the most famous. It would be a great find to come across (no pun intended,) the remaining anthologies in this series. The mixture of sex and horror always seem to go hand in hand, and there was nothing juvenile about these scribblings as can be so. Often found in some 80's and 90's horror. -
Another winner in the Hot Blood series. Sometimes I read a story and wonder...WHY do I read these books? and then the next story I say...oh yeah. I can't say I enjoyed all the stories, or that I understood where all the authors were going, but many of the stories were entertaining. I have to say my favorite was Restin' Piece. Oh, and a couple of Colorado girls had contributions to this edition in the series, so that is cool (Patricia D. Cacek and Lucy Taylor)
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This is probably closer to two-and-a-half stars than two, but there were a number of stories that didn't work (as horror, erotica, or — in one instance — as writing). It does feel very dated, in part because several of the authors made too much of an effort to make some stories seem very "now".
Given how hard it was for my library to track this book down for me, I was hoping that it would be much better. -
There some gems in this anthology. Great little reads before bedtime- or just anytime. Some fantastic horror authors give some quite eerie and often taboo stories that have some kind of sexual innuendo in the story. Give it a read. Trust me.
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The Hot Blood series are tales of erotic horror, which is the best combination ever. When something as personal and sensitive as sex is mixed with horror, what could possibly scare you shitless more? So I set out to explore them all, all 13 books of the series, thus Project Hot Blood.
First, some info about my rating system. The level of paranormal of each story is one to five, one meaning it surely can happen in real life, five meaning it’s utterly something paranormal. The level of sex describes how graphic is the sex in each story, one to five, one being tame a bedtime story told by a nun, five being a detailed script for a hardcore porn movie. My rating’s from one to ten, it’s based on the balance of horror and erotic, so getting five in ‘level of sex’ doesn’t automatically mean an above average rating from me. It’s based on the wtf-ness of the ending, how freaked out I am, how nightmare-generating it is. One being rubbish, ten being masterpiece. It’s time to move on to the seventh book in my Project Hot Blood. Let's begin.
The Five Percent People
Lucy Taylor
Betrayal and some kind of cheating seem to be the big theme of this chapter, not my most favorite topic since mixing it into horror, it’s usually quite predictable. The first story is one such story. About a naive woman who believe over and over again her casanova of a boyfriend who would claim that she gets 95% of him and those other women, they were just the five percent people. I know, right, what a load of bullshit. 😀 So when a member from that five percent, an especially annoying one at that, pushed her way into the couple’s life, chaos ensued. Not the worst premise, but the story was slightly too slow paced and long to make a compelling story.
Length: 21 pages
Level of Sex: 1/5
My rating: 6 out of 10
Feeding the Beast
Bruce Jones
So I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has had… unholy thoughts about werewolves, or other supernatural creatures. Although not the most innovative idea ever, it was written nonetheless in an interesting manner. A lady of the night ran into a beast in her line of work and decided to adopt the fluffy pet as her lover. I figured the sex might be pretty hot, but it was pretty disappointing. I did like the little twist, in the end, a lot though.
Length: 14 pages
Level of Sex: 1/5 (pretty tame for a tale including bestiality)
My rating: 8 out of 10
Purple Hearts and Other Wounds
Stephen Woodworth
What’s a horror story collection without one about some war or other, WWII and Vietnam wars being the most popular choices. This time it’s the Vietnam war, working Vietnamese ladies and lonely US soldiers. Well, one soldier, in particular, was especially enamored with one woman, promising love and new life across the pond in the late hours of the night after lovemaking. Be careful who you promise things to, especially if you aren’t going to keep those promises. Well some women have a way to make you come back to them, whether you want it or not. This time around it’s with the supernatural powers that resemble strongly of voodoo. The ending was terrifying, a bit funny and slightly erotic and disgusting at the same time – so just like a good Hot Blood story should be.
Length: 14 pages
Level of Sex: 2/5
My rating: 7 out of 10
The Sinister Woods
Wendy Rathbone
Actually, this is a very well-written story, melancholy but beautiful. But it also stuck out of this delightful series of erotic horror like a sore thumb. There were no sex at all, but a tons of violence. And the hints of domestic abuse are pretty terrible. I would’ve happily put it in a gothic tales collection.
Length: 15 pages
Level of Sex: 0/5
My rating: 6 out of 10
Love Letters from the Rain Forest
Jack Ketchum and Edward Lee
Ugh, way too long about a story that was predictable, nothing special and even full of cliches. A rich nerd fell for a pretty girl who is in it for his money but then got bored before time. And shameless pining ensues in the form of letters. Even the last ‘twist’ could be seen a mile away. The sex is pretty boring too so it was pretty much a waste of pages.
