Celestial Reviews 35 - Nov 8, 1995 Note: I am posting a Celestial Summary today. This is a list of all the stories I have reviewed, along with an extremely brief summary and my rating of each story. I am posting this today. and I'll post it again on November 15. Between these two dates authors may wish to repost stories that appear in this Summary. That will enable readers to find stories that they may wish to read. I also plan to repost on Saturday November 11 all of the Celestial Reviews that I have written up till now. I'll repost these on alt.sex.stories.d (not on alt.sex.stories). Those of you who have requested copies can download them at this time. This is the last time I'll do this; it's simply getting too difficult to repost so many stories. If someone has a better idea, I'll be happy to cooperate. Second Note: I sincerely appreciate the e-mail I receive from readers. Please understand that I would like to respond individually and in detail to everyone who writes to me, but my time limitations often prohibit this. I hope you will accept my column as my response to your communications. It seems to me that people are enjoying my writing, and that makes me feel good. - Celeste "Dress" by Deirdre (blackmail & sexual potpourri) 9 "Drop" by Deirdre (sex on the rebound) 8 "Easy" by Deirdre (voyeurism and anal sex) 9 "The Fourth Ring" by Hunter Jackson (wife watching) 10 "Kachina" by Sue (sex in the great outdoors) 10 "Dress" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi). Sacre vache! (as the French say) - when I looked at the alphabet soup after this story's title, I was a bit startled. TG, mf, cd, blackmail, dom, (bond), (mm). As I understood it, I was in for a transgender story that involved male-female sex, cross-dressing, blackmail, dominance, and bondage, with a male-male finale. I wondered if they had forgotten about the two nuns who had just fucked with a German shepherd when they walked into a bar. Actually, this part about the nuns isn't very realistic; the second nun almost certainly would have ducked after she saw the first nun walk into the bar. Anyway, after that description I thought I had a pretty good idea what I was in for. When I discovered in the first 100 words or so that the man's wife used to be interested in a guy who was a cross-dresser and that the wife's sister-in-law was a flirtatious sex maniac, I knew I had the story pretty well sized up. Another hundred words, and I had guessed the ending - or so I thought! To make a long story short - I blew it. For one thing, I didn't know about the anal sex at night in the middle of the football field. This is a clever, but strange story; but I suppose that's what the word deirdre in the title line is an abbreviation for. (Rating: 9) "Drop" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi). A woman has been rudely dumped by her boyfriend, and the woman's son tries to console her. After venting her rage against he boyfriend and his new flame, the mother convinces the son to go with her to a vacation resort. I thought I was getting good at predicting Deirdre's endings, but I blew this one badly. Since I don't want to ruin the possibility of your being surprised, I won't tell you any more. (Rating: 8) "Easy" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi). A man's wife surprises him by asking him to shove his cock up her ass. Then she surprises him further by the ease with which he is able to make the backdoor entry. This leads him to be suspicious that she's not exactly new at this approach. The wife admits that she and her college roommate used to do it with a dildo; and as luck would have it, this same woman is coming to visit this very weekend. Tune in form ore fun. (Rating: 7) "The Fourth Ring" by Hunter Jackson (FDDH53D@prodigy.com). Sometimes when I read these stories I talk back to the protagonists (inside my head, of course). I say things like, if you have a wife with the hottest little ass and cunt in town who is longing to be fucked but you're too dumb to notice it, you deserve whatever happens to you. And if you're stupid enough to make a bet with a super stud that he can't lay your wife - and if you do this not one but three times - then you deserve to be relegated to a role in life of licking the cum out of her cunt after she comes home late at night after fucking him. And if you're still unwilling to admit defeat and demand proof, then you deserve to be stashed in the bathroom while the two of them are fucking their brains out in the bedroom right where you can see them. If you can't get a personality that would demand a little attention from your wife, then you don't deserve her. Those are some of the things that I might have said to myself while I read this story. The title refers to how many times the phone would ring if the guy managed to really stick it to the guy's wife. (Rating: 10) "Kachina" by Sue (SueNH@AOL.com). This is a story about a young woman who travels by water and by hiking and mountain climbing to a beautiful place in the remote wilderness and masturbates there before bedding down for the night in a cave. (Sue adds a few details that make it more interesting than my preceding sentence.) In the middle of the night she is visited by a Kachina - an ancestral Anasazi spirit-god that had come back to life. Hey! What can I say? You're going to read the descriptions of the previous four stories, and then tell me that this one is unrealistic just because a beautiful blonde woman has passionate sex with a man old enough to be her ancestor who comes alive from a painting on a cave wall? Believe what you will. I say, if Peter Pan can have Tinkerbell and if the Greeks can have Zeus and Aphrodite, then Sue can have her Kachina! Sue does an excellent job of integrating the sexual activity with the surroundings and even with a sensitivity to the ancient Native American heritage. This was a very good story. (Rating: 10) TIP OF THE WEEK: In each issue of Celestial Reviews I present one of the guidelines from Celestial Grammar, which I have posted on alt sex.stories.d. and which I'll continue to develop and revise from time to time. My theory is that if all of these tips were followed, about 95% of the really distracting errors in a.s.s. stories would be eliminated. (The other 5% will eventually be covered in Advanced Celestial Grammar.) I was going to name this part of the column TIP OF THE {something sexual}, but I thought the innuendo might detract from the sober serious business at hand. Here is this week's Tip: SEMICOLONS We're going