Eroma Read online

  I am much aware of the emergence and success of electronic publishers on the Internet, as I maintain at my www.HiPiers.com site an ongoing survey of electronic publishing. I started it so I would have an answer for new writers who need an alternative to the indifference and arrogance of traditional print publishers, some of whom do not seem to care whether a writer lives or dies. I list the electronic publishers I learn of, together with related services, and I run anonymous feedback from authors who use these publishers. Anonymous because errant publishers are notorious for retaliation against anyone who exposes their nefarious ways.

  This list leads to some spectacular rows, as those same publishers try to silence me, but I’m not just any writer. I’m a writer who was blacklisted in the 1970s for protesting about being cheated, who fought through and later became a national bestseller. So today I am not just ornery, I’m rich. That means I have the will and the means to take it to any publisher that takes me on, and they know it. So they scream and make threats, but they don’t dare meet me in the legal arena. So my Survey remains as candid as I can make it. I do make corrections when a report turns out to be in error; that happens. But much of the anonymous feedback is favorable to particular publishers, and I run that too. Those ones don’t scream, for some reason. My interest is in having an accurate survey, so that aspiring writers won’t be deceived by shadier outfits, and will know where to find the good ones. I have had many responses from writers who found good publishers via my list, and avoided bad ones. That’s gratifying.

  So I had dozens of erotic notions that accumulated while I was writing fantasy and could not be used there. In classic fantasy, the prince kisses the princess, and nine months later the stork flies in with a delivery. That’s one way to do it, but penis into vagina doesn’t fit, for reasons other than the size of their respective parts. But they do fit in the electronic publishing market. In fact there the fit can be examined from a seeming distance of one inch, in full color.

  So in this extra time I wrote Relationships 4, the fourth volume of erotic stories, based on ideas in my file. But there were ideas that didn’t quite fit that, either, not because they were too dirty for even a jaded market—they Weren’t—but because they seemed incomplete. Like “Avatar,” wherein sex is the mechanism for defining the traits of an electronically rendered persona. But once a good avatar has been crafted, what then? There was no punch line. Like “Maiden Heaven,” wherein a man could defeat android female warriors by penetrating to their internal switches and turning them off. So once he wins into the castle and defeats the queen, what then? Would a man really want a harem of lovely women who turned off when penetrated? Like “Poop of the Day,” wherein the food is great but delivered in a repulsive manner. Once that point has been made, what’s the point? What could I do with these incomplete ideas?

  Then I got a bright idea about ideas. The same notions that were incomplete as stories might do as chapters in a novel. The avatar could be formed, then undertake the challenge of the warrior maidens, and so on, in an online competitive erotic game with a number of challenging settings. The male view could be alternated with the female, until the two protagonists had to face off against each other in the finale. There it was: an erotic romance novel formed from six problematical stories. Titled Eroma, of course: EROtic ROMAnce.

  It turned out not to be quite that easy. I had conceived the notions as stories, and in some cases had thousands of words describing their plot twists. Those did not necessarily mesh well with novel chapters. I had to do wholesale cutting and revision, adapting them to the new format. “Sustenance” was especially difficult in that respect. I wound up making new characters of the satyrs and nymphs, rather than having game contestants play them, though it could have been done either way. In “Coven” I actually ran out of my original idea, and needed to incorporate one that occurred to me during the writing of the novel: the backwards romance of the final warlock. I could not resist naming the mermaid in “Maiden Heaven” Mela, after a mermaid in my Xanth series. Sorry about that.

  Regardless, I hope you enjoyed the novel. It was fun to write, for more than one reason.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Piers Anthony

  ISBN: 978-1-4976-5741-0

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Avatar

  Chapter 2: Maiden Heaven

  Chapter 3: Poop of the Day

  Chapter 4: Sustenance

  Chapter 5: Coven

  Chapter 6: Favor

  Author’s Note

  Copyright Page