Nerites, son of Neptune, spends his life traveling through time into many bathhouses across the world to have sex with as many patrons of these places as he can. He is obsessed with oral sex. There is many and frequent descriptive passages of sex in these places. The relationship between his stepbrother Obsidio, the son of Pluto, is incestuous. However, when Nerites discovers that Obsidio is the grave reaper, he sets out to end Obsidio's life. This book is not what I would usually read, but I found that I wanted to see where the book would take me.

Many thanks go to Tom Cardamone, Bold Strokes Books, and Netgalley for the free copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review. I honestly don’t know how I want to rate this book. It has some excellent aspects, but there were a few hiccups. It's very repetitive focusing on one specific sexual act, which I suppose makes this a fetish book? How does that work?The relationship between the brothers is just ghastly but necessary to make the book work. I like that Neptune is the main character's father. That's perfect for what's to follow. And the time travel is necessary or he'd run out of places to go. But honestly this book just made my jaws hurt.

Interesting take on immortals locked into sexual situations. Male-make relations...This book is for mature auditions only.

I knew going in that this was an erotic book. (No pun intended.) But I suppose I've been spoiled by a softer sort of erotica. This starts out with, "The hot tub was a frothy mix of foam flecked with minuscule bits of fecal matter, white ribbons of semen and filmy water. I basked in this heady broth of hunger and lassitude." That's the first two sentences, and it never pulls back from the grit and grime of the bathhouse sex scene.

The writing is very pretty and Nerites is a lot more introspective than you'd expect from a man cursed to suck cock for all eternity. (He doesn't seem to do anything else). And though it takes a good 1/3 of the book for anything resembling a plot to develop (just long enough to fear there isn't one and that the Fellatiolympics is the more noteworthy thing about the book), one does eventually. Not much of one mind you, but one does develop.

This feels like someone from an academic background trying to make porny incest, pedophilia, slave sex and debaucheries intellectual. Like we're supposed to read it as meaningful, instead of base and onanistic. And if you don't like it, well, you just must not be intellectual enough to look beyond its purposeful prurience and "get it." Sure, ok, whatever. I see it, but It's not really for me. Because even with the pretty writing and some hot scenes, 140 pages of blow jobs gets boring. I struggled to finish it.

In fact, I read 41% in one sitting, then went to bed. Having put it down, I really struggled to pick it up again, reading a chapter here, a chapter there and then forcing myself to push through and finish the sucker all at once. (Pun, again, intended.) My trouble came not with the amount of sex, number of faceless partners, frequency of orgies, the plot that just peeks out here and there, the incest, or the fact that modern ideals of age of consent don't matter to Greek immortals. My problem sits in that first sentence.

I know this is a personal preference kind of thing. I appreciate having the fantasy of at least minimally hygienic, consensual sex preserved (or not trampled on too badly). There were just too many times Nerites sucked a cock and tasted shit—rolled it around in his mouth and considered it, even—got peed on, was the recipient in Bukkake, reveled in smegma, was borderline raped (though he's always up for it), had sex on a corpse, etc. etc. etc. I know that for every thing that wrenched me out of what little story there was with a shudder, there's someone out there for whom that's a kink (and good for them), I just NOPED out on all of it in one book, after a while. I could have taken any individual thing, just not all of them all together. No doubt, that was partly Cardamone's intent, to push people's boundaries. But...

I appreciate the pretty writing. I read the afterward and appreciate how many books the author references (though he claims not to have done too much research, a statement contradicted by the those same recommendations). I liked Nerites as a character. And if I hadn't so often been squinked out, I might have liked the book. In the end, I'm sure it will find it's audience, it's just not me.

I requested this because I figured it'd be a fun different read. This is straight up erotica from the first page on. It is listed as erotica so I mean..

It is descriptive heavy in my opinion. I've never thought it was possible. Which take from what you are reading.

Within the first two lines of this book I knew it wasn't for me. I never got beyond the first chapter.

