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Subject: {ASS} Celestial Reviews 234 - Nov 15
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Celestial Reviews 234 - November 15, 1997
Note: People occasionally write and say, "The reviews are great, but where do
I find the stories?" The three best ways to find the stories are (1) get
them from a.s.s. or a.s.s.m. when they are posted, (2) get them from the
a.s.s.m. archive (http://www.netusa.net/~eli/erotica.html), and (3) get them
from www.dejanews.com. At DejaNews, I suggest using the search words
"alt.sex.stories" plus key words from the title of the story. Sometimes (but
not always) the author's name will also help on DejaNews.
Second note: Other people occasionally write and say, "Your ratings are too
high!" They point out that on a 10-point scale, the average story should
rate around 5. They ask if I think all my straight 10's rank up there with
the great works of literature.
I'll address the second problem first. If the works of John Milton and John
Bunyon are among the great works of literature, then so are these stories.
But those aren't, and neither are some of these.
As for my high ratings, I am trying to maintain a certain degree of
consistency. Initially, I tried to compare the stories I reviewed to what I
saw throughout all of alt.sex.stories. I designated the worst stories I saw
as zeroes and the best as tens. However, two things happened:
1. People started writing better stories, and
2. I stopped reading and reviewing most of the bad stories.
About a year ago I made a serious effort to stiffen my requirements for 10's.
Authors responded by writing even better stories. Since I want to maintain
some semblance of continuity between old and new ratings, I can't keep on
raising my standards.
The key factor in my "grade inflation" is that people send me and I tend to
select predominantly good stories for review. Since I am deliberately
avoiding bad stories, it's not surprising that I don't give many ones and
zeroes and that I get a lot of tens. It's like trying to rate the baseball
ability of everyone who plays that sport. Almost all major leaguers would
get 10's, because they are clearly superior to the run-of-the-mill players.
However, these tens would not help people determine who are the best major
league baseball players.
The problem with my "inflated ratings" is that it is difficult to tell the
excellent stories from the good stories. There are two ways to solve this
problem. First, you can read the narrative of the reviews to learn more
about the stories, and then you can read the stories themselves and make up
your own mind about their quality. Second, if you really want my opinion to
serve as a guideline, look at the Top 20 lists that I post each month. I
seriously maintain that any story on my Top 20 lists is as good as the
stories you will find on magazine racks, and those in the Top 5 or so are
often better than what kids read in their high school literature classes.
Final note: Remember: even though someone else may be posting my reviews for
me, my e-mail address is still Celeste801@aol.com.
- Celeste
"Not Blackmailed" by Tigger (mild bdsm) 10, 10, 10
"Nick Gory" by H.D. Meister (action adventure sex) 10, 10, 10
"Japan-A Sex Story" by Me (kiddy sex) 7, 6, 3
"Spare Keys" by Brother Cadfael (sleepy, dreamlike sex)
10, 10, 10
"MIR: A Trip to Heaven and Back" by Kathy (spaceship sex)
7, 9, 9
"Daydreams" by Kim (sexy fantasies) 10, 10, 10
"Best Friends" by Nymph (threesome) 10, 8, 8
"His Girlfriend's Mother" by Ann Douglas (adolescent/adult
one-nighter) 10, 10, 10
Guest Reviews:
"Feed the Night" by Brother Cadfael (lesbian vampire sex) 8, 9, 8
"The Temp of the Perverse" by Twelve (Poe parody) 10, 8, 8
"My So Called Life" by DisneyWD1 (anthropological yawner)
7, 8, 6
"Tease" by Hawk Richards (sexual ttillation) 10, 10, 10
"Prissy" By Waldo (mystery & TG story) 10, 8, 7
"Her Little Sister" by Charles Wood (sex, romance, & intrigue)
10, 10, 10
"Not Blackmailed" by Tigger (tigger@alices.com). The protagonist is an author
for a newsgroup like this one. He is inexperienced sexually, but he has an
active imagination and has written several good stories dealing with benign
bdsm. That is, he doesn't like stories in which the domme sends the male
screaming into the night, never to return. Occasionally he finishes his
stories at the office, and one day he accidentally lets his boss find one of
his stories on his computer screen. It turns out that she is a fan of his
writing on the newsgroup, and they make plans to give him some practical
experience.
This is a very good story. There's not much explicit sex in it, but the plot
does a good job of integrating bdsm with an office environment that involves
no exploitation.
Ratings for "Not Blackmailed"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Nick Gory" by H.D. Meister (dez187lm@hotmail.com).
Nick Gory is a government agent who has been assigned to track down and
arrest Katrina, the most beautiful black woman who ever existed.
Unfortunately, Katrina is also a major drug dealer. I found the surrounding
plot to be a bit confusing - but the author did that to me on purpose. The
sex scenes, however, are highly erotic.
