{"id":397,"date":"2015-11-09T20:46:15","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T20:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cookywook.co.uk\/blog\/?p=397"},"modified":"2017-03-26T21:55:38","modified_gmt":"2017-03-26T20:55:38","slug":"chuck-tingle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cookywook.co.uk\/blog\/chuck-tingle\/","title":{"rendered":"The erotic adventures of Amazon ebooks (feat. Chuck Tingle)"},"content":{"rendered":"

So a while ago, I wrote about the ‘novels’ of Hunter Fox<\/a>. Turns out, this was to be my most popular blog post.<\/p>\n

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Yup, right up there above my\u00a0Home Page<\/strong>. A lot of the views came from the \/r\/fantasy<\/a>\u00a0subreddit too. I can only hope they found what they were looking for.<\/p>\n

But anyway, this was only the tip of the iceberg. There’s a whole awful rabbit hole of weird stuff out there. So let’s just get right to it.<\/p>\n

Today, I’d like to focus on\u00a0Chuck Tingler<\/strong>. That can’t be his real name. It’s probably not even one person. Follow him on Twitter here<\/a>. Check out that bio:<\/p>\n

Erotic author and Tae Kwon Do grandmaster. PhD from DeVry University in holistic massage. Inventor of the Tingler<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Seems legit. His website also makes a pretty bold claim about himself:<\/p>\n

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Now, I’m not saying that Chuck Tingle isn’t<\/i> the greatest author of our generation. But I wouldn’t really expect the greatest author of our generation to come out with books such as these:<\/p>\n

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Yes. That last one is actually called\u00a0Angry Man Pounded By The Fear Of His Latent Gayness Over A Dinosaur Transitioning Into A Unicorn<\/strong>. And to me that’s what makes Chuck Tingle unique. (Well, aside from everything about this). He’s kind of semi-aware of what’s going on and takes things further than you might expect. I guess the gay surreal erotica market is a competitive one, and being hyper weird\u00a0is his USP – which is fair enough.<\/p>\n

Some of his books references contemporary events such as these:<\/p>\n

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(that latter one came out during the events of #DressGate)<\/p>\n

And things take a meta turn here,\u00a0in which he’s seduced by his own book!<\/p>\n

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Like seriously, give this guy every prize going in literature. Man Booker Prize<\/em>? Yup. Richard and Judy book club<\/em>? Of course.\u00a0The Nobel Prize for Literature?<\/em> Absolutely. Hell, even throw in the Nobel Peace Prize while you’re at it. Chuck’s earned it.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately I haven’t been brave enough to actually buy or read any of these ‘Tinglers’ – and besides, my Amazon recommendations are still recovering\u00a0from the last time. But I get the idea that they’re more or less the same lines as the Hunter Fox novel I read.<\/p>\n

The LookInside sample of\u00a0Vampire Night Bus Pounds My Butt<\/a>\u00a0has this nugget:<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s\u00a0Vlad?\u201d\u00a0 I\u00a0ask,\u00a0playing\u00a0along.
\n\u201cBus\u00a0thirteen.\u201d\u00a0 The\u00a0man\u00a0replies,\u00a0staring\u00a0at\u00a0me\u00a0with\u00a0a\u00a0deep\u00a0and\u00a0feverish\u00a0intensity.
\n\u201cVlad\u00a0drives\u00a0thirteen?\u201d\u00a0 I\u00a0question.
\n\u201cNo,\u00a0no.\u201d\u00a0 The\u00a0man\u00a0shakes\u00a0his\u00a0head. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cVlad\u00a0is\u00a0bus\u00a0thirteen.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not to criticise the writing too much, but it reads as it it was simply written all at once and then published, with no redrafting or editing stages in between. (Like this blog!)<\/p>\n

You\u00a0can\u00a0also buy boxsets of Tingle’s books, such as\u00a0Chuck’s Living Object Tinglers<\/strong> and\u00a0Chuck Tingle Presents: Scary Stories To Tingle Your Butt (7 Tales of Gay Terror).<\/strong><\/p>\n

But what else is out there? Well, lots! If you follow the links through the Related Authors on Chuck’s page you end up finding all kinds of stuff. But it’s not always clear where the obviously-fake weird stuff ends and the genuine niche fetishy stuff begins.<\/p>\n

One author I found, for example,\u00a0Lacey Noonan<\/strong>\u00a0had this to share:<\/p>\n

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Obviously I thought\u00a0gronking\u00a0<\/strong>was some weird made-up word. But it’s a reference to the New Englands Patriot\u00a0Rob Gronkowski\u00a0<\/strong>and his tendency to chuck a ball down hard after scoring whatever the American equivalent of a try is. So this is just like standard celebrity fantasy stuff I guess.<\/p>\n

FUN FACT: The couple depicted on the cover for\u00a0A Gronking To Remember<\/strong> there sued the author<\/a>\u00a0for using their image in such a weird way. Hahhaha. That actually happened.<\/p>\n

You can however still buy the book, and\u00a0A Gronking to Remember 2: Chad Goes Deep in the Neutral Zone<\/a>\u00a0– which also features said couple.<\/p>\n

So that’s about all I’ve got. I strongly recommend making your way through this murky Amazon hole yourself. You’ll have a whale of a time.<\/p>\n

(ps.\u00a0A Whale of A Time<\/strong> is going to be my own debut novel in this category. Watch this space).<\/p>\n

Further reading:<\/p>\n