I’ve got plenty of Guilty Pleasures.  TV shows that I watch which I know are mostly rubbish, like StarGate Atlantis (please don’t throw rocks at me StarGate fans) or violent / slasher horror movies which don’t have a single redeeming feature.

And then there’s book.  Now I already read plenty of TV tie-in stuff.  And the quality varies.  But I don’t really see that as a Guilty Pleasure.  When it comes to Doctor Who, for example, I’m sort of hard wired myself from an early age to read every Doctor Who novel + spin-offs.  And while friends have tried to cure me of this illness (though also using me as a lending library for the better books), I find myself still reading the next bunch of Torchwood novel (I’ve yet to read a good one, by the way, though Phil Ford’s and James Goss’ in the recent bunch both had moments).*

I count Guilty Pleasures to be those books I read out of choice, where said book has no connection to a franchise that I’m familiar with. 

Two days ago I picked up Sten, written by Chris Bunch and Allan Cole.  The first book (of a seven book series) was written in 1982, and according to the Wiki page was meant to be a critique of autocratic rule from the perspective of a working class stiff.  But really, Sten is about a bloke who grows up on a factory planer, growing more and more rebellious after his parents and 1,400 other people are ruthlessly killed by the guy running the factory planet.  It’s also about a guy who slaughters lots and lots of people in his aim to get revenge.

Trust me, if you’ve read any SF Military / Hero novels, then you’ve probably read Sten before.  Too be fair to the authors, Sten was likely one of the first of its type (though I’m sure any SF buffs here can correct me on that) and so all the cliches in the book (and there’s at least one every five pages) might have been an original take on the subject at the time.

All that said, I found myself really enjoying Sten.  After the drudgery that was the Daniel Abraham book, Sten was like this really light desert – maybe a lemon meringue.  It’s total fluff with characters about as deep as wallpaper.  But it also has a sense of humour and a blistering pace.  I read the 310 page book in a 36 hour period.  It’s got lots of actions, lots of blood, lots of ‘red shirts’ dying, and some interesting ideas on the friction between monarchy and corporate rule.

So, if you’re looking for a guilty pleasure, the sort of book where you can park your brain (and you need to park your brain, if you have it on the experience may not work) then Sten might be an option.

I’m not sure if I’ll read all 7 books.  I’ll certainly not read them all at once (becxause like eating too much desert I’ll probably gag part of the way through Book 4), and I suspect that I may get bored after Book 3 or 4.  But you never know.  As a guilty pleasure, something to read in between the next literary masterpiece, it’s a pretty cool choice.

But the question I’ve got is what’s your guilty pleasure?  Go on.  Embarras yourself.  (And if anyone answers with Proust or Tolstoy I’ll kick them in the goolies).

*That said, this year I’ve decided to cut down in that area.  I’ve still got a backlog of Doctor Who Short Trips anthologies, and other such things… but I’m not going to be avidly reading them like I once was.