Celestial Reviews 118 - Sept 18, 1996
Note: Every once in a while I get mild complaints that I have been
giving too many high ratings. I have been aware of this trend in
recent weeks; but I assure you that the problem is not that my ratings
are getting soft, but rather that I have been reviewing some very good
stories.
There are three authors for whom I’ve agreed to review all their
stories, with the agreement that they or someone else will repost the
stories on a.s.s. So each week I review a Michael K. Smith story,
another by Mary Anne Mohanraj, and a package of several stories from
the Trinity Trilogy. I’m willing to stick it to authors if they
deserve a low rating, but these stories are of invariably high quality.
That’s why I’m trying to help get them reposted!
Then every weekend I get a story from Mark Aster. Several other really
good authors have been sending me whatever they publish more
sporadically; but during any given week I am likely to find in my
mailbox stories by Ann Douglas, SueNH, the Ng Sisters, or Backrub - to
name just a few authors from recent issues. And if Delta or Dirty Dawg
ever send me another story, I’m not going to pass on those. In fact, I
have posted a couple of lengthy lists of authors whose stories I try to
read as soon as I get them. This list keeps growing, and these people
all write good stories.
So to break the trend, I occasionally go out and troll for stories by
authors I don’t know. So up pops Uncle Mike; and the bastard has
something like 45 excellent parodies that he keeps posting or reposting
- even though he’s allegedly been dead for years. Then a reader sends
me a story by this Alphabet guy from England or Britain or someplace
across the Pond; and I practically die laughing while my pussy oozes
fluids and I have to take a break to wake up my husband and relieve
myself.
So I figure I can read maybe 8-10 stories each issue, provided I watch
no television, and still have time to teach my classes properly, enjoy
volleyball and a few other sports, visit with my family, and fuck my
husband’s brains out. And as the quality of stories keeps improving, I
tend to share them with my husband, who thereafter tends to put
additional demands on my “free time.” {Sometimes I think the main
reason I favor monogamy is because I don’t have time for an affair,
because I’m reading all these damned stories.}
So there are 8-10 slots for stories in each issue. Four of them are
automatically gone to regular first-class writers each issue. Then I
pick up an average of another five or six stories every week, which
brings the total of excellent stories to six or seven per issue. And
as if that’s not bad enough, some of these perverts not only write good
stories, they write LONG good stories.
What’s a girl to do? To ease my conscience I troll a.s.s. again and look for
stories. Should I deliberately look for bad stories? I mean, do you really
need my advice to skip a story called “stiff hard dick.” I suppose I might be
missing something in “My fiancee's humiliation,” but that just sounds like
something I don’t need in my life. I guess I could give lower ratings if I
reviewed LAST WEEK OF SCHOOL (Part 1, M/f, severe paddling), but I tend to
look for titles a little more imaginative; and so I come up with things like
“The Better To...” by M. M. Twassel. And so I find yet another author that I
want to check out more regularly. It turns out that people who show a little
ingenuity in their titles attract my attention, and those same authors tend to
write better stories.
For those of you who care, the worst story I read recently was “Catherine” by
an author whose name I won’t mention. It was a mindless bit of transgender
magic that earned scores of 9, 1, 1 back in CR 111. Maybe that will convince
you that I’m not a complete pushover.
Seriously, I’m not really complaining. This is my kind of problem! I
have too many good stories to review!
The genuine concern, of course, is that if you have time to read only a
few stories each week, it’s difficult to use my ratings to make those
choices, if I’m rating all the stories between 8 and 10 in all the
categories. I guess that could be a problem, but the stories deserve
the ratings they’ve been getting. If you choose a story with a high
rating, you’ll have a good story to read. As the song says: “It’s like
a car that’s too fast or sex that’s too good. There ain’t no such
thing as having too many good stories.”
Second note: I received an e-mail ad from a Psychic Line this morning.
My question is this: if those people were really psychics, wouldn’t
they have known that I would throw the mail away as soon as I received
it? I haven’t paid attention to a psychic since about 20 years ago,
when my horoscope told me that if I ever listened to another psychic I
would lose all my sex appeal.
Just one further digression - last week (on Friday the 13th, in fact) I
received a message with a good-luck totem that said it had been “around
the world 4 times.” What does this mean in cyberspace? I didn’t pass
it on, of course, because I didn’t know which direction to send it.
