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Making love
Once Charlotte Tobias was a prim and severe schoolteacher, wielding her red pencil, writing to imaginary lovers and hiding the letters in a closet. Then, on the night of her fortieth birthday, Charlotte dreamed of love, and her life would never be the same again.
He came to her, her own creation, bold and dark, naked and rippling with muscles. She named him Phanes. She game him poetry, and curiosity, and let him make love to her in ways and places she could never have imagined. She let him awaken her and change her and take her to the edge of her fantasies...
But now Charlotte is losing control of her perfect lover. Her creation is leading her on a voyage through madness and anger and loss, revealing to Charlotte what truths lie just beyond her consciousness, what horrors can grow in the absence of a soul...
He came to her, her own creation, bold and dark, naked and rippling with muscles. She named him Phanes. She game him poetry, and curiosity, and let him make love to her in ways and places she could never have imagined. She let him awaken her and change her and take her to the edge of her fantasies...
But now Charlotte is losing control of her perfect lover. Her creation is leading her on a voyage through madness and anger and loss, revealing to Charlotte what truths lie just beyond her consciousness, what horrors can grow in the absence of a soul...
247 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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213 people want to read
About the author
Melanie Tem
115 books51 followersMelanie Kubachko was born and raised in rural northwestern Pennsylvania. She received a degree at Allegheny College and went on to earn a master's degree in social work from the University of Denver. Apart from a varied career in social work she has published short fiction in numerous publications, including Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Skin of the Soul, and Final Shadows. Her work has also been included in such anthologies as Women of Darkness and Women of the West.
Married to Steve Rasnic Tem.
Married to Steve Rasnic Tem.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 17, 2012
Loooove this one, crazy but I just couldn't put it down.
June 4, 2019
This is a modern (-ish, I suppose; this book is 26 years old, after all) retelling of Frankenstein, but with more eroticism and dread. Charlotte is a 40-year-old woman, single and desiring love, and in a moment of desperation and sadness, she creates her perfect lover, almost out of a dream. Seemingly perfect, he begins to drift away, not as one lover may lose another, but in a way that suggests she's losing control of him. In a way, though, she's really losing control of herself.
Charlotte is a cliche of sorts: She's middle-aged, frumpy, of a stocky build, and dreams about love and lovers. She's not just all that -- she has more depth than it suggests -- but her initial presentation is familiar, and a little trite. As the story grows, so does Charlotte, but it feels like the authors wanted us to feel a particular way about Charlotte, and resorted to the spinster image to do it. It feels a little cheap. She plays multiple roles throughout the book, but it's hard to shake that initial image of her.
The book is brilliantly suggestive in places, while being vulgarly explicit in others. It's an odd dichotomy, but the authors use those differing styles to elicit the right reaction from the readers. I much prefer this way of manipulating the readers' emotions than the use of cliches.
The prose is fantastic. My favorite example is the authors describing two flighty characters as "two kites on the thinnest of strings". If only I could find more of that kind of writing in my genre reading.
Charlotte is a cliche of sorts: She's middle-aged, frumpy, of a stocky build, and dreams about love and lovers. She's not just all that -- she has more depth than it suggests -- but her initial presentation is familiar, and a little trite. As the story grows, so does Charlotte, but it feels like the authors wanted us to feel a particular way about Charlotte, and resorted to the spinster image to do it. It feels a little cheap. She plays multiple roles throughout the book, but it's hard to shake that initial image of her.
The book is brilliantly suggestive in places, while being vulgarly explicit in others. It's an odd dichotomy, but the authors use those differing styles to elicit the right reaction from the readers. I much prefer this way of manipulating the readers' emotions than the use of cliches.
The prose is fantastic. My favorite example is the authors describing two flighty characters as "two kites on the thinnest of strings". If only I could find more of that kind of writing in my genre reading.
July 23, 2011
Stephen King endorsed the entire Dell Abyss Horror line. Here is his blurb:
"Thank you for introducing me to the remarkable line of novels currently being issued under Dell's Abyss imprint. I have given a great many blurbs over the last twelve years or so, but this one marks two firsts: first unsolicited blurb (I called you) and the first time I have blurbed a whole line of books. In terms of quality, production, and plain old story-telling reliability (that's the bottom line, isn't it), Dell's new line is amazingly satisfying...a rare and wonderful bargain for readers. I hope to be looking into the Abyss for a long time to come."
"Thank you for introducing me to the remarkable line of novels currently being issued under Dell's Abyss imprint. I have given a great many blurbs over the last twelve years or so, but this one marks two firsts: first unsolicited blurb (I called you) and the first time I have blurbed a whole line of books. In terms of quality, production, and plain old story-telling reliability (that's the bottom line, isn't it), Dell's new line is amazingly satisfying...a rare and wonderful bargain for readers. I hope to be looking into the Abyss for a long time to come."
November 11, 2022
I first read this book when I was 14 years old. I was totally engrossed by it. It helped shape me (and my love of gothic horror romance) just as much as the creatures in the book were shaped by their creators. I will always have a place in my heart for this book.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews