Celestial Reviews 14 - August 26, 1995
Note: This bunch includes a wide range of variety and some really
outstanding material. In fact, several of these stories are among the
best I have ever reviewed. Who says this newsgroup has no good
stories?
"Foreign Affair" by Ann Douglas (corporate lesbian
sex) 10
"Innocent Days" by James Medley (menage a trois) 10
"Top Ten Lies in Usenet Pornography" by Derek Zumsteg
(humor) 10
"Hotsprings" by Delta (genuine short story) 10
"Trialogue" by James Medley (humor) 5
"Not Really Cheating" by Dave Schulte (mutual
masturbation) 10
"College Reunion" by Deidre Ng (hot lesbian sex) 10
"Correspondence Novela" by Cantsin (strange) 1
"Stockroom Surprise" by FemmeFetal (department
store sex) 3
"Goddess" by Armchair Deviant (hot foreplay) 8
"Surprise Encounter" by C. Morgan Brock (f/f sex with
a celebrity) 7
"Grey" by Lysander (romance) 10
"Foreign Affair" by Ann Douglas. Regular readers of my reviews already
know this, but I'll say it again. The main strength of Ann Douglas as
a writer is that even in a very short sex story she can give
personality to her characters. Her characters have fun having sex; and
they even have a reason for doing so! In addition, she pays attention
to details that add authenticity to her stories. In the present case,
she seems to give a faithful presentation of a realistic Japanese
setting.
In this story Amanda McIntyre is spending several lonely days in Japan.
She is an avowed lesbian who is treated as an outcast by the good ole
boys from her company, and she is being set up to take the blame if the
business deal falls through. She meets a very attractive and sensuous
Japanese woman and shares intimacies with her. You'll probably guess
the ending while you read the story, but I don't want to spoil it for
you by telling you more now. It's a really hot story. Kinda makes you
wanta grab your harigata and go to town. (Rating: 10)
"Innocent Days" by James Medley. I've always admired faithful military
wives, and so I was surprised that I so much enjoyed this tale of a
wife playing around while her husband was away in Vietnam. I think
there were three things that made me enjoy the story: (1) The narrator
presented the story as if the protagonist's action were the most
natural thing in the world. (2) The metaphors were excellent. (3) The
description was extremely vivid. Or maybe it's simply that the author
is a just plain good writer. The action takes place in a pecan grove
in Mississippi and in the nearby trailer park. And Judy makes a great
pecan pie that tastes great if you eat it naked right after three-way
sex. (Rating: 10)
"Top Ten Lies in Usenet Pornography" by Derek Zumsteg. This isn't
actually a story - just a Letterman-style spoof of the a.s.s.
newsgroup. I think we can still enjoy our stories - probably enjoy
them better - if we realize the foolishness of some of our underlying
assumptions. (Rating: 10)
"Hotsprings" by Delta. I have become hesitant to review stories before
I have a chance to read the whole thing. I've been burned too many
times; either the author loses interest and doesn't finish the story at
all or everybody dies in a car crash or some other deus ex machina
saves the day. (I've been waiting since college to use "deus ex
machina" in a real sentence!) Chapters 1 and 2 of "Hotsprings" have
now been posted; and I don't know how many installments there will be.
What I do know is that you should start downloading them. Delta is
perhaps the best writer of long fiction who posts with this newsgroup.
Many authors write hot scenes, and several do a good job of developing
character and building a rationale for the plot; but Delta does an
excellent job of sustaining sexual tension and integrating it with an
interesting plot throughout 100K of writing. The first Delta story I
ever read was "Strip Chess," and to this day I still get horny when I
look at chess board. I'll review the whole story when I've seen all
the installments, but after two chapters I can already give it a
rating. (If everybody drowns during a wild sex orgy in a hotspring in
Chapter 12, I'll revoke my rating.) (Rating: 10)
"Trialogue" by James Medley. This is a conversation among a man, his
mouth, and his anus. (Get it? Monologue = 1 person. Dialogue = 2;
Trialogue = 3.) Don't ask me how the man communicates with his mouth
without using his mouth to speak to his mouth or how the anus
distinguishes between utterances of the mouth and of the speaker, since
they use the same orifice. I have to give the author credit for trying
to be creative, but this story was pretty confusing; and it became even
more confusing when I looked at it more closely. (Rating: 5)
"Not Really Cheating" by Dave Schulte. A man and a woman work
together. Both of their spouses are too busy to satisfy them sexually;
yet each wants to remain faithful and monogamous. They become aware of
their mutual attraction to each other. They decide that since
infidelity involves actual sex, it wouldn't really be cheating if they
simply masturbated together; and so they do so. It's an interesting
idea, and the story is well written. Incidentally, in my own opinion,
this *is* really cheating. In other words, I would consider myself to
be unfaithful to my husband if I needed a sexual fix and got it by
masturbating with a friend when my husband was too busy to satisfy me.