- Celeste
“The Other Woman” by Mary Anne Mohanraj (infidelity)
10, 8, 9
“Charlie” by Mary Anne Mohanraj (infidelity & quickie)
10, 10, 10
“Bean City” by Mark (bdsm) 10, 10, 10
“Home Again” by Ann Douglas (romance) 10, 10, 10
“Stars in Our Eyes” by Mark Aster (romantic outdoor
voyeurism) 10, 10, 10
“First Hand Research” by RC (mind control) 10, 8, 8
“Secretary Love” by Fin Haddie (office romance) 10, 9, 9
“Pansy Pond” by (forced feminization & bdsm) 9.5, 9, 9
“Rene and Georgette” by Margaret Grace (romance)
10, 10, 10
“The Other Woman” by Mary Anne Mohanraj (moh2@midway.uchicago.edu).
Both this and the next story are extremely short; so you get two for
the price of one this week. This one is a message from a mistress to
her lover, who is married to someone else. It’s really sort of Dear
Abby in a short story - with emotions instead of the cool reasoning of
the Mistress of Advice to the Lovelorn. There’s nothing really wrong
with this story; it’s just brief and not really a full story in the
same way that most of the others are that I review.
Ratings for “The Other Woman”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9
“Charlie” by Mary Anne Mohanraj (moh2@midway.uchicago.edu). This story
is about the same length as the last one; but there’s more of a story
to it. A woman gets her husband out of the house just barely in time
to have a frantic quickie with her lover in the kitchen. Wham, bam,
the microwave timer goes off, thank you ma’am and he’s out the door and
she’s off to work. The style of the story nicely parallels the frantic
pace and emotions of the lovemaking session.
Ratings for “Charlie”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
“Bean City” by Mark (MarkB@aboy.demon.co.uk). The narrator of this
story is a gent who is thirty-five friggin' years old and who spots a
classy lady with a mane of hair as black as scandal and skin so clear
and white you could show a movie on it in a bar in Boston. They hit it
off, and she takes him to her plush hotel room. It turns out she’s
into humiliation or dominance or some such thing. He’d rather they
just have a bit of fun while fucking their mutual brains out. You can
read the story to discover how they work things out.
Ratings for “Bean City”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
“Home Again” by Ann Douglas (annd55@nyc.pipeline.com). A.C. has come
home to visit his childhood haunts, and he meets Mary Austin, the 45-
year-old mother with a still great body who is the mother of Josh, one
of A.C. closest childhood friends. We eventually discover that she was
also the target of some of A.C.’s adolescent masturbation fantasies.
This author takes her time developing a plot. The first 2 parts (of 7)
are not exactly devoid of sex; we do learn that A.C. used to date Jenny
Wilson with whom he traded cherries on prom night and whose sister was
nicknamed Kleenex Karen because of her proclivity to fill the partial
vacuum in her bra with that product, and also that Josh’s sister Dawn
Marie had fucked the whole football team before moving out of the
family domicile right after her 18th birthday. The author also lays a
basis for future sexual possibilities by letting us know that Mr.
Austin is deceased and that during his adolescence A.C. had once seen
Mrs. Austin naked and by arranging for A.C. to stay overnight while he
waits for Josh to come home in the morning. But in general A.C. and
Mary just have dinner and engage in interesting conversation.
So the author spends nearly 4 out of 7 parts with nothing more than
innuendo and build-up; but when the sex comes it’s both tender and hot.
I love this kind of story. Read it yourself for the details.
I secretly wish that Ann Douglas would get somebody to proofread her
stories. She develops wonderful plots that give full personalities to
people having hot sex, and then she makes annoying mistakes that keep
me from giving her perfect ratings; and then I often have to decide
whether to let a imperfect story onto my Top 15 list for the month. I
mean, surely Ann knows the difference between a dinner and a diner and
between celibate and celebrate. The problem is that Ann knows what the
words are supposed to be, and so she probably skips right past them;
and this is just the sort of mistake that a spellcheck doesn’t pick up.
The solution is to have one intelligent person go through the story
before it gets posted. Let this be a lesson to you.
Finally, a word of advice. It’s nice to shower together before anal
intercourse, but the shower removes the natural lubricants from both
bodies; and so the penis is likely to be even drier than usual. The
problem of dry skin is compounded by the fact that a person’s anal
canal does not produce natural lubrications for sexual intercourse, as
the vagina would. Using Vaseline to solve this problem is not a great
idea, because that product tends to seal off the body’s natural
lubricants, when they do begin to flow. My own experience is that
saliva is a better idea than Vaseline at both the front and back door.
By far the best solution is a lubricant specifically designed for this
purpose, such as K-Y jelly. I guess this gives away part of the plot,
doesn’t it?
Ratings for “Home Again”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
“Stars in Our Eyes” by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com). As you may
recall, last week Mark Aster’s “Coffee?” was the 1000th story I
reviewed. His prize was 31 days of sexual bliss with the partner(s) of
his choice. This week he notified me that he will be “on hiatus,”
unable to post stories for several weeks. Coincidence? I think not!
