Celestial Reviews 235 - November 19, 1997
Note: Someone was recently communicating with me regarding the
possibility of serving as a guest reviewer. I accidentally deleted that
message before I could respond to it. If you are that person, I'd
appreciate it if you would re-contact me.
Second note: The following anecdote expresses the need for unambiguous
language:
An office manager had money problems and had to fire an employee, either
Jack or Jill. He thought he'd fire the employee who came late to work
the next morning. Well, both employees came to work very early. Then
the manager thought he would catch the first one who took a coffee
break. Unfortunately, neither employee took a coffee break. Then the
manager decided to see who took the longest lunch break. Strangely,
neither Jack nor Jill took a lunch break that day; they both ate at
their desk. Then the manager thought he'd wait and see who would leave
work earlier, and both employees stayed after closing. Jill finally
went to the coat rack, and the manager went up to her and said, "Jill, I
have a terrible problem. I don't know whether to lay you or Jack off."
Jill said, "Well, you'd better jack off, because I'm already late for my
bus."
Final note: Remember: even though someone else may be posting my reviews
for me, my e-mail address is still Celeste801@aol.com.
- Celeste
"All of Me" by Unknown Author (bdsm gangbang) 7, 7, 7
"Hostage" by billchi (girls kidnap guy for sex) 9, 8, 8
"Experiment A" by Eli the Bearded (non-sex) 10, 8, 8
"CYBER-CHARADE" by s.a.m. (poetry) 10, 10, 10
"Shish Kebab" by Lingua (highly imaginative sex) 10, 10, 10
"Life Sentence" by Uther Pendragon (poetry - sort of) 10, 10, 10
"Vows" by Chamai (dominance & submission) 6, 9, 8
"Mass Transit" by Brother Cadfael (sex in public) 10, 7, 7
"I Am M1ke's Dick" by M1KE HUNT (humor) 10, 10, 10
"Woman Being Tongued to Orgasm While Reciting the Names
of North American Capitol Cities" by Mark Aster (woman
being tongued to orgasm while reciting the names of North
American capital cities) 10, 10, 10
"Passages in Time. Episode 1: THE AWAKENING" by Alan C. McD
(identity crisis) 10, 10, 10
"A Day at the Art Institute" by David (art & sex) 10, 10, 10
Guest Reviews:
"Monks Five: Scorpion" by H.D. Meister (predatory lesbian)
7, 6, 5
"On Break" by CJT (really long quickie) 9, 7, 7
"Girlfriends" by Candy Kane (teen ff exploration) 9, 10, 9
"All of Me" by Unknown Author. The young lady goes to the church and
confesses her sins to Father Ryan. Until recently she had been a
virgin, but then her best friend's nerdy brother stuck his penis through
the bottom of a box of popcorn at a movie and offered her some, and
before you could count to three million by tens she had become the
village slut. It even turns out that Father Ryan was one of the guys
who had gangbanged her when she was blindfolded. Imagine that.
Ratings for "All of Me"
Athena (technical quality): 7
Venus (plot & character): 7
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7
"Hostage" by billchi (billchi@direct.ca). At the present time this is
not actually a sex story: it's simply a set-up for a sex story that the
author plans to write. The premise is interesting. A man has stopped
at a remote gas station and has been kidnapped by a bunch of slutty
young women who appear interested in making him their sextoy. There's
enough here to make readers want to see more, but not much real action
yet.
Ratings for "Hostage"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8
"Experiment A" by Eli the Bearded (eli@netusa.net). A guy meets a woman
on a train and doesn't have sex with her. The title suggests that the
author was experimenting. The story will make you wonder what the
experiment was about. This review is only 107 words shorter than the
story.
Ratings for "Experiment A"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8
"CYBER-CHARADE" by s.a.m. (s.a.m@usa.net). This is a brief collection
of erotic poetry written in free verse. I tend to shy away from poetry
in these reviews, but this is really excellent stuff - the sort of thing
high school students who don't read this newsgroup could turn in as
their poetry assignment, because the teacher could not accuse them of
plagiarism without admitting that they read this newsgroup. Of course,
the flaw in this reasoning is that the students would probably get
expelled for writing obscene poetry anyway.
Ratings for "CYBER-CHARADE"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Shish Kebab" by Lingua (lingua@acay.com.au). This is a story about two
people having sex in the midst of excellent imagery, use of words, and
allusions. For example, "Double, double toil and trouble. My fire burns,
my cauldron bubbles. But the great dramatist never envisaged anything
like this scene." Or "That finger, and the gently sharp teeth rasping
your cockhead, seem to be the trigger that detonates your cache of white
explosive." Or maybe "More of your
mayonnaise spills from your glans and drenches my hand."
