Summer Cafe Blog Hop: Michelle Browne and Nicolas Wilson's Euphoria/Dysphoria

Hello hello!

I have a special post for you today--as you can see, there's an awesome blog cafe event going on, and I have included some very cool prizes. A necklace featuring the cover of Euphoria/Dysphoria and three ebooks, including Euphoria/Dysphoria, After the Garden, and The Underlighters, are all up for grabs.  You can participate in that below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

But that's not all. Since our feature is the romance in Euphoria/Dysphoria, Nicolas Wilson and I have a very...special...recipe for you this week. Let's just say that in a dystopia, sometimes you have to get a little creative with your meat sources. This one is abundant, local, and tastes great with garlic.

That's right! Tonight, we're cookin' with rat. Of course, you might want to substitute chicken, but that's up to you.

Roasted rat with garlic sauce (from The Food Network) 

Ingredients

1 (5 to 6-pound) roasting rat
Salt
2 heads garlic, cut in 1/2 crosswise
3 stalks lemongrass

3 stalks rosemary 

(optional: oregano, basil)
1/2 large Spanish onion, thickly sliced
4 carrots cut diagonally into 2-inch chunks
2 large gold potatoes, cut into 6 pieces
4 tablespoons butter or lard, melted

Optional: 

rice

vodka

2 cups water

Instructions: 

Salt rat inside and out and leave in ice box for two days. Preheat fire to medium heat (if you have an oven, 425 degree F will do nicely). Salt the rat again and stuff with rosemary and lemongrass, or similar herbs if you can't get those two.

Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the arms together, underneath. Place rat and chopped vegetables in a roasting pan. Scatter onions, carrots, and potatoes around rat. Brush the outside of the rat with lard or butter (if you can get butter).

Roast the rat for 1.5 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut between the thigh and leg. Remove the rat to a platter, cover with foil, and continue cooking veggies for 15 minutes. When the veggies are cooked, carve the rat and place slices on a platter, surrounded by the veggies. Drizzle some pan juices over the meat and veggies.

This makes a very good leftover stew, if your rat is large enough to last for more than one meal, and can be stretched by serving the whole thing with cassava or cornmeal. It can also be made into a soup to stretch for more meals. If vodka is available, you can also deglaze the roasting pan and make a sauce for further meals when food is scarce. Store the soup or sauce in a clean, airtight container, in a cold place if possible.

That's all for today! Enjoy your roasted rat, and whether you're on an Engineer or Poca floor, or down below in the lower levels...try not to starve to death. 

***

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Leave your comments, rebuttals, and vehement agreements below. Don't miss any of the phuquerie--get on the mailing list. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

Euphoria/Dysphoria

Now available on Amazon

Execution above or extinction below... 

“Please help me. I'm pregnant.” 
A chance encounter with a fugitive has turned Christine's life into a nightmare. 

Survival is hard enough in the poverty-stricken streets of the Lower Blocks, and this woman is far from the first to flee the Engineers who oversee the City. But now Christine's a target: hunted by the aristocracy, her future uncertain, and past laid bare. And a person with Christine's powers can't afford to be caught. 

Humanity built the Foundation to elevate themselves from the poisoned earth, but Christine and Ilsa must choose whether to descend to hell below, or remain in hell above. 

From post-apocalyptic authors Nicolas Wilson (Homeless), and Michelle Browne (The Underlighters) comes Euphoria/Dysphoria, a biopunk dystopia. 

Please note, Euphoria/Dysphoria contains a f/f romance, graphic violence, and some disturbing material. It is intended for mature readers.

Buy it here: 

Amazon

Missed It: Creature (2011) Review

Hello hello!

I was editing Cult Classics for the Modern Cult, and of course, I needed an appropriate sound-track. I kinda ignored Grabbers (2012), even though it deserved my attention, but I did pay heed to (2011). And oh, lordy, I'm glad I did.

From time to time, I will post a quick review of movies and books I either a) miraculously missed, or b) just discovered, and c) definitely think you should not miss. Or, sometimes, d) think you need to miss as hard as possible, because it is e) embarassingly mediocre or f) soul-scarringly, chew-your-own-nuts-off-to-escape awful.

