Celestial Reviews 236 - November 22, 1997
Note: Sorry this is late. I had a cold the last few days; but thanks
to the guest reviewers, you get a full issue anyway!
Final note: Remember: even though someone else may be posting my reviews
for me, my e-mail address is still Celeste801@aol.com.
- Celeste
"Julie's Itch" by Unknown Author (anal sex) 7, 7, 7
Guest Reviews:
"Purchasing Yumi" by Scooter Liebowitz (purchasing a girlfriend)
"Curse of Love" by H.D. Meister (ghostly sex) 9, 9, 9
"Pussy Cats" by Candy Kane (ff cheerleader sex) 9.5, 8, 9
"Cabin Fever" by LM 1 (blowjob & romance) 7, 8, 8
"Spelunkers" by Day Dreamer (incest) 9, 10, 10
"After Hours" by Unknown Author (non-consensual ff sex)
8, 7.5, 8
"Star Trek (TNG) Shadows" by Dimitri (sci fi sex) 10, 10, 10
"Julie's Itch" by Unknown Author. Julie is a 15-year-old Catholic
schoolgirl, a 5'8" brunette with small perky breasts, a tight little ass
and a sexual appetite that never seems to stop and with a tingling in
her bum. We know nothing about the guy. He may be Julie's boyfriend, the
local rugby star, her little brother, her father, or the parish priest;
but he fucks her in the ass and then in her mouth, and she loves every
minute of it, while she talks dirty.
Ratings for "Julie's Itch"
Athena (technical quality): 7
Venus (plot & character): 7
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7
"Purchasing Yumi" by Scooter Liebowitz (scooterLie@aol.com). Guest
review by Jake Stonebender.
I always get the weird stuff....
This story is about a "overweight, slightly balding widower in his mid
40's" who buys a Japanese girl from a door-to-door salesman.
Well, not quite... but you get the idea.
His friend Ky, "pronounced Key", contacts a slightly shady, underworld
looking guy named Hu, who brings over a selection of Orientals (can we
still call them that?) for him to choose from.
> Ky and I sat at the dining room table playing Gin while waiting
> for the delivery. It was about 8:20 p.m. on a Friday night, and
> "they" were overdue.
As you can see, the writing style isn't bad, but as one of Celeste's
proofreaders as well, I think this story could have benefited from my
other talent first.
> I met Ky, a Cambodian who escaped the Kamir Rouge in the 70's in
I believe that's spelled "Khmer"... and that's the level of technical
writing the story lives up to. The _writing_ it self actually isn't
half bad, but the word choice leaves something to be desired. Now that
I'm done totally destroying this writer's self-image, let me say that
the story's not half bad. It's warm, and witty, and fuzzy in all the
right places, and wouldn't make a half bad short. It's more of a
character study, there's little conflict, but the sex is decently
written... although I'm writing this review from work, and had to
content myself with a mild erection.
Overall, not a bad first; certainly better than I could write, and I
hope both to see more from Scooter, and that he's not a one trick pony.
"Curse of Love" by H.D. Meister (dez187lm@hotmail.com). Guest review by
Kim.
Hey, a ghost love story. Sounds good to me...
The tale begins with the arrival of the dark and sexy Kedra to room 330
of Flynn Hall, her new residence while at college. On arrival she is met
by Jackie the resident assistant.
Jackie warns her against falling asleep in her room as it's cursed.
Apparently four years earlier a man had killed himself there when he was
spurned by his promiscuous lover.
Naturally Kedra ignores this sound advice and promptly goes to bed and
to sleep. Her dreams are filled with a cloud of swirling, erm, cloud.
The cloud has the ability to morph into various shapes and textures and
seems intent on pleasuring Kedra to distraction, again and again.
Not unnaturally Kedra greets the morning somewhat worse for wear. Barely
able to walk she manages to investigate the sad past of room 330. It
turns out that Jackie knows a lot more than she is telling. Filled with
remorse, Jackie decides to take Kedra's place and sleep another night in
room 330.
And in the best traditions of Ghost stories I'll say no more, suffice to
say it's a bittersweet ending, and like all good horror franchises
leaves the door firmly open for a slew of sequels.
Well, was it any good? The first word that springs to mind is
intriguing. Despite some quite graphic imagery it's not remotely
arousing, least not to me at any rate. I know only too well how near
impossible it is to mix sad regret with raunchy sex.