Infidelity involves the violation of a relationship, and what the story
describes is at least the beginning of the violation of a relationship.
No real moral lesson here - just a commentary on the title. It was
still an enjoyable story. By the way, in my morally acute mind,
reading stories on a.s.s. and fantasizing about them does *not*
constitute a violation of a relationship, even if Tammy Ng does write
cynical letters to the reviewer Now you know why I read twenty of
these stories a week! I had better talk to my husband. (Rating: 10)
"College Reunion" by Deidre Ng. Deidre did something that I strongly
recommend. She *revised* her story before she reposted it. What I am
going to do in this review is read both versions and try to detect what
improvements occur in the revision. If this doesn't work or if I think
it will become incredibly boring to readers, I'll just zap out these
sentences.
The first version, unfortunately, earned a rating of 10.
Unfortunately, because I didn't see how she could improve on it. I was
hoping that she would get a 6 and really improve it through revisions,
and we could use this as a lesson to budding authors. The punctuation
of this first version was a little rough - it would earn a D in format
and an A in content from a good English teacher with hormones. But I
was so attracted by the content that I chose to ignore these errors,
because they didn't really distract me; and I am not under the delusion
that the forte of either Ng sister is punctuation anyway (although I
have heard that on her own word processor Tammy uses the Spanish
upside-down exclamation point, because it's more of a turn-on than the
traditional Anglo version). On the other hand, it would be polite for
her to proofread and correct the errors.
What she did well in the original version of this story was maintain
sexual tension. I guess the story would be better if I knew the reason
why it was appropriate for her friend to open the door and immediately
start sexual foreplay with her friend. Is this something the two women
had done before, perhaps when they were roommates in college? Had they
always been attracted and only now chosen to act upon their attraction?
Had one or both of them previously been involved in a heterosexual
relationship? Answers to these questions could make the story even
better. We'll see.
I have now read the second version, and the improvements were
outstanding. In retrospect, now that I've seen the improvements, I
should have giving the original a lower rating; but it *was* pretty
good compared to other stories. I would have to change my rating scale
to reflect this improvement. The grammatical errors are gone, but in
addition she has improved the *content* of the story by answering
questions like those I raised in the previous paragraph. It has to
give an author a warm feeling inside to achieve this level of
improvement. (Of course, a warm feeling inside seems to be a chronic
phenomenon for Deidre, if you know what I mean.) With Deidre's
permission, I am going to repost the original version at the same time
I post this review. The value of this will be that authors interested
in improving their own writing can compare the two to notice the
improvements. If you want to read only one version of a good story,
you should find the revision, which was posted a few days ago as
"Sisters Ng: College Reunion by Deidre Ng." The first draft was good
sex. The second was a good story, plus even better sex. (Rating: 10)
"Correspondence Novela" by Cantsin. I have no idea what this story is
about. (Of course, I have no idea what T.S. Eliot or James Joyce is
about either). If the author hadn't sent it to me with a note that
he/she had posted it on a.s.s., I wouldn't even know it was about sex.
(Hey! Maybe "The Wasteland" is about sex!). I think this is a put-on,
and I'm supposed to realize that this is utter nonsense and give it a
low rating. (Rating: 1)
"Stockroom Surprise" by FemmeFetal. Candy goes into a store to buy
sunglasses, and the sales clerks fuck her in the stockroom. Then they
give her the sunglasses for free! I guess that was the surprise.
(Rating: 3)
"Goddess" by Armchair Deviant. By the author's own admission, this is
.boring m/f stuff, with no penetration, no rape, no dismemberment, etc.
Given those harsh constraints, however, it's really a nice inventory of
the female body being cuddled and fondled by an amorous lover. Here
again, I would really appreciate it if the author would proofread the
thing one time before posting it. It wasn't really a story - just a
nice description of really romantic sexual activity. (Rating: 8)
"Surprise Encounter" by C. Morgan Brock. Liz is a young woman who
watches "Power Rangers" not because she enjoys the plot, but because
she thinks the Pink Ranger (Kimberly) is really sexy. The she visits
LA and happens to meet the Pink Ranger in person! They go shopping
fore CD's and then go to Amy's (Kimberly's real name), take a purity
test, and make love. Not a bad story. (Rating: 7)
"Grey" by Lysander. In proportion to its overall length, there's
actually relatively little sex in this story. Grey is the name of a
woman to whom the narrator offers a ride. Throughout the first half of
the story they drive across the country for several weeks, longing for
each other, but not making their mutual feelings known. Finally, they
do make their feelings known to each other, and the sexual activity
becomes loving and hot. There are several complications that make the
story more interesting, but you can find these for yourself. I really
like stories that have good character development as well as hot sex,
and this is one of those stories. (Rating: 10)