In this week’s episode Our Hero and the lovely and delectable Julie are
reclining together at a mountain campsite, looking at the stars and
listening in the dark while Ariana and Rachel make love nearby. Ariana
is describing her first sexual experience with a woman. Rachel is
working her over even while she narrates this story, and as Ariana’s
story and Rachel’s ministrations continue, the present events begin to
impinge upon the narrative of the past. Meanwhile, Our Hero and Julie
are exchanging quiet intimacies nearby. It’s a restful, passionate
sequence of events.
Several weeks ago I suggested that a different author “go check out
Mark Aster’s stories” to learn how to make better word choices. That
author’s problem, I thought, was that he/she used too many
stereotypical adjectives. My suggestion was that Mark Aster
consistently refrained from using stereotypical adjectives and often
employed well-chosen metaphors in his stories. Last week I reviewed a
very good story by yet another author (M. M. Twassel); and when I
checked his Author Profile on Deja News, I discovered that he had
written a commentary on my advice regarding Mark Aster. This other
author (who also admired Mark Aster’s stories) had done a thorough
analysis of Aster’s stories, and had discovered that Mark did not use
many adjectives at all. Nor did he find an abundance of metaphors.
Being busy, I set this information aside until I read this week’s
story. As I read this story, I looked for adjectives and metaphors. I
was distracted by the fact that the story was extremely erotic and that
I myself have had some great experiences at campsites under the stars;
but I think I verified my opinion of this author’s style - even though
I must also admit that my critic was correct.
The word “cock” does not appear in this story, and so we don’t get to
find out whether it was hard, throbbing, or erstwhile. (I just wanted
to see if that last word was in my spellcheck.) The story was also
free of “pussy”, “cunt”, and “clit”. At this point I was beginning to
wonder if this was actually a sex story.
Here are some things the author does say: “I touched Julie's neck, and
my hand imagined the warm compact sweetness of her vulva.” “Julie took
my hand in hers and rubbed it over the downy skin of her stomach as we
lay listening.” “The warm womanness of her filled my palm, and she
pressed against my hand.” “Julie opened her mouth and wriggled her hips
as I slid one finger into the moist heat of her vagina.”
One of the main points of my original comment was to discourage
unnecessary, stereotypical use of adjectives like “hot,” “throbbing”
and “wet.” The few sentences I have cited here demonstrate that. If
he doesn’t need an adjective, this author doesn’t use one. In
addition, he selects words (adjectives or otherwise) that precisely say
what he wants them to say.
As for metaphors, here’s a simple one: “Rachel's head was between
Ariana's legs, and her tongue made soft sounds as it moved in and out,
and Rachel's fingers danced a dance of love.” All I mean is that
fingers don’t really dance, but the image of dancing fingers conjures
up an almost poetic image that gets the author’s point across very
nicely.
To be honest, when I recommended this author’s prose to the other
author, what went through my mind was something like this: “Mark
Aster’s such a damned good writer. Surely he must use adjectives and
metaphors correctly. I think I’ll recommend him for this purpose.” As
I have examined this present story more carefully, I think I was on the
right track. To state it more precisely, I think this author’s main
strength is his intelligent choice of words and straightforward
description of situations and activities that beautifully convey the
mood that he wants to share with us.
Having tried to wiggle off that hook (note my metaphor), let me suggest
another author for aspiring writers to imitate: Mary Anne Mohanraj. I
find her to be very similar to Aster with regard to choice of words and
almost poetic expression of ideas; but she’s a lot more diverse in the
types of stories she’s likely to write.
Ratings for “Stars in Our Eyes”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
“First Hand Research” by RC (74734.271@CompuServe.COM). Wonder no
more! This is even better than knowing the secret handshake of the
Grand Knights of the Ozarks. What do women have to do to join a really
exclusive sorority? Ans: They have to bring back a specimen jar filled
with semen and signed by the single donor responsible for its contents.
The narrator of this story is a mere freshman, sans boyfriend, and she
has only two days to fill the specimen jar. Not to worry; her roommate
is a psych major. As we all know, psych majors are heavily into
hypnosis. {At least most psych teachers are so boring that somebody
seems to be into hypnosis.}
They solicit Jim, the cute guy down the hall, and hypnotize him.
Incredibly enough, under hypnosis, when an attractive woman disrobes in
front of him, a bulge appears in his pants! Imagine that. Well,
that’s not quite what happens; but it’s close. She gets her specimen
and makes it into the sorority a day early; but there are side effects.
Wouldn’t it be neat to live in a world where anybody who could read
could go to the library and learn how to take complete control of other
people’s minds? I guess the main problem would be that the people who
knew this secret would have major incentives to keep children from
learning how to read. Maybe society could be more successful at that
goal than at its current educational objectives.
