Celestial Reviews 181 - May 14, 1997
Note: Good Grief! I know how to spell "pedophile." In CR 179 I posted
a joke in which I spelled it "pedofile" in all caps. I received it that
way in a joke I found on a newsgroup. I cleaned up all the other
mistakes and decided to leave that error uncorrected to give the
appearance of ignorance to the person uttering the word in the joke.
These poor retches have enough problems without having their dysfunction
mispelled.
Second note: I am aware that "retch" and 'mispelled" are misspelled in
the previous sentence. Humor! Ha, ha!
URGENT NOTE: We are in danger of losing some of our best authors. I am
aware of at least two people who say they are ready to throw in the
towel simply because they get so little feedback from readers. If you
rarely or never respond to authors, then THIS IS YOUR FAULT!
What in the world do you think keeps an author going? You can call it
ego or whatever you want to call it. I call it the Blow Job Principle.
Simply stated, if a person expects to get a second blow job, the
recipient should make the giver glad to have performed the first.
Applied to these stories, if you like a story, take the trouble to say
so.
Some writers on this newsgroup are incoherent and don't intend to
improve. If they give up and go away, that's fine with me. But there
are good writers who have already abandoned this newsgroup and others
who will do so, because there's nothing in it for them.
I'm not suggesting that you kiss up to the authors. But if you enjoy a
story that you obtained for free, why not take two minutes to give the
author some feedback? I don't think most authors want idle flattery;
but they write stories with the hope that they are getting a reaction -
for example, they may want to make people happy. They'll never know
they have succeeded unless somebody tells them so.
Fourth Note: Remember the Third Annual Celestial Writing Contest. The
rules are that the story must in some way be about sex and must be
restricted to 500 words or less. In addition, the story should include
some sort of unusual twist - like the unexpected self-revelation Robert
Browning's poem "My Last Duchess" or the surprise endings in several of
Vickie Tern's "Teasers" or Deirdre's stories. If you wish, you can
submit several super-short stories together (as Vickie Tern has now done
on two occasions), or you can post them separately under separate
titles. However, I'll give first prize to the best STORY, not to the
best collection. The deadline for submissions will be June 3, which my
calendar tells me is the date on which the Catholic Church will
celebrate the feast of St. Charles Lwanga and his companions.
Final Note: Remember: even though someone else may be posting my reviews
for me, my e-mail address is still Celeste801@aol.com.
- Celeste
"The Off Season" by Cobalt Jade (risky sex) 10, 8, 8
"One Favor" by S. Leigh Farmer (sci fi transgender) no rating
"Flashes of Light" by Jvstin (sci fi romance) 10, 8, 8
"The Babysitter" by William F. Campbell (blackmail)
8, 8, 8
"Rejected by Penthouse Forum" by OddManOut (humor)
10, 10, 10
"Sherri's Story" by Bea Fischl (ff sex) 10, 7, 8
"The Flat" by ImaByter (orgy) 10, 8, 8
"Shorts Stories" by Mike Hunt (seduction) 10, 10, 10
"For Effort" by Uther Pendragon (romance) 10, 10, 10
"Happy Mother's Day" by MrSpraycan (greetings!)
10, 9, 9
* "First" by Mark Aster (first time) 10, 10, 10
* = Repost of a previous review (because the story has
recently been reposted)
"The Off Season" by Cobalt Jade (cobaltjade@aol.com). The guy and woman
sneak into a closed amusement park, turn on the carousel, and re-enact a
fantasy from their earlier life together. I like the idea of amusement
park sex and enjoyed this story, but it was not as hot as I expected it
to be.
Ratings for "The Off Season"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8
"One Favor" by S. Leigh Farmer (rsledd@ultranet.com). The author
originally intended to write a screenplay with a transgender sci-fi sub-
theme: a screenplay that would get a PG-13 (or mild-R) rating. In
frustration after several rejections, the author decided to write the
present ultra-explicit NC-17-rated novelization focusing on the
transgender aspects of the script to see if it would read any more
interestingly than the screenplay.
