Book review: City of Dreams

City of Dreams by Brian Tarsis is a stand-alone graphic novel:  a BDSM fantasy/fairy tale. When it arrived I told myself I wouldn't read more than the first few pages before doing my writing for the day, but as you can guess ... Yes, once again I failed my Will Save.
(I have a very low Wisdom; that's my excuse.)

Taris both writes and illustrates. His careful linework is clear and clean; sometimes spare and sometimes lushly detailed, as befits a fairy tale like this.

The plot is pretty slight: virginal Christine dreams herself in a fantasy realm every night, where she is woken from her enchanted sleep (rather vigorously!) and initiated into the glorious mysteries of submission by a handsome prince. It turns out he has a real-world counterpart too, and that guy turns up and takes her off to meet his mom for a good whipping. The storyline zigzags back and forth between real life and the dreamland, until finally everyone escapes happily ever after through a magic mirror into the land of healthy, filthy fun. 

In fact the novel is a really good introduction to the various tropes and practices of BDSM fantasy. And more than anything, City of Dreams bears a huge resemblence in terms of tone and incident to Anne Rice/Roquelaure's Beauty books: sparkly, well-scrubbed, pretty people doing naughty things without any emotional backlash, and falling in love through it. Oh yeah - and Pony Boys :-)

There's no darkness in this BDSM, despite the eyewatering things our heroine is subjected to. The only thing that stops it being almost respectable is the gleeful depiction of all those cocks and pussies at work.

I especially liked the Penisfish. ("Oh no! Please don't send us to the penisfish tank, mistress!")

So - if you're visually oriented like me, and love comics and BDSM and fantasy settings, this is a hot read and great fun. It's eyecandy only, but I think we all need more eyecandy like this.