Handsome Devil: Stories of Sin and Seduction

by Steve Berman (Editor), Richard Bowes, Pat Cadigan

For millennia, male infernal figures have been portrayed as both dazzling tempters and dark seducers. The alluring fantasy of Handsome Devil highlights Lucifer's role as the beautiful trickster who steals hearts (as well as souls), and features stories - both new and old - of tantalizing tempters, sexy incubi, demon lovers, and devils who beguile and betray.

319 pages, Paperback

First published February 4, 2014

About the author

Some tidbits about me...

I turned down a scholarship to Miskatonic University because I heard of the high rate of incidents against the student population.

I briefly worked for Omni Consumer Products in their Marketing Department. Great benefits, nice cafeteria, sadly too prone to executive whim.

Last year I stayed at the noted Mauna Pele resort in Hawaii. The accommodations were impressive but my traveling companion disappeared soon after wanting to attend a pig roast.

I've slept with one minor porn star and with a guy who later became one.

And I happen to have written some fanfic that inspired the memorable holodeck scene in Star Trek: Hidden Frontiers episode "Vigil"

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm embarrassed to be seen with this book, but I needed to have something to read all those times I went to dinner by myself before film fest movies. Plus there were stories in it by people I follow like Pat Cadigan, Eliizabeth Hand and Tanith Lee. I would probably give it four stars, but it's minus one for the cover.

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I see Berman's name attached to a project, the two things I expect it to be are queer and erotic. This wasn't either. Yes, sexual situations happened, but most of the authors and characters seemed kind of...half-hearted about them. And why does the devil always have to be male and his victim female? Variety would have been more interesting.

I wasn't particularly keen on any story, even authors I generally like. None were especially awful, either (I skipped a few). This collection was fine, but I want more than "fine" for my valuable reading hours. Only two pieces stand out to me: Theodora Goss', not for the story but the prose, wow, so smooth! So perfectly engineered (yes, that emotionless term is deliberate, the story left me cold, this is just admiration for craftsmanship); and, the sole poem, "This Is Not a Love Story" by Nicole Kornher-Stace, which I'm copying below for you.

Fool girl, what’s in your head?
Tell me, did you think to have
a meringue dress, a picket fence,
fat babies with your husband’s eyes?
Hypocrite, I’ve seen you:
blowing kisses to the greenwood,
flashing flat tits at the wind.
Hush up. Save your blushes. Listen.
You’d wear all the wide world’s iron shoes to rust
halt and faltering, blood-footed, nub-footed.
I know. You’d hold fast to what you fight for,
although it—wolf, serpent, flame—
test your grip, your heart, your mind,
to breaking. Girl, you read too much.
Books lie. They promise happiness
to daughters who shun quests (the sport of sons)
and keep to paths, who peek under the bed for monsters
hoping to find nothing there but dust.
(There’s a heap of old skirts on the doorstep
and a trail of old blood down the hall
There are bones, fleshed and gnawed, in the kitchen
and skins tucked like new babes in the beds
There’s a tangle of lockets, gummed shut
on pale portraits of quest-orphaned sons)
Fool girl, what’s in your heart?
Tell me, did you think to find
some incubus to barter for your firstborn
in the sallow grass, some ghost to haunt
your bridal bed, lying between you
and your husband like a sword?
Hypocrite, I’ve heard you:
wishing you could bite your heart in two,
tiptoeing indecision like a wire.
Don’t you backtalk me. I once was young.
My text was flesh, was dreams, was salt. I learned
of love (like childbirth, not pain so much as work)
and lust (better a monster’s dedication than an angel’s disregard)
and fascination (some are doomed to wander, some to stay).
Girl, you dream too much. Dreams worry at
your wounds. They take. Then dart
like startled fishes from your opened eyes.
All your wealth is acorns in the light.
(You will know him from his voice like a crossroads
and his eyes of blue, brown, hazel, green
You will know him from his heart like an owl pellet
spiked with eyeteeth, wristbones, maidenheads
You will know him from his smell like gallows new-built
like trespass, like wrack, like homecoming)
Fool girl, what’s in your hands?
Tell me, did you think to best
all otherworldly pull with knots and iron gauds,
all domesticity with resignation?
Hypocrite, I know you:
bending your neck to darning needles,
oven mitts, will not unmoor your heart
before it founders; waiting nightlong
in the faery rings probably won’t
earn you more than chills.
Gently, sweetling. Dry your eyes.
You’ll not follow this old woman into dotage
or your sisters into madness and
an early grave: don’t your books teach
it is the lot of wayward daughter
to unriddle and to wander; that
the only thing worth questing for
is the wherewithal to choose?

[begemot]

Only read:

- the introduction;

- the following stories:

1. “Lilac Season” by Claire Humphrey - good. Not sure what lilac had to do with anything other than being in bloom. I liked Željko - how unassuming and nonchalant he was. Not your usual knight in shining armor or an arrogant asshole or Mr Perfect. I didn’t like the whole religious community setup - it’s annoying, because such religiosity comes across to me as primarily performative and at its core duplicitous.

2. “A Spoonful of Salt” by Nicole M. Taylor (partially finished) - very good, so far.

[J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

From a young royal's haunted bed to the tour busses of a fad music scene and many places in between, the sex-hungry supernatural comes calling in this collection of short stories. Berman has collected here something for every taste, whether you prefer high fantasy or X-Files-ish pseudo-realism, there's at least one story that will appeal to you. Make sure to read Berman's intro, too--it sets the mood quite nicely.