My problem is that the story is extremely long (about 200 pages), and I
cannot justify allocating that much time to a single story. I don't
want to keep it hidden on my "shelf" any longer. This story appears to
be well-written, and if you are a transgender or science fiction
enthusiast, you may want to read this story and give the author some
valuable feedback.
(No rating)
"Flashes of Light" by Jvstin (jvstin@admin.con2.com). Paul O'Brien has
transferred to the Starship Enterprise. He meets and becomes attracted
to Lt. Lisa Carroll, a coworker who shares his interest in 20th Century
Planet Earth. They share some fantasies on the holodeck and then have
blissful sex together. This is a creative Star Trek adventure. The
problem that some readers will find with it is that it contains a lot
more Star Trek than sex. The story makes sense to non-trekkies, but I
presume Star Trek aficionados will enjoy this story more than the
average soap opera viewer.
Ratings for "Flashes of Light"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8
"The Babysitter" by William F. Campbell (valentin@wam.umd.edu). This
was listed on a.s.s.m. as "Adventures in Babysitting." Billy needs some
money to go to Boy Scout Camp, and so he agrees to baby-sit for his
neighbor Julie. They play Careers for a while, and then - Ooops! I
forgot to tell you what Careers is. It's a board game. A board game is
what kids used to spend their time playing back in the 50's and 60's,
when they didn't have electronic games or cable TV and before kids knew
a lot about masturbation. The object of the game in Careers was to roll
dice and seek career opportunities that would gain the right mixture of
money, fame, and love (I think). The details are not essential. I just
didn't want you to expect Colonel Mustard to show up in the bedroom with
a condom.
Anyway, Julie is about eleven, I guess, and Billy is maybe five years
older; and so naturally he notices her panties while they're playing
Careers, and so when she goes up to take a bath he watches through the
keyhole and gets all turned on and has to go into the master bedroom to
masturbate <g>, but Julie gets out of the tub and takes a picture with a
flash camera of Billy jerking off and hides the picture and says she'll
show it to people unless Billy does what she says. Since what she says
is what Billy was thinking about anyway while he was masturbating in the
master bedroom after watching her take a bath, he plays some sex games
with Julie and then goes home. But she says he had better come back the
next day, because she still has the pictures. This is why Boy Scouts
don't make really good baby-sitters - from the parents' point of view,
that is.
Ratings for "Flashes of Light"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8
"Rejected by Penthouse Forum" by OddManOut (oddman0ut@hotmail.com).
This story purports to be a letter that was rejected by the Penthouse
Forum - that small magazine that businessmen purchase at airports and
hold inside the newspapers that cover their hard-ons while they jerk off
next to nuns and housewives on flights that have taken them away from
their lovers. This story is obviously fraudulent, because a
distinguished journal like Penthouse would never reject a fine piece of
writing like this.
The gist of the letter is that the writer is a stud who works on a
Hollywood set and has a private orgy with three sexy stars. The most
delightful part of the letter is that every time the author describes a
pertinent part of the sexual anatomy, he uses a different word. For
example, he never says penis twice - it becomes a trouser snake, cock,
pipeline, etc., and each of the different usages is cleverly inserted.
It's more a satire on erotic writing than an actual story, but I really
enjoyed this little masterpiece.
Ratings for "Rejected by Penthouse Forum"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Sherri's Story" by Bea Fischl. This and other stories can apparently
be found at a site called the Nifty Archive, which is associated with
the address BF4play. The story clearly describes the first sexual
intimacies between two women. What's lacking is an interesting story or
personality development that makes readers want to become drawn into the
plot.
Ratings for "Sherri's Story"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 7
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8
"The Flat" by ImaByter (ImaByter@aol.com). Sometimes its fun to predict
the plot of a story from its title. If this were written by a European,
this would be about an apartment. But it's by an American author, and
so it could be about. a level surface or stretch of level ground, a
shallow frame or box for seeds or seedlings, stage scenery on a movable
wooden frame, a type of railroad car, a deflated tire, a shoe with a
flat heel, a large flat piece of mail, a horse that competes in a flat
race (also called a runner), a sign affixed to a note in musical
notation to indicate that it is to be lowered by a half step (or a note
that is lowered a half step), or the area of the field to either side of
an offensive formation in football. This author is not as devious as
Deirdre, and so when there was a blowout on the driver's car, I narrowed
the field quickly. Actually, her spare tire was flat too, and so she
was much relieved when two muscular young men stopped and offered to
help.