Length: 29 pages
Level of Sex: 1/5
My rating: 4 out of 10
Orifice
John F. D. Taff
And back to the main theme of cheating, betrayal and revenge. This time surrounding tattoos. Actually, I find this story a bit confusing. You know the saying ‘Don’t tell it, show it’, it’s about how to make a good story. But sometimes, authors take this saying a bit too seriously and forcibly show us the story but then end up being a confusing mess.
Length: 20 pages
Level of Sex: 1/5
My rating: 5 out of 10
Sole Man
Lois Gresh
Ah the glory of feet fetish. The premise of, yet again a cheating couple with passionate feet fetish is pretty promising for some kinky sex goodness, but there were just a lot of teasing but nothing substantial in the end. But, I’m not too proud to enjoy some prolonged teasing, very well-written too. All up until the wife finds out. 😛
Length: 21 pages
Level of Sex: 2/5
My rating: 7 out of 10
The Portrait
Jeff Gelb
The editor of Hot Blood books, there is always one or two stories by Jeff Gelb. They are usually pretty good, short and sweet. This one is not the exception. A story of two guys in college attempting to pick up girls by drawing their portraits. Not necessarily the freshest game from the playbook but I guess sometimes it works. But then, you know it, betrayal and revenge, and sprinkle some LSD in the mix and voila – bloody chaos. I guess the moral of the story is ‘don’t do drugs, kids’.
Length: 13 pages
Level of Sex: 0/5
My rating: 7 out of 10
Two Hands Are Better than One
J. N. Williamson
Now this was an interesting one, written in a way that would light up your imagination. It’s about this photographer who is able to capture women in their most passionate state, catching something truly beautiful and extraordinary on the film. And the way these photographs were described in this story, I could totally see their appeal. The ending might have been a bit confusing but I actually really like the story, hoping it could’ve continued a bit longer.
Length: 23 pages
Level of Sex: 2/5
My rating: 7 out of 10
Untamed Sex
James Crawford
And talking about primal sex. Being a book published over two decades ago, I’m a bit disappointed that we are not yet able to achieve the technology mentioned in this story – a machine that can make you feel what animals feel. And being such pervs as we are, of course we would use this amazing technology to have sex as animals. XD The story is pretty imaginative, but I expected more from the sex though, since I am a perv. 😀 But I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and wouldn’t have minded if it would have gone on longer.
Length: 23 pages
Level of Sex: 3/5
My rating: 9 out of 10
Metallica
Patricia D. Cacek
I always give extra points for fetishes in these stories, this time it’s… I’m sure there’s a word for it but right now I can’t think of it, but it’s a fetish for the procedures at the gynecologist. I personally hate going to get poked, but I can see why it can be a turn on. And this story actually has quite an unique take on this fetish. The ending, I’m not saying it’s a twist, but it got me positively squirming for it was that nasty. That’s why it got an 8 from me. 😀 It is horror, after all.
Length: 20 pages
Level of Sex: 4/5
My rating: 8 out of 10
Call It
Tom Piccirilli
The premise is pretty simple, it’s again about cheating spouses. But this time it’s all about the pain of the lover, and what he had to witness that drove him to madness. Short and sweet, not that bad of a story but is quite out of place in the Hot Blood series.
Length: 6 pages
Level of Sex: 1/5
My rating: 6 out of 10
Daddy’s Dirty Books
Michael Garrett
I quite enjoyed the way it was written, it was kinda like a dialogue between two boys but you can only hear one of them talking. I can see what the story is trying to do, the mystery kinda unfolding slowly. You might suspect it’s just the regular kind of domestic abuse kind of thing but then it turned into something way more sinister. But, the execution, no matter how different, it could use quite a bit of tightening in its grip. For some reason, the big reveal in the end lacked suspense. And really, where is all the sex?
Length: 11 pages
Level of Sex: 1/5
My rating: 7 out of 10
Restin’ Piece
Nat Gertler
This is actually very funny, about a cowboy telling a crazy story in the bar in exchange for drinks. And it sure was a crazy story about a pal of his who died during fucking but didn’t get to finish so he came back to haunt the living. I love pitch black humor in my horror erotica, and this one made me laugh out loud.
Length: 10 pages
Level of Sex: 3/5
My rating: 8 out of 10
Flesh and Blood
Elsa Rutherford
About the time in the US when some people still had slaves. This story read like an old epic movie full of drama and tradegy. About class difference, race issues, star-crossed lovers, and whole lot of sick twists of fate for good measure. Although a bit predictable, I quite enjoyed the grand gestures in this story, the author really made an effort.