Also, at times, the writing is almost experimental in its style and
delivery. This makes for difficult reading sometimes, but I think it
helps rather than hinders. So, an ambitious attempt at an unusual
subject; sex, death, love and redemption. I liked it. A lot. But don't
go looking for any fiddling under the desk with this one.
Ratings for "Curse of Love"
Athena (technical quality): 9 (Not easy reading at times)
Venus (plot & character): 9 (Seems a touch confused and confusing)
Kim (appeal to reviewer): 9 (Intriguing, but zero eroticism)
"Pussy Cats" by Candy Kane (GQKZ45C@prodigy.com). Guest review by Piper.
"Pussy Cats" is the unofficial name for the high school cheerleading
squad. Nominally, they are called that because the school's football
team is called the "Wild Cats". The girls on the squad call themselves
pussy cats for another reason entirely.
Alicia is the new girl on the squad. She joined halfway through the
football season. Right after her first practice, Kim, the head
cheerleader, invited her and four other girls to her house for a
sleepover. Since Kim's parents are going to be away for the night,
basically, anything goes. After two half-sacks of beer, a few joints,
and a hot lezzie video to get things loosened up, Alicia finds out why
they really call themselves the Pussy Cats.
Plot? Character development? I've already covered pretty much the
whole plot already, and the girls aren't much more than Barbie-doll
cutouts, but that doesn't matter much.
Technical problems? Aside from a couple of wrong words, my only quibble
is that this came directly from a word processor, with fancy ASCII
characters stuck in place of apostrophes and dashes. Not really the
author's fault, but annoying none the less.
Sex? That's what this story is all about. Hot pairs and group sex
between and among all six girls. This might be Alicia's first gay
encounter, but she takes to it like a duck to water. Everything is new
and wonderful and makes her feel fantastic. If you like all-girl
scenes, this is right up your alley. If you're looking for an involved
plot, complex emotion, or vivid characters, move on.
Ratings for "Pussy Cats"
Technical merit 9.5
Plot and character 8
Appeal to reviewer 9
Cabin Fever - by LM 1 (RNRH85C@prodigy.com). Guest Review by M1ke Hunt.
Lisa and Jeremy have an argument - and it's all her fault. That figures,
because it's *his* story. Anyway, he needs to have some space, so he
goes to his parent's boat and climbs down into the tiny little cabin.
Because Lisa knows the argument was her fault, and because she knows he
needs some space, she follows him there and climbs into the tiny little
cabin too. A blowjob and a fuck ensue, but to preserve the suspense, I
won't tell you which party does what with what part of the party of the
other part.
It's a nice little story, but the writer fashions his words too
formally, which I found off-putting for its stiffness. "'Hello Lisa,' I
stated." Sorry, but nobody "states" hello to their girlfriend. "I do not
know..." would read more smoothly simply as "I don't know..." and I
could give a dozen other stylistic examples which made the read more a
drive down a potholed lane than a superhighway. Add a few minor spelling
errors and the occasional unparagraphed paragraph, and you have a piece
in need of some minor rework.
Still, it's a nice description of a blowjob, and some morning if you
find yourself in desperate need of a fellatio and fuck tale, this one
would do. The author lists it as "M/F, romance and love", but that just
goes to show you you can't put all your trust in those fucking little
story codes, can you?
Ratings for "Cabin Fever"
Athena (technical quality): 7
Venus (plot & character): 8
Mikeus (appeal to reviewer): 8
"Spelunkers: A Story of Incestuous Love" by Day Dreamer. Guest review
by BluePencil.
Incest stories are fairly common in the alt.sex hierarchy. The come in
several sub-genres: the young (but horny) teens who teach each other;
the young (but horny) teens who seduce their parents; the parents who
seduce their innocent (but horny) children . . . do we see a pattern
here? Most of the stories involve young teens with no inhibitions and
the libido of a lust-crazed mink.
Far less common are the stories where the principals are older,
reasonably mature, and somewhat believable. It's hard to take the 14
year old who seduces his sister, mother, aunt, and 5 teenage cousins
seriously, after all. Even given a 14-year-old's recuperative powers
have you ever thought about the chafing problems? And the scheduling?
Not to mention what all the calories he's burning up - imagine what
it'll do to his family's food bill.
Despite the qualms the title gave me, I'm glad I continued reading;
_Spelunkers_ is one of the rare gems of the genre, a believable story
with realistic characters, plotting, and consequences.
Though Jim has (guiltily) lusted after his sister Bonnie for years,
they've both reached college age with no more than the usual brother-
sister relationship. But at a family reunion, she talks him into
exploring a nearby cave. What follows is a good illustration of the
reason that cave explorers should take, at the very least, two
flashlights with them. Or a blanket. Though the story grows naturally
from this starting point, there are a few minor twists along the way.
