Gothica: Romance of the Immortals

Gothica: Romance of the Immortals
by Steven R. Cowan
Southern Charm Press
ISBN: 0-9702190-5-9

Gothica is Steven Cowan's debut novel, and a strong start from a new writer. Inspired by contemporary vampire literature and roleplaying games, Gothica, an erotic dark fantasy, follows divorcing and unsuccessful writer Calvin "TImetravellar" McLeish's introduction to chat rooms and cybersex, and his growing entanglement in a centuries-old tragedy involving vampire Monique "Vampyra" DuBois and his own Internet alter-ego.

As Calvin flirts with Vampyra in the chat room Gothica, the Timetravellar personality he has assumed possesses him, that of the poetic "Highlander"-inspired Scottish immortal Conner McLeod. Calvin finds himself addicted to the Internet, engaging in cybersex as himself during the day and romancing the aristocratic Vampyra as McLeod at night. Even his dreams become haunted by McLeod, as he lives McLeod's heroic past.

Meanwhile, Vampyra is intrigued by this romantic stranger, and when her evil master Emilien Lazare shows up concerned that Timetravellar is a threat to him, she must decide whether or not to finally defy the man who'd sexually enslaved and vampirized her centuries ago.

When Vampyra mysteriously vanishes from Gothica, Calvin discovers with mixed feelings that his poetic McLeod-self is dying, and that he himself falls sadly short of McLeod's skill with words and romance. Eventually he is faced with the choice of whether or not to survive as himself, or to obliterate himself and let McLeod take over to win Vampyra.

Cowan's central plot moves along strongly despite an awkward and poorly resolved subplot involving police investigations into Vampyra's killings in Ottawa. His description of chat-room relationships rings true, describing all of the overwrought emotion and ego-involvement such interactions in cyberspace so often carry. The description of Calvin's deteriorating offline life will be familiar to anyone who has experienced or seen Internet addiction, and the romantic/erotic interludes nicely capture the overwritten style of the genre. The plot stumbles slightly at the end, however, when Cowan introduces sorcerous time travel and suggests that the future will go awry as a result of the McLeod alter-ego's appearance in Calvin's life. There seems no reason, especially, to introduce a brand-new half-fairy character in the second-to-last chapter of the novel. The timetravel sequence is weaker than the rest of the novel, as though it were halfheartedly tacked on to resolve some personal need of the author's rather than of the story's. This isn't a fatal flaw, but one sets the book down feeling that Cowan was uncertain about what type of novel Gothica was intended to be -- erotic dark fantasy, police thriller, or high fantasy? Although there's nothing wrong with mixing genres, there's a limit to how much can be done within such a relatively short book.

Despite these rough spots, Gothica will appeal to vampire erotica afficionados who enjoy Anne Rice novels and the moody roleplaying game Vampire: The Masquerade. The chatroom setting is unusual and Calvin's sense of an Internet alter-ego overwhelming his own personality will be eerily familiar to many who have participated in online chat or roleplay. Definitely worth a look.

Gothica is erotica, and like most erotica, it bears little resemblence to actual sex. In the world of erotica, nobody ever has bad breath or body odor, there's no such thing as women with armpit or leg hair, men never have erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation and women need never worry about pregnancy or bladder infections. Both men and women are primarily interested in sex, and the normal trials of real life never come between a person and an opportunity for sex. Of course, much of this is made more realistic by the fact that many of the sexual encounters occur in a roleplaying context online, where one is free to be as good-looking and sexually potent as one desires. It's nice that when Calvin finally flies out to meet a lover face-to-face, he does have a few doubts about his own and his as-yet-unseen lover's looks and sexual compatibility.

Gothica is also romantic fantasy, and despite the advances mainstream the romance genre has made in terms of gender equality and strong female characterization, there is still a tendency in the genre to feature women as characters victimized and rescued by men, rather than capable of standing up for themselves. Fantasy is in much the same boat; despite many outstanding examples of strong female characters in fantasy, much of it still features powerful male characters as villains and as rescuers. Thus, it isn't terribly surprising to find that Gothica features a man as the evil sexual and vampiric predator, and a man as the noble romantic hero, with women caught in between.

The two primary female characters are Monique "Vampyra" DuBois, a real-life vampire, and Cathryn "Panthera" Meeks, married with children. The protagonist, Calvin, has cybersex with both of them, and ends up travelling across the country to have a real-life weekend encounter with Cathryn, who manages to have husband and children out of the house for it. (One has to wonder how a man who has been sitting in front of the computer for weeks, unemployed, drinking booze, and obsessing over cybersex can still manage to be in "excellent condition," without "an ounce of fat" and still maintaining a "washboard stomach," but that's probably an erotica convention again.) Both women are strong characters, but in the end it's Panthera who, despite her questionable promiscuity, emerges as the stronger-willed and more interesting personality. She's willing to flout convention for her lover both on- and offline, and nothing impresses her. Vampyra, on the other hand, is both more manipulative of the men in her life and more manipulated by them. Although she seems to be powerful at first glance, in the end she's sexually subservient to her old master Emilien Lazare and must rely on her new lover Conner McLeod to save her from him. Sadly, it's Vampyra who is the focal character, rather than Panthera. Vampyra's weaknesses permit Calvin/McLeod to emerge as the protective hero, whereas Panthera's strength would have made Calvin/McLeod an equal at best.

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