Title: Business Makes Strange BedFellows
Author Name & Publisher: E.E. Ottoman (Less Than Three Press)
Publication Date & Length: October 29, 2014 – 76 pgs
Dr. Gert Bower’s day goes bad fast when she accidentally releases an abominable monster of the abyss on the streets of New York City. Desperate to stop it, she turns to the only person who can help her track the monster down. Vi De Luca is a private detective and creature of the night, a vampire more than willing to help Gert—for a price.
In exchange for catching the monster, Gert must spend one night with Vi, and let Vi have her way with Gert’s blood and body. Though she does not remotely trust Vi, for the good of the city Gert agrees. Yet tracking the monster turns out to be more than either of them had bargained for. When Gert embarks on an experiment to try and reanimate a human corpse things just keep getting worse.
I loved the world created here. It was like reading out of one of my favorite already-created worlds that I wrote fanfic in for years. I did struggle with the connection between these two at first, but at the same time I liked the slower build up to it. We never learn all of Vi’s secrets about who and what she is, which somewhat bothers me if only because I’m interested in this take on vampires.
With science, action and creatures, this short story certainly has it all; oh! And a love story to boot. I wished it had at least one or two more rounds of editing, but the typos weren’t overwhelmingly distracting, only on occasion. Gert certainly has a personality of her own, as does Vi.
There seems to be two competing plots going on in this short story, so it probably could have easily been expanded into a novel with more focus on each. However, for a short, this was well-written and the world definitely developed enough. I could certainly visualize where the characters were (the world and city) and mostly what each looked like.
For my first foray into E.E. Ottoman’s writing, I don’t think I could have chosen a better piece.
~AJ
This is an intriguing and strange short tale. It’s outside my usual preferred genre, but the premise interested me. I’m glad I picked it up.
From the description, I was expecting more humor. This was unexpectedly dark, and it was more serious than I anticipated. I found both Gert and Vi to be compelling characters, and their relationship certainly lived up to the title.
I thought it was very good. There were a number of surprises along the way. The only thing that was a bit lacking for me was that I thought the relationship itself needed a bit more depth. It was hard to understand why, outside of the physical, they were drawn to each other once the situation was resolved. The ending was a bit rushed as well. Despite that, it was still a decent story.
Amy M.
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E.E. Ottoman is a geek and a gentleman. They spends their time mostly in libraries doing research, and sometimes, when there is no one else there, dancing in the aisles. E. has always adored speculative fiction, especially paperback fantasy and science fiction. They loves a good ghost story and thinks every story becomes automatically better if you add tentacles. Overall, though, they just loves a story that is fun to read. E. is especially fond of writing and reading stories with geeky, queer people doing awesome and sexy things.
They grew up in the woods, farmlands and mountains of upstate New York and has spent most of their adult life trying to spend as much time as possible back there. They are the oldest of four and can often be found actively engaged in hijinks with their three other siblings. E.E. Ottoman has two degrees in history, another one in law, and one very spoiled princess cat. E. would like to be a history professor or maybe just a professional author one day, only time will tell.
When not writing, E. loves to cook and looking dapper in menswear. E. is an avid powerlifter and can often be found at the gym trying to hit a new max weight.
E. identifies as a queer, nonbinary, trans dude and is actively trying to change the world (and maybe the past) one novel and work of history at a time.
E.E. Ottoman’s pronouns are:
they/them/theirs