Length: 19 pages
Level of Sex: 3/5
My rating: 8 out of 10
Fantasies
Alan Brennert
Now here’s an interesting one, although there weren’t much sex in it. The idea of it is pretty nasty though. So what if you meet the person of your fantasies and you get to marry them. The mundane effectively washes away the rosyness of the fantasy and what’s left is just another plain old marriage. But then you meet someone else straight from your fantasies, but now it’s a forbidden fruit. And sometimes you just have to have what you are denied, one way or another.
Length: 8 pages
Level of Sex: 1/5
My rating: 8 out of 10
The Secret Shih Tan
Graham Masterton
They saved the best story for last. Being Chinese myself, I was mildly offended that the author made the ultimate cookbook about cooking human meat originating from China. But if I really think about it, if there is such a cookbook for real, it most definitely would be from China. Cos we are nuts about food. And that fact was proven by just how much I enjoyed the culinary aspect of this story, although it was disgusting as fuck, but at the same time it was fascinating. I admired the fact that the author made a huge effort to actually write out some of those recipes. I was thoroughly entertained, both the foodie and the horror fan in me. Who knew that combining sex and food can be that creepy and interesting at the same time. The ending might be a little cheesy (pun intended), otherwise this would have been 10/10. It was so well written that it got me interested in the author Graham Masterton. He has hundreds of published books, many of them are filled with horror and sex. Can’t wait to find out more!
Length: 33 pages
Level of Sex: 5/5
My rating: 9 out of 10
***
Review of the whole book
The beginning of the book had many lame stories, and it had me worried that this book is gonna suck. But the second half of the book really stepped it up storywise. But I have to say though, only a few had any explicit sex in it. I’m not saying Hot Blood is all about the sex but come on, there gotta be at least something. The last story, The Secret of Shih Tan is the only one that got 5/5 at the level of sex. I hope the next book would do better.
17 stories
Average rating: 7
Stories with a rating below or is 6 out of 10: 6
Stories with a rating 7-8 out of 10: 9
Stories with a rating 9 out of 10: 2
Best stories:
Untamed Sex
The Secret Shih Tan
Most erotic story: The Secret Shih Tan
Most memorable story: The Secret Shih Tan -
I'm so glad that there is still a source for erotic horror that puts out good stories on a reliable basis. Like all the other HOT BLOOD collections, this one gives us more erotic scary stories, or scary erotic stories depending on your point of view. And since it is quality stuff, it definitely receives my recommendation. My personal favorites are listed below.
"Purple Hearts and Other Wounds" by Stephen Woodworth - A wounded soldier experiences phantom pleasures
"Sole Man" by Lois Gresh - A foot fetishist enjoys his fantasy come true
"Metalica" by Patricia D. Cacek - Pap smear exams are a turn-on to a woman
"Daddy's Dirty Books" by Michael Garrett - A young boy discovers his dad's sex collection
"Restin' Piece" by Nat Gertler - What coitus interruptus will do to you
"Fantasies" by Alan Brennert - A lesson to not fantasize of someone else while having sex -
Very skippable horror. Just read untamed sex and Edward Lee's story and leave it at the used bookstore you find it in.
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This is a tough one to rate, as sometimes happens with anthologies or collections. I bought the book without really knowing what it was. I knew that Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, and Graham Masterson were in it. That was good enough for me. The Jack Ketchum story is actually a collaboration with Edward Lee, which means that two of the headlining writers were responsible for one of the stories. That story, "The Letters from the Rain Forest" was one of the highlights of the book for me, which shouldn't be surprising, given the level of talent that wrote it. The rest of the book is a mixed bag. Some of the stories were good. Some were okay. Others didn't work for me. That's the wonderful thing about a collection. If you don't connect to a story on a good level, there is always a chance for the next one.
I really enjoyed Lucy Taylor's "The Five Percent People" and think it holds up as more than just a horror story. There is a lot going on there as it relates to love, lust, and a number of other human attributes.
Several of the stories had a heavy Twilight Zone influence to them, but with a more adult bent. All of the stories deal with sex in some way, but I would stop short of calling this erotic horror. There is nothing erotic about many of the stories. Some are more body horror than anything else. Some have great twists, and some have twists so telegraphed that you can see them coming from page one.
As a whole, I enjoyed the book, but the majority of the lifting is done by two or three well-written stories. -
A nice collection of short stories that are more erotic than horror. Recommended