Even if you normally ignore this genre, I'd recommend reading this
story.
Ratings for "Spelunkers"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot and character): 10
BluePencil (appeal to reviewer): 10
"After Hours" by Unknown Author. Guest Review by Morgan Preece.
Wow. I volunteered to be a guest reviewer and Celeste sent me a story
almost immediately. This is harder than I thought.
First of all., did I enjoy this story? Well, yes. The sex is described
well enough if a little cliched and the characters are believable by the
standards common in net fiction. This is faint praise, I know; but there
is a heck of a lot of stuff out there a lot more poorly written.
"After Hours" is the story of a non-consensual Lesbian sex act. True to
the cliches of ASS, the victim takes real pleasure in the aggressor's
attentions. There's a little suspense, a little bondage but no real
damage done.
Reality should not intrude upon sex fantasy too severely. In ASS* the
convention is to ignore such things as criminal charges and lawsuits.
I guess the word for this story is "conventional." By ASS standards,
anyway.
Grade for a hypothetical class in writing for ASS would be a "B-" and an
encouraging grin.
Ratings for "After Hours"
Athena (technical quality): 8 (Two or three misspellings, a few too many
cliches but clear prose and the story keeps moving. Scene setting is
good enough but could be better. Dialogue reads naturally, even the
cliches. People do use cliches, that's what makes them cliches. I
discounted a formatting problem in the copy Celeste sent me as being an
artifact of the Email process.)
Venus (plot & character): 7.5 (Plot is OK for short form story but
characters are from ASS stock company. I gave a half point back here
because I did like the story.)
Morgan (appeal to reviewer): 8 (Well, I DID get aroused and not
everything on the ng does that for me. <g> I had a bit of trouble here
because the reviewer kept noticing the ng cliches while the reader said,
so what?)
"Star Trek (TNG) Shadows" by Dimitri (dimitri@ihug.co.nz). Guest review
by Kim.
Wow! A story of such epic complexity and sweep it's almost alarming. The
like of which I have never seen before on ASS.
Right up front I should warn all non-trekers they may as well skip both
the story and my review, as neither will make much sense without a hard-
core appreciation of all things Star Trek.
It's a very long story, though I gather the author has written much
longer ones set in and around the Trek universe. As I said before, the
plotting is mind-bendingly ferocious in its complexity. For most of it
the reader must read blindly on without much idea as to what the hell is
really happening. But in Star Trek that doesn't matter, as you know, or
at least hope, all will be explained at the end.
I shan't bother trying to give any proper explanation of the plot;
suffice to say that alternate realities, holodecks, and sentient
computer generated characters feature heavily.
Almost entirely incidentally to the plot, the various well known
characters get to couple and strut their sexual selves, including the
now, almost obligatory it seems, lesbian scene between Jadzia and Kira.
There are a couple of problems. The story seems to have fallen into its
own time/space anomaly, as at one point the exact same paragraph appears
twice a few pages apart; and worse, the author seems to like to ruin a
sex scene with silly asides about alliteration. Also, this story must
contain one of the cleanest rapes I can ever remember reading. At one
point Tasha Yar is tied to a shower faucet, unconscious while Tom Riker
(Will's transporter accident clone) proceeds to rape her with a bar of
soap. Being clean doesn't make it any more palatable to read however.
The thing I can't forgive Dimitri for though, is having Captain Janeway
sit down and cry at her predicament. Just not on Dimitri, Kathryn would
*never* be so wussy. She'd be kicking butt better'n anyone!
Despite these nitpicks, I have to say I loved it. The sex was entirely
unnecessary, but agreeable enough (aside from the pointless rape) the
plotting brilliant, and the scope magnificent. As such I'd give it three
tens without hesitation. Trekers, who don't mind their favorite
characters getting involved with others sexually, will love the constant
references to events in all the various Trek shows. I was only mildly
disappointed that my second favorite Trek character, Q, didn't make at
least a brief appearance.
However... I have to assume a good proportion of the readers are not so
steeped in Star Trek as I am. Non-Trekers might rate it somewhat lower.
Ratings for "Star Trek (TNG) Shadows"
Athena (technical quality): 10 (A few typos and a repeating
paragraph)
Venus (plot & character): 10(But uch complexity doesn't make for
easy reading)
Kim (appeal to reviewer): 10 (But not likely to win any converts to
Star Trek)