Joseph Baneth Allen

I think I need to start this with the table of content: Highland Sleeper by Jeff Mann, No Mincing Words by Rob Rosen, Elsewhen by ’Nathan Burgoine, Mount Olympus by Jeffrey Ricker, Reunion on the Rails by Hank Edwards, The Blue Train by Erastes, The Train Home by Rick R. Reed, Royal Service by Dale Chase, Resist Me, Please! By Daniel M. Jaffe, Engine of Repression by Gavin Atlas, One Night on the Twentieth Century by Jay Neal, Shadow Mapping by J.D. Barton, Geronimo’s Laughter by Joseph Baneth Allen, The Roundhouse Men by Dusty Taylor, The Last Train by William Holden. Why? Because aside for very few names I didn’t know about, this is a collection of la crème de la crème in Gay Fiction. All these authors are bestsellers on their own, and having them all together in one anthology is a treat that make me forget for a moment that anthologies are usually not my cup of tea. It’s also a compliment to the editor, Jerry L. Wheeler, because I think it hadn’t to be simple to put them all together, maintaining by the way the feeling of uniqueness of the collection, all the stories work together for the same target.

Like the majority of these anthologies, Riding the Rails falls into the Erotica category, but I was quite surprise to find out that indeed this is also a Romance collection; some of the stories in it are not even about sex ( see ’Nathan Burgoine’s one), and almost all of them are about love story with an happy ending. Sure there is a bittersweet aftertaste all along the anthology, something that, truth be told, I have always found when reading stories related to trains… there has to be some deep connection between the two things, or maybe the train itself is a metaphor for something you wish but cannot catch. In any case, aside for maybe one or two exceptions (Rick R. Reed and Jay Neal probably), the romance reader will have plenty of happily ever after to enjoy, some of them a little kinky (Jeff Mann), some of them sweet (’Nathan Burgoine) and some of them funny (Daniel M. Jaffe)… to everyone their own.

A collective compliment to all authors go for the high quality of the stories, more little novel than short stories; different in genre, from historical, to sci-fi, to steampunk, but all of them way more than the average you usually are expecting to find in a collection; here the authors sent their best production, not what they had laying around in a forgotten folder.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1602825866/?tag=elimyrevandra-20… (mer)