Which category does Creature fall into? Well, you'll have to read on to find out. This review does contain

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS 

So if predictable horror movies are easily ruined for you by premature plot revelations, stop reading and run for Netflix right now. If not, then I present to you...Creature!


Creature (2011)

Summary

Oh, man, I knew I was in for a delightfully awful ride the minute I saw totally unnecessary tits. Of course, our  lady purveyor of comely flesh lasts all of five minutes until a big old gator makes her into lunch. Good thing, because that nasty-ass swamp looks like a petri dish for bacterial infections. We then cut to a bunch of Southern college kids in a van--complete with overacting, three couples, and all the cliches you could possibly hope for.The plot that follows is so simple I won't dignify it with too much attention--personal drama, horror teasing, and of course, mass murderation. So, let's talk about the good stuff.

Of course you can count on dense Cajun accents in this one. The dialogue, particularly when delivered in the accents, is hilarious. I know lots of Southerners. They are a colourful group. But you can always count on a B-movie to take local pizzazz and crank it up to 11. Drinking game for this movie: every time you hear a contraction, or just every time you can't understand what someone is saying, take a tiny sip of your drink. I apologize in advance for your liver failure.

Oh, and of course there's incest with disturbingly hot actors--no, you're not watching Game of Thrones, this is just a horror movie trope. I will say that scenes like what appears to have been a blow-up doll and one of the worst attack cuts I've ever seen--followed immediately by one of the sloppiest overacting yells I've ever heard--make this a chocolate-box assortment of pure joy. I hope you like bad CGI and really slow chases, because they abound. Also, really fake-looking blood. There's also a lot of tits, I have to say. It's still not Game of Thrones, though. The budget is the dead give-away. Also the presence of Not-Megan-Fox, Not-Taye-Diggs, Not-Channing-Tatum, Not-Kirstin-Dunst or Emma-Stone, and a couple more Nots to round out the van.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the red-head sometimes gets an Irish instead of a Southern accent at random times. Also, lesbian sex teasing and a girl getting sprayed in the face with snake blood at the end of the scene. And after that, there's basically a bit of an orgy. People have sex in the woods, or start to, and...I won't spoil it, but my eyebrows rose. Of course, that was interrupted by hunters looking fer the gator. The gator-monster sure is shy by monster-movies standards, though. The film focuses on shoddy gore and its shoddy actors rather than the beast. But when we do finally see it, it's as gloriously rubbery and fake as one could possibly hope for.

Source. Another favorable review.

Pros

It's goofy as phuque. That should be obvious. It kind of verges on self-awareness, and I think that works, in this case. I can't call it an original creature feature, but it's certainly overacted and very enjoyable. The lead actor's overacting--I can't be arsed to remember his name, but he had a purple shirt--is pretty great. The black guy--does he have a name? Do any of them have names?--takes over and actually makes a very appealing badass lead. The pacing is also surprisingly decent.

The sex and goofiness and 'scares' make this a possible candidate for a good date movie. And for once, the black guy doesn't die first! Add in surprisingly good cinematography, actors who are doing the most with a crap script, and pleasantly fake gore, and you have a really smooth ride, especially for a B-movie. I can't spoil the ending, but I loved it, even though it took the most inexcusable short-cut ever with something epic.

Cons

Well, it's not Citizen Kane, as mentioned. If you're clinically allergic to breasts, this might also be a poor choice, and it's certainly not 'family suitable' if you don't want your kids watching sexploitational horror. Honestly, even for a shlocky movie, parts of it verge on softcore porn. No, wait, they basically are softcore porn.

This movie definitely fails at being even a little bit feminist, but it's shlock horror--unfortunately, that's part and parcel of the genre. If you're squeamish, this one won't do you any favours, either. Also, the scene where the alligator eats a girl out in slow motion--or maybe just sniffs around--was exactly halfway between disgusting and hilarious.

Final Verdict

Definitely watchable. Definitely stupid. It's weirdly enjoyable and popcornalicious. Careful editing, and you could cut together a pretty good set of porn GIFs for Tumblr. As it stands, it's a solid 10 out of 10 and a valid contribution to any schlocky movie night or marathon.

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out!