This is an odd one to review because on the one hand this is erotica with graphic sometimes disturbing (non-consensual but secretly loves it incestual) sex, on the other hand I'm pretty sure I can make the argument for this to be a book about the effect of HIV/AIDS on the gay community. I don't feel totally equipped to make that connection without knowing more about bathhouse culture than what has appeared in this and the Swimming Pool Library but the visuals of the main character being followed by his brother death who kills his lovers is more poignant than erotica maybe deserves. The ending is more uplifting than expected and can be read as modern gay culture rebuilding itself after the loss of the previous generation. If you can handle very graphic depictions of sex (specifically fellatio) that could also have deeper meaning pick this up. I'll be honest I started reading deeper meaning into the text as a way to get past all the not very consensual incest.

Thanks for sending me this book to review. I'm sorry I don't think I can do it justice really and that isn't meant as a value judgement in any way whatsoever.

Not my kind of dirty... I could only get through the first couple of chapters before all the blowing started to gross me out.

This review is NSFW

"The erotic is eternal. To touch is to forget your age or inexperience and simply commune."

My summary: After immortal demigod Nerites is cursed by his father Neptune to suck d*ck for all time, he helplessly follows the swirls and flushes of bathhouse drains, arriving in new eras and lands to please infinite men. After a timeless time, he realizes his half-brother Obsidio, son of the death god Pluto, is following him, leaving carnage in his wake as he weaponizes his possessive, black semen of doom.

Review: After glancing at the book cover alone, I thought I was going to dive into a queer mermaid tale a la Mermaid at Chelsea Creek. I didn’t realize this title is erotica—not romance, not erotic romance, but a straight up fever dream of hazy and primal lust. This book contains: incestuous demigods, poesy, meandering time travel, dubious consent, the word “fellatiolympics,” hallucinogenic phantasmagoria, underworld rivers of semen, and fecal matter. This book does not contain: a storyline, deep characterization, anything more than the faint resemblance of a plot. I recommend it enthusiastically to the open-minded reader.

Tom Cardomone takes us on a surreal, deep-conscious dream of unrestricted desire. Here is a person’s masturbatory brain, laid out on the page. Its atavism is presented in poetic prose that fires off literary synapses with its unexpected phrases such as “ouroboros of timeless semen” and “my impious mouth, needing to be filled, pummeled.”

The negative ratings and minimal attention The Lurid Sea has received makes the perfect point about how the m/m community pushes out actual gay writers and their stories. This book, whether it was intended to be or not, is a refutation to the heteronormative porn-inspired smut of m/m romance. So often I read sex scenes and feel utterly bored, as otherwise well-developed characters imitate the performative motions of real life sex workers. I don't want to see porn ever, not even in my own head when I’m reading romance or erotica. I don't want to see something stilted, scripted, unimaginative, exploitative, and heteronormative.
Tom Cardamone, in contrast, describes insane scenes of erotica, using imagery I've never thought of before, employing phrases that have never entered my head before. It's gay, literary ingenuity. It’s pure carnality that could only be described accurately with sophisticated prose. Cardamone comes from academia and his afterword is a long list of book recommendations, giving us an appreciated glimpse into his inspirations and influences.

The Lurid Sea comes from the bath house, AIDS era of gay America. It is in conversation with other texts, and won’t be appreciated by many readers. I've been thinking a lot about who this community makes room for, and it's often not writers like Tom Cardamone and his cohorts, even though they're the gay writers who first influenced me, spoke to me, touched my soul. These are the books I really want to read. The Lurid Sea was a great and bizarre antidote to so much of the strife going on in m/m right now. Open it up and be immediately sucked, bathhouse style, into someone else’s dream.

Unfortunately I couldn't get into this book, there appears to be no story in it at all so couldn't get past 10%

You know when you don't properly read a synopsis and are expecting a low level Greek mythology based romance ish novel. Not what I got, straight away you're slapped in the face with a penis, a well written penis at that. This author has described something in such a way that it makes you feel as though you are actually the male character in the scenario and I'm female so well done there! Not what I expected, but really enjoying the underlying story Iine amongst the sexual encounters!

What even is this book? It's erotic. It's Greek mythology. It's a fairy tale. It's poetry. This is not a book for your mom and her book club.

It's about the very base level of human desire.