Being broke is the worst thing for a reviewer. The worst. It's not because of the surviving on ramen noodles or the wearing of the same pants for ten days in a row; I am a pro at thriving under those conditions. No, it's the inability to purchase materials for reviewing, because the world turns, and as it turns sometimes books fall off of it.

I'm talking about things going out of print, of course. Back when I started this project, barely had I started amassing my now-sprawling collection of things to read when one Sarah Russell, author of such amazing tour-de-forces as The Angel in Hell, yanked her books from Lulu, making them no longer available to the general public. Why did she do this? I have no idea. Maybe they weren't making enough money to justify her keeping up the Lulu account; maybe, with a few years since publication under her belt, she decided to remove them to make way for newer, better things; maybe even Lulu discovered it had a quality threshold. I don't know.

But what I do know is that I was the saddest creature ever when I discovered this. I was the only Who in Whoville who did not get a replacement Christmas gift, that is how sad I was. Because how can I do a really thorough representative run through these things if they're disappearing before I can buy them? How will I ever know the true academic enlightenment of being A Real Expert if the things I'm supposed to be expert in disappear? It's like they never existed; only I and the ISBN database know the truth.

Now, in Russell's case, I was able to find someone out there in the world who had bought a copy of one of her books and was willing to part with it for the low low price of $5.95 plus my dignity, but that was still only one of them. I feel confident that I have a pretty decent grasp on Russell's place in the grand continuum of Phantom-inspired works from the sample of her writing I did get to peruse, but I don't know for certain. She could have been completely different in another work and I just wouldn't know. My Whoville sadness from this debacle has never truly healed, you see.

This has had the effect of causing me to buy things heinously out of order; whenever something comes out for a self-pubber instead of through official channels, I'm all OH SHIT GOTTA BUY THAT RIGHT NOW BEFORE THE AUTHOR DISAPPEARS IN A SWAMP ACCIDENT. It's a practice I have not been able to shake. You don't understand. THIS IS FOR LITERATURE.

This is all coming up today because I had finally scraped together enough dollars to go ahead and purchase the second Phantom-inspired book by one Angel Taormina, whom I believe I have discussed on this blog previously. She is a woman who clearly believes in herself even when everyone else is calling her a delusional nutjob so I was hoping I'd have some time, but lo, when I went to Amazon, there was the dreaded OUT OF STOCK tag. Worse, when I went to Labor of Love Publishing, Taormina's self-headed publishing outfit, its website was down.

I CANNOT GO THROUGH THIS HEARTBREAK AGAIN.

So while I'm busily rampaging around the internet trying to find Taormina and see if she's interested in some secondhand, obviously used-goods dignity that I found in the back of my closet of shame, I'm also offering said tatters to you people. The Phantom fan community, oddly enough, appears to enjoy reading my reviews; in the past, you guys have been absolute dolls, emailing me encouragment, being patient through my long working silences, and even sending me packages with various books for my perusal. I can't even name everyone who's done so, that's how many of you guys are made of excellence and cherries.

So, since there seems to be some support and since I don't want to have to cry into my beer for another couple of months while visions of amazing, perfect literary manifestos lost forever to the sands of time dance in my head, I'm adding that fancy donation button to the right-hand side of my website. WHAT, you say, YOU EVIL CAPITALIST SHILL! But hear out my stipulations:

1) Nobody ever EVER has to donate. Ever. I love you all exactly the way you are, even if you're Cheeto-dust-covered lurkers who hate my guts. If that donation meter stays at zero, I'll still be chugging along putting out reviews as often as I possibly can, just because I love doing it that much. (I'm not saying you can't buy my love. You can. But you don't have to.)
2) Any pennies that come from the donation button will go to buying Phantom Project stuff only. That means books, movies, scripts, soundtracks, games, or anything else that gets reviewed just for the Project. If I can't pay rent, well, me and my new shiny Phantom book will have to read in a bus station for a while, because these are earmarked pennies and they're going nowhere else.
3) You can now not only buy my love, you can buy my reviews. Not the grades - bad is bad is bad, and I think we all know that me trying to straight-facedly say that something bad is good or vice versa might cause a nuclear incident - but if you'd like to send me a note when you donate requesting a certain thing be reviewed next, I'll move it up to the front of the line. If I don't have it yet, I'll move it up to the front of the buying line. There are a lot of lines in my life.
4) Just in case anyone is concerned, there will never be ads here. Dude, I'd have to look at them, too. I do not have the patience or fortitude of mind to be assaulted by advertising on my own website, and I assume you guys don't, either.

So that's all there is to it, really. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go finish ranting at this vampire-filled book, buy ten bottles of something that can strip paint off my front porch, and then drink it while crying tears of regret and remorse over Taormina's missing book and fear of recrimination from the wildness of the internet.

Review when finished emerging from drunken stupor. Probably this week, but I make no promises.