My only problem with this story was its use of metric measurements. I
still have no idea how long the guy's cock was.
Ratings for "Shish Kebab"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Life Sentence" by Uther Pendragon (anon584c@nyx.net). As the title
suggests -at least after you have read the story - this is one long
sentence about life. It's not sexually explicit, but it contains
allusions to sexual activities. It puts sex into a wholistic
perspective. I'm not sure whether to call it poetry or wordplay, but
it's an excellent example of whatever it is.
Ratings for "Life Sentence"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Waiting" by Angee (angela_i@efn.org). The woman is horny for her
boyfriend. He has been gone for nearly a week. He has made a bet with
her that she cannot go a week without an orgasm. To make a long story
short, the woman becomes depraved because she's been deprived. Will she
make it through this horrible ordeal and collect the bet? Well, I guess
that depends a little bit on whether dreams count. I'm not going to tell
you any more; but I WILL assure you that this is a heckuva lot easier to
do if you have children - not to have sex with, but to distract you from
the longings that might otherwise besiege the fantasies of a sexually
active woman. This is a very good story.
Ratings for "Waiting"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Vows" by Chamai (chamai@aol.com). This is a story about a woman who
leads the life of a covert sub - that is, she is secretly submissive to
a female lover. However, in her life with her husband she trains him
into a submissive role so that she is the domme. Eventually everybody
learns about everybody else, and they all are happy with their roles.
This is a first story by a new author. Its main problem is that events
are too smushed together and at times too predictable. I would suggest
that this author examine and learn from some of Vicki Tern's stories
that have comparable plots.
Ratings for "Vows"
Athena (technical quality): 6
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8
"Mass Transit" by Brother Cadfael (Brother_Cadfael@earthcorp.com).
During her morning mass-transit commute, a young girl shares an intimate
and arousing moment with a stranger. Like many of this author's
stories, this one is deliberately brief and vague: it's not exactly
clear what is happening or why. Nevertheless, this story does a pretty
good job at what it tries to do.
Ratings for "Mass Transit"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 7
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7
"I Am M1ke's Dick" by M1KE HUNT (MrM1ke@aol.com). In this story Mike
submits his resume and gets a job making a sex show for PBS. The resume
itself is quite interesting. We learn that initially nobody wants to
hire Mike, but eventually the ladies at least are quite impressed with
his performance.
The story unfolds in real time, as we examine a chronological series of
memos, letters, and transcripts of phone conversations and audiotapes.
The action never becomes as hot as in most of Mike's other stories.
Aside from the scene in which he describes his sensations while
achieving erection and penetration, most of the sexual action takes
place off stage. However, the tour de force of getting himself
successfully into the movie business is really a lot of fun.
Ratings for "I Am M1ke's Dick"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Woman Being Tongued to Orgasm While Reciting the Names of North
American Capitol Cities" by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com). Actually,
that word in the title should be "Capital." The word "Capitol" refers
specifically to the building.
The story is about what the title says. It proves that almost anything
can be sexy if you put yourself in the right frame of mind. I'm pretty
sure I couldn't do this without notes.
Ratings for "Woman Being Tongued to Orgasm While Reciting the Names of
North American Capitol Cities"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Passages in Time. Episode 1: The Awakening" by Alan C. McD
(18157818@msn.com). This is a really excellent but unusual story.
However, since this first episode depends greatly on the gradual
emergence of plot details, I cannot tell you much about it without
ruining it for you. Just for fun I've labeled this story "identity
crisis," but that will make sense only after you have read it.
The plot starts with two prostitutes waiting for a customer to select
one of them. He does, and then things get sexy and unusual. It's not
that the sex is kinky - it's actually extremely romantic, just unusual.
It held my constant attention from beginning to end. You'll have to
read the story to find out more.
Since this was an excellent story, perhaps it deserves a slightly longer
review. So I'll point out that sometimes British terminology confuses my
American mind. For example, I initially had trouble with this sentence:
"Most punters would look sheepishly away at the moment of choice." At
first I was confused. But then I realized that this is true, and that's
why punters tend to shank the ball or at least reduce their hang time
and permit a runback. I could be a statistician (or at least a
reviewer) for the All-Madden Team!
I look for to seeing more stories in this series.
