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Subject: {ASS} Celestial Reviews 236 - Nov 22
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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 Unknown Author (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 Unknown Author.  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)



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