Well, to make a long story short, the two guys take her back to the
service station, they fix her tires, and she services the guys who
serviced her tires. This is known as the barter system. I doubt that
the service station attendant even reported it on his taxes, but I'm
pretty sure the law requires him to attach a value and report it,
although that could be an interesting story in itself. The guys treat
her pretty much like a slut, but she concludes that's a fair assessment
of her evening's performance. A good time was had by all.
Ratings for "The Flat"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8
"Shorts Stories" - by Mike Hunt (M1KE HUNT@aol.com). These are short
stories at least partially about shorts. In the first story the guy
goes into the exercise room at a motel and sees a sexy woman in shorts.
His goal is to get into her shorts. He offers to give her a massage,
and she agrees as long as there is no funny business. I guess it all
depends on how you define "funny" and "business." A major difference
between this and the previous story is that the pick-up process is a lot
more creative.
In the second story the guy lies down on the beach in a position that
lines him up perfectly with two sunbathing girls. If their genders were
reversed, they would have a beaver shot; but I don't remember exactly
what you call it when you can look up and see a guy's erection up the
loose leg of his shorts while he sunbathes. Anyway, he takes a nap and
then incorporates this into his pick-up line.
Ratings for "Shorts Stories"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"For Effort" by Uther Pendragon (anon584c@nyx.cs.du.edu). The normal
thing to do with mothers and mothers-in-law in stories on this newsgroup
is to ignore them or to have sex with them. Jeanette has the Mother
from Hell. In this story she calls her mother to wish her a Happy
Mother's Day. The conversation is very well written, full of ordinary
words and sentences that normal people exchange every day. Within just
a few seconds I didn't like Jeanette's mother at all.
When we celebrate Mother's Day we often fail to think about how painful
that holiday can be to a woman whose own mother is a bitch and who wants
to become a mother herself but has been unsuccessful. Bob recognizes
Jeanette's difficulty and is very supportive.
I suppose this story could be understood and enjoyed in stand-alone
isolation, but then you would miss the fun of fitting this story in with
the entire saga of Bob and Jeanette Brennan. These are two normal
people who are struggling to make ends meet while they are growing into
a loving couple in the early years of their marriage. If you haven't
read all the stories, check Dejanews (www.dejanews.com) under
"alt.sex.stories Pendragon" to find what you have missed.
The actual proportion of text devoted to hot sex in this episode is
relatively small, but I found this to be a very sexy chapter in the
lives of this couple.
Ratings for "For Effort"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Happy Mother's Day" by MrSpraycan (mrspraycan.an@edtec.com). This
story was posted on Monday, May 12, 1997, the day after Mother's Day.
At first I thought it was either a day late for this year or 364 days
early for next year. Then I realized that this must simply be a
verbatim, factual report of what MrSpraycan had been doing the day
before.
The woman opens the door and finds a deliveryman with flowers. She's
touched by sadness at the absence of her family, and so the deliveryman
(probably really MrS) takes time out of his busy schedule to make her
feel better. Then there's a surprise ending, but I can't tell you any
more.
Ratings for ""Happy Mother's Day"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9
* "First" by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com). This story reports
the first sexual experience of Our Hero - at least I assume this
is the same guy who subsequently does such fine work with Pat,
Julie, and their assorted friends and relatives. The First Time
came under rather sordid circumstances with a much older woman
when he was 17 years old and they were working together on a
political campaign. The second time came about ten minutes later
and was much less sordid. As I read this well-written story, I
couldn't help thinking that Pat and Julie Allen were good for Our
Hero. Fatherhood will be good for him too.
Ratings for "First"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10