to do semicolons one more time. I have revised the guidelines to clarify a few points. Some readers have pointed out that numerous students might be using these Tips to enhance their performance in English class or on term papers. More power to them! But (the theory goes), some of these people might be in classes taught by teachers who do not read a.s.s. and who follow more arcane rules of grammar. I am certain that the information I have supplied here is accurate. I have verified its authenticity; and I am confident that students following my guidelines will not get lower scores on professionally developed, standardized tests. However, I cannot guarantee that there are no teachers whose own tests or grading practices follow different standards. Specifically, some teachers are likely to follow only Rules 1 and 2 below and to consider Rules 3 and 4 to be erroneous. This is a regressive and silly notion that flies in the face of contemporary understandings of grammar. (I am not saying that people who personally ignore the last two rules are regressive and silly - only that it is improper to insist that others ignore these rules as well. If individual writers follow just the first two rules, their writing will be fine.) The point is that you should define your goals. If you want to write well, follow all four of these rules. If your goal is to get a good grade from a teacher who doesn't know these rules, then follow that teacher's rules - even though the rules that I am stating here are almost certainly parallel to those stated in that teacher's grammar book, if it has been published within the last 25 years. Enough! On to the guidelines: The semicolon can be viewed as a combination of a super-comma and a half-period. (That's why it's a period written above a comma.) That is, it can serve as a half-period by joining two sentences into one (as in the first two rules below); and it can serve as a super-comma by replacing a comma in situations where a comma itself won't quite do the job (as in Rules 3 and 4). Here are specific rules: 1. Use a semicolon to join two clauses when these two clauses are NOT joined by a coordinating conjunction. (When they are joined by a coordinating conjunction, use a comma - except in the case of Rule 4 below.) The coordinating conjunctions are "and," "but", "or," and "for." The following are all correct - at least grammatically, although the order may be reversed socially: I licked her pussy. Then she sucked my cock. I licked her pussy, and then she sucked my cock. I licked her pussy; then she sucked my cock. In the actual context of a story, the sentences would convey a slightly different meaning. For example, the third sentence suggests that the two activities were more intimately connected than the first (because the author put the two ideas in a single sentence). 2. Use a semicolon to join two clauses when these two clauses are joined by a conjunctive adverb. (When they are joined by "and" plus a conjunctive adverb, use a comma - except in the case of Rule 3 below.) Conjunctive adverbs include words like "therefore," "however," "thus," and "furthermore." {Note: If you have trouble recognizing conjunctive adverbs, you can ignore this rule and simply apply Rule 1; you will almost always be correct anyway.} Example: I licked her pussy; therefore she sucked my cock. 3. Even when main clauses are joined by a coordinating conjunction, use a semicolon (instead of a comma) to join them if the clauses are very long and complex or if they contain commas. This rule is the one about which readers have been giving me grief. I'm simply going to state one more time that this is the rule as it is currently taught in high school and college courses and as it is applied by most major publishers throughout the United States. Some people would say that the semicolon followed by a coordinating conjunction is redundant. It would be better, they say, to just drop the conjunction and use the semicolon alone, since that serves the purpose more efficiently. If you're really hung up on Occam's razor, fine; do it that way. These same writers would probably never begin a sentence with a coordinating conjunction; that rule is no longer taught, and good writers often begin sentences with "and." My point is that the semicolon alone is correct; but so is the semicolon followed by a coordinating conjunction when one or the other of the clauses contains internal punctuation or is long and complex (like this one). Examples: Occam's Razor is the principle, first formally stated by William of Occam, that the most efficient way is always the best way; but Occam never had sex with me. "While she continued to drive him crazy by fondling his balls with her free hand, she began to suck on his cock, until he came in a wild explosion of excitement; and then he began to turn his own attention to her clitoris, which he had neglected until then." Using a comma instead of a semicolon in these example would be confusing, because each half of the sentence already contains commas. In the second example, a good author might instead just insert a period and omit the "and," especially if she is concerned about skipping a period. 4. Use a semicolon to separate items in a series if these items are long or contain commas. Examples: "In one evening Sharon had sex with Sue; her dog, Ralph; the night watchman, Bill; and Ray, her ex-husband." {Using commas instead of the semicolons wold result in a confusing sentence, where we might think Sharan had an even more active night: "In one evening Sharon had sex with Sue, her dog, Ralph, the night watchman, Bill, and Ray, her ex-husband."} "So far this week Bob has sodomized the Bobsie twins, Rachel and and Randy; fucked Millie, Alice, Patrice, and Carolyn in the hayloft; had oral sex with Jane, Janet, Julio, and Billie Joe; and watched his sister have nearly simultaneous sex with seven guys from the local gym. {Try reading this sentence with commas in the place of the semicolons - and then remember that there are still four days left in the week!} I myself still think writers do not need all four of these rules. For over twenty years I have survived quite well using a semicolon when a comma won't quite do the job and when I don't really want the full stop indicated by a period. Even if you or your teacher insists on knowing and using the four rules stated earlier, the logic stated in the preceding sentence will make it easier to remember and apply these more specific rules. That's it! No more about semicolons until at least 1996.