Message-ID: <1832eli$9707011045@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Archived-At: <URL:http://www.netusa.net/~eli/erotica/assm/Year97/1832.txt> From: LadyCyrrh@aol.com Subject: The Annex Reviews 6/30/97 Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.d,alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d Path: qz!not-for-mail Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam Approved: <usenet-approval@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Story-Submission: <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Is-Review: yes Note to Readers: One of the things I would like to do over the next few months is create a listing of the names writers use to post by and what they mean, as WW Mitty was kind enough to do in some mail sent to me last week. For example, in my own name the Cyrrh can refer either to stripper Lili St Cyr or, saying it as it's spelled, as "Sir." Lady Sir. The Cyrrh also has Greek overtones, as in Myrrh, Smyrna, and Pyrrhus. Am I a woman...or a man? Another correspondent suggested the Cyrrh may be a reference to science fiction C.J. Cherryh, but that isn't the case, even though I like to read SF. Anyway, if you'd like to make us all laugh a bit, drop a line with an explanation to Lady Cyrrh@aol.com. There will be no Annex Reviews for next week; I am going out of town. Have a happy and safe Fourth of July. Lord Siris' Castle - Version 2.1c [A] When posted: 6/26/97 Where posted: ASS, ASSG Author: SwampRat and Redvane Foxfur (afril@deepwell.com) For those who don't already know, "fur" is a subgenre of sex story that deals with sexual intercourse with hairy, animal-like humanoids. The creatures are sometimes supernatural, as with werewolves, or alien, such as the relatives of the Kzin and Titanides that populate Elf Sternberg's stories. Sometimes they are just very hairy humans, and sometimes hairy animals with human intelligence. Fur stories appear to be an exclusively gay or male bi phenomenon. I haven't come across any female equivalents yet--that is, written by females, or with female protagonists. Of course, one can say the many doing-it-with-Rover stories are the female equivalent, but I'm not sure they mean the same thing. Personally I think things are more stimulating when the other partner can talk, so fur stories are a good compromise between animal and human sex. This story follows typical fantasy formula in that a young lad is sent off to save his village from evil raiders by asking the help of a powerful wizard. He meets a talking deer, a minotaur, and a were-dragon, and, being a virgin, he asks them to teach him about sex. After some hot and then tense moments, the wizard agrees to help his village on the basis of his honest and generous nature. If all the gay sex were taken out, this story could have easily sat on the Borders bookshelves next to Piers Anthony and David Eddings. I admit the combination of fantasy, humor, and explicit sex was strange, but ultimately it worked well and was a good addition of its genre. So if you like fantasy and flying fur, you will like this. Fantasy # 32 [C-] When posted: 6/26/97 Where posted: ASS Author: milfordw@worcester.net (Milford Whittemore) Oh God. As soon as I read the first line of this, "You are standing before me and I am going to tell you exactly what I want you to do" I knew what I was in for. It's another let's pretend we're having sex story! But for some odd reason, the man telling it to the woman didn't even have the imagination to fill in her physical responses (such as "You become very excited as your pussy grows hotter and wetter") and instead concentrated on his own, which leads me to believe the point of this was to get himself off, not his unseen lady-love. After the sex act he will "convulse a couple of more times before collapsing on top of you" hopefully leaving a "stain the size of a family size pepperoni pizza." How erotic! Hopefully, it wasn't from the effects of the victim's buttplug being pulled out. He then asks female readers to go to a certain web site and fill out a questionaire about their dating preferences. Huh-uh. I don't think so. Bad writing, bad grammar, bad attitude. Avoid this, and probably any other numbered fantasies you come across. Chanel #5 they ain't. Nicky's Lingerie [C] When posted: 6/28/97 Where posted: ASS, ASSM Author: "chris royal" <chris_royal@hotmail.com> For some reason object-fetish stories--such as rubber, shoes, or, in this case, silky panties--are less well written than those of other subgenres. This was the case here. It also needs a good pruning, like with the pair of two-foot electrical lineman's cutters I use to work in my garden. A horny businesswoman jerks off in a boring meeting, than stops at the lingerie shop on her way home to buy a pair of panties to please her husband. Inexplicably, the shopgirl jerks her off in turn. Even more inexplicably, neither bisexuality or lesbianism gets a mention. Some slightly hot action for those who like lingerie and F/F stories; if you're not like-minded, don't bother. For Lyn [B+] When posted: 6/26/97 Where posted: ASSM Author: Dirty Dawg (address unknown) As some other reviewers have given high marks to this story, I thought I'd read it and review it myself. As a piece of literature, it was well written, and certainly followed all the good advice you'd soak up in a typical writing college class. The emphasis was on romance--or rather a romantic situation--rather than sex, and the author states he or she wasn't trying any differently: "this is your 'vanilla' type of male/female sex/love story here. This is NOT a story about a nympho teenage cheerleader naked skydiver having midair sex with her coach before landing in a cucumber patch guarded by a horny St. Bernard." This is the plot: In 1972 a high school senior "takes care of" his best friend's sexy girlfriend while the friend is away for the summer. The girl's brother goes MIA in Nam, and through comforting her the pair grow close. They attempt to have sex but their morals stop them. Girl eventually marries original boyfriend, but twenty years later he dies, and she marries the narrator. They have a son they name after the dead guy and encourage him to play football like his namesake did. Nice, but I couldn't shake the feeling it was the sort of thing you'd find in a porno magazine for Mormons. Or sponsored by the Lutheran Church Family Council. (I don't have anything against Mormons or Lutherans, but I have to admit they are kind of straight.) Tension and conflict are two vital ingredients every piece of good fiction has, and in sex stories this means when, where, and how the characters fuck. If the acts are naughty ones we wouldn't do ourselves, the tension, and interest, level jumps. But if the story is fairly "vanilla," as this author put it, this built-in sexual tension drops and the author has to work twice as hard to regain it with sheer writing genius, realism, or wildly original variations on the theme. Well, the author wasn't John Cheever or Joyce Carol Oates; we have competency, but not brilliance. Judging it against the usual run of stuff on ASS I would have given it an A, but the cloying sentimentality knocked points off for me. Plus the fact that in a romance (which is what I call this, not erotica, because relationships were the focus) one wouldn't think of the love object's "asscheeks" or "perky tits." They'd be buttocks and breasts. Romance follows certain conventions of its own. More importantly, if one wants to read romances, even those with explicit sex, all one has to do is go to a bookstore or library. It's the gay minotaurs and were-dragons, BDSM butt-pluggers, and lesbian panty- sniffers that proliferate the most in ASS, as these stories can't be found anywhere else. Lady Cyrrh@aol.com -- +--------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `------------+ | story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us | story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us | | Archive site +--------------------+------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ | \ <URL:http://www.netusa.net/~eli/erotica/assm/> .../assm/faq.html> /