Ratings for “First Hand Research”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8
“Secretary Love” by Fin Haddie (sgoodman@primenet.com). The guy shares
an office and secretary with his father. The guy and secretary engage
in sexually suggestive banter, but nothing comes of it until he moves
away and returns for a subsequent visit. The sexual activity is
vividly described and hot. The most interesting part is that the
author describes the same relationship from the perspective of the guy
(part 1) and the woman (part 2). I recommend reading both parts.
Ratings for “Secretary Love”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9
“Pansy Pond” by Timothy Reisling Betticut. “Only God made more women
than Tim Mitty.” But that was before Tim had been assigned to
infiltrate Pansy Pond. The department needed a secure undercover cop to
find out what vile sorts of perversion went on at this institution that
apparently used computer technology, powerful medications, and behavior
modification techniques to manipulate the sexuality of the “clients”
who came there. He was their man. Or - to use verb tense more
accurately - he had been their main. Now he has become their woman.
The premise is barely stated and then the reader is plunged immediately
into the workings of Pansy Pond, with Tim (whose female name is
Teather) being subjected to medication and shock treatment to turn him
into a fitting partner for Derk, who is his police department
connection to the outside world. It’s not initially clear why Tim is
being trained as a female, since the cover story is that he and Derk
are a homosexual couple. Nor is it clear how Tim is supposed to cope
with the managers of Pansy Pond, who seem to know all of his thoughts
and therefore should easily be able to discover that he is a spy.
Apparently Tim dislikes the process, but listening devices connected to
his body make it necessary for him to appear to like it. Some of this
is actually pretty complex, non-sexy stuff; and a reader has to be
pretty determined to stick with it. Nevertheless, the story holds a
certain fascination.
There’s a second story that runs concurrently with the first. Pansy
Pond also does marriage counseling . Lance and Randi are bound not only
be wedding vows, but also by an iron clad agreement that demands they
take every effort to save their marriage should it fall on hard times;
and Lance has had many very hard times, during which his hardness has
penetrated at least five ladies that Randi (a world class model) knows
about. Lance needs to make a final effort to learn to be a good boy,
or it’s bye-bye to all Randi’s money. The Pansy Pond plan is to
temporarily reverse his male and female hormonal balance while
challenging him in a heavily dependent girlish role.
I found two problems with this story. First, the sentence structure
was often more complex than I could enjoy. This was compounded by
occasional grammatical glitches - missing quotation marks, dangling
modifiers, and problems with verb tense. If the author is hitting me
with unusual, complex ideas, then I need simple, straightforward
sentences that convey these ideas to me. The combination of complex
ideas and complex sentences occasionally pushed me to the point of
losing interest. Second, as I suggested before, the story line itself
is very complex. Every once in a while I would say to myself, “Oh! So
that’s why they did that!” This “aha!” experience can be very
enjoyable; but sometimes I found myself wishing I had know the
information a lot earlier.
Part of my second problem is that I personally do not automatically buy
into the notion that people are likely to become delightfully happy and
effective sex partners through the processes of torture and
humiliation. A person who already buys into this rationale might enjoy
this story more than I did - largely because that reader would not have
to simultaneously deal with (1) complex sentence structures, (2) a
complex plot structure, and (3) a rationale that did not make intuitive
sense. I CAN be induced to enjoy stories in which humiliation and
enforced feminization play important roles; but only if the story does
something to enable those activities to make sense in a particular
context. The stories of Estragon and Vickie Tern offer good examples
of presenting similar activities in a context that is likely to appeal
to both insiders and outsiders.
In spite of what I have said in the preceding paragraphs, I think this
is a pretty good story. I personally did not find the sexual scenes to
be extremely sensuous - there was too much attention to fetishes and
bdsm techniques that I simply don’t understand or care about; but the
story was creative. I was left with the overall impression that “this
whole thing is so crazy, it just might work!”
Ratings for “Pansy Pond”
Athena (technical quality): 9.5
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9
“Rene and Georgette” by Margaret Grace (mgrace@88net.net). The man and
woman have returned from dinner and theater to their plush hotel room.
Ages are not given; but they have been together long enough to have
become bored with their regular sex routine. Not much of a clue about
age, is it? She’s expecting another night of mundane, emotionless sex;
but she instead finds an incredible tenderness on his part and a
deliberate attention to her needs. The lovemaking becomes extremely
romantic.
This story’s sexual activities in themselves are by no means
uninteresting; but they are considerably enhanced by the sensitive
context in which this author inserts them.
Ratings for “Rene and Georgette”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10