Ratings for "The Awakening"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"A Day at the Art Institute" by David (david@innercite.com). The guy
goes to the art museum for the purist of motives - to enrich his mind
and soul by gazing upon the works of the great artists. But he stumbles
upon a young woman, who is quite a piece of art herself; and, well, she
plays with herself and teases him, and pretty soon he is playing with
her as well as enjoying the art that surrounds them.
This is a nice story with interesting ambiance.
Ratings for "A Day at the Art Institute"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Monks Five: Scorpion" by H.D. Meister (dez187lm@hotmail.com). Guest
Review by DG.
After the rather brutal chop-job that I did on a story by this author a
few weeks ago, I was a little surprised that Celeste sent me another
one. I found the first story ("Oblivion" something or the other) to be
laughably over-written and silly, and I gave in to the temptation to
make fun of it. Feeling a little guilty about that, I began reading
this newer story with the hope that I could find something nice to say.
Well, I'm pleased to say that this story, who's full title is "Perverted
Monks Scorpion Style: Reflections of Sin," is a better story than
"Oblivion." Unfortunately, it's still not very good. The plot is
reasonably coherent: a predatory lesbian makes a habit of cruelly
seducing her straight roommates, but one of them, following the guidance
of a mysterious male guru, turns the tables on the heartless dyke.
There are some possibilities for both humor and dramatic tension here,
but the author doesn't deliver.
Although "Scorpion" has fewer of the overwrought descriptions and
metaphors that made "Oblivion" unintentionally funny, there is really
nothing much to recommend about it, either. The sex between the two
women is more of a contest of wills than an erotic interlude, and the
mystical overtones at the end of the story are right out of a B-grade
Kung Fu movie. I didn't find this story to be either sexy or thought-
provoking.
Ratings for "Monks Five: Scorpion"
Athena (technical quality): 7
Venus (plot & character): 6
DG (appeal to reviewer): 5
"On Break" by CJT (posted by venomx@aol.com). Guest review by Bronwen.
Our hero lusts after Laura, his co-worker at the drive-thru. She invites
him to her house during their half hour break. The break turns into a
marathon fuck-fest, they are 30 minutes late for work and get written up
(which seems from the context to be a disciplinary measure).
The author says "any resemblance to real people, places, or space-time
continuums is purely coincidental. (That is my way of saying that I am
aware of the discrepancies in the timetable, and I don't care!!)"
But I do. The author carefully includes timings at every stage: "We
kissed for over five minutes", "around 10 minutes in that position",
"pounded her for 20 minutes", etc. They add up to loads longer than an
hour. Why didn't he just leave these timings out? Or if he had to
include them couldn't he simply have changed the plot to fit the total?
It's _his_ plot, after all!
Maybe other readers won't care, but my reaction was "if the writer
doesn't care about his own story, why should I?" Not the route to
memorable fiction. Otherwise it's OK. There are many worse stories than
this one out there. Apart from the timings it's coherent. The author has
flashes of decent observation where he says something fresh. His grammar
is pretty good, but his language clumsy. The phrases "lovely girl" and
"fuck the shit out of" don't readily fit in the same clause, somehow...
A straight meat and potatoes sex story.
Ratings for "On Break"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 7
Bronwen (appeal to reviewer): 7
"Girlfriends" by CANDY KANE (GQKZ45C@prodigy.com). Guest review by
Dart.
This could be a tale of gentle seduction, or it could be the innocent
and curious explorations of two teenaged girlfriends spending the night
together. Whichever is the case, it's a tender story of expanding sexual
horizons.
Debbie is spending the night with Candy, and Candy's parents have
graciously allowed them to use the guest house for their sleepover.
Debbie hints that she has something exciting to share with Candy, but
insists that they wait until everyone in the main house has gone to
sleep. Finally that occurs, and Debbie produces a porno tape that she
had found hidden in her brother's closet. It turns out to be a girls
only tape, but it arouses both of them despite their status as normal,
boy-loving, teenagers.
Debbie is the aggressor, though a very gentle one. She wants them to
just touch each other. Candy's not so sure. Skipping over the details,
I'll just mention that in the morning they were both happy and
satisfied. And planning more sleepovers.
This story could have stood a very light pass by a proofreader. I also
found it a little bit amusing when Debbie used Candy's pre-cum to
lubricate .... Well, to lubricate something which can be discovered by
reading the story. But pre-cum! Why not the plain vanilla juice of
arousal?
Ratings for "Girlfriends"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 10
Dart (appeal to reviewer): 9