Ratings for "Nick Gory"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Japan-A Sex Story" by Me (afowler888@aol.com). If my math and memory are
correct, this is a story about a 18-year-old American boy who goes to Japan
as an exchange student and fucks the living brains out of a 12-year-old
Japanese girl and her little friend. I think it must have something to do
with getting even for Pearl Harbor. I guess there's a market for this kind
of crap.
Ratings for "Japan-A Sex Story"
Athena (technical quality): 7
Venus (plot & character): 6
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 3
"Spare Keys" by Brother Cadfael (Brother_Cadfael@earthcorp.com). An
ex-girlfriend lets herself into the guy's apartment with a spare key and
tries to spark a dying flame. The only trouble with this story is that it's
so short that it's almost not a full story. But I enjoyed it thoroughly. I
also think I may change the locks on my house.
Ratings for "Spare Keys"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"MIR: A Trip to Heaven and Back" by Kathy (kristen78@aol.com). Shannon is an
American astronaut stationed with two Soviet cosmonauts on the Space Station
MIR. The Russians are horny as hell from their deprivation with no women in
space for a long time, and Shannon is quickly convinced to help them fulfill
their needs. This is a good idea for a story, but it doesn't quite come off.
Certainly there must be aspects of sex in a space station that would be of
unique interest (such as weightlessness and semen floating freely after it
has been ejaculated), but the author devotes little attention to these
topics. For the most part, the sex described here could have occurred among
three horny people anywhere. In addition, although the author seems to have
run a spellcheck, there are numerous instances of incorrect words. Still,
this is a pretty good story.
Ratings for "MIR: A Trip to Heaven and Back"
Athena (technical quality): 7
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9
"Daydreams" by Kim (Kim@nym.alias.net). This is essentially the erotic
version of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." Kim describes a day during
which she daydreams while she goes about her daily activities. Each daydream
is more erotic than the last. I'll tell you no more: read the story
yourself. You won't regret it.
Ratings for "Daydreams"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Best Friends" by Nymph (nymph@sirius.com). A guy goes to a party, and by
Jove, he's going to get lucky. The trouble is, he gets TOO lucky, and the
best friend of the girl he wants in the sack with him is so interested in him
that she won't go away. What the heck! He fucks them both. If that plot
sounds good to you, you'll enjoy this story.
Ratings for "Best Friends"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8
"His Girlfriend's Mother" by Ann Douglas (annd@pop.tiac.net). Becky Riley is
a teenage girl who is using a classmate named Mike in order to get him to do
her homework. Her mother is repulsed by this - not because Becky is cheating
herself out of an education, but rather because the bitch is throwing mere
sexual pittances Mike's way, instead of giving him the good sex he so richly
deserves. So Mom tries to make up for her daughter's shortcummings by giving
the virgin boy his first view of a naked woman, his first blowjob, and his
first full vaginal penetration - all in a night's work.
Grammar time: Which of these sentences uses a word incorrectly?
He could already feel his dick getting hard again.
Michael's cock was buried in her already wet pussy.
I'll bet you're already to go again.
Answer: the third sentence is correct. "Already" does not mean "entirely ready
." The author should have said, "I'll bet you're all ready to go again."
Ratings for "His Girlfriend's Mother"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Feed the Night" by Brother Cadfael (Brother_Cadfael@earthcorp.com). Guest
review by DG.
I always like to see some originality in a sex story; so when I realized that
"Feed the Night" was a tale about a pair of lesbian vampires, I was
intrigued. One vampire, Jezebel, makes a habit of picking up exotic dancers
at a local strip club and feeding off them. The none-too-bright owner of the
club is always complaining that his dancers never show up for work again
after Jezebel takes them home. As the story opens, Jezebel picks up a dancer
named Andi and takes her back to her place for a drink. But Jezebel likes
Andi so much that she turns her into a vampire instead of feeding off her,
and they begin a torrid affair. Then they both start having strange, ominous
dreams about the same dark man, and it is up to the new vampire, Andi, to
save Jezebel from her past.
I liked the plot and characters in this story, but I thought the execution
could have been a lot better. The middle section, when Jezebel and Andi are
both recovering from the conversion of Andi into a vampire, drags a bit. And
I didn't really find myself getting into the sex scenes very much. As much
as I enjoy watching women have sex with each other, I really don't enjoy
reading about it all that much, especially when it's written in the third
person by male writer. I guess I need to be able to identify with one of the
characters to really get turned on. On the positive side, the story does
have a mysterious, gothic atmosphere and an ambitious plot. If you are a fan
of erotic vampire stories, a la Anne Rice, you will enjoy "Feed the Night."
Ratings for "Feed the Night"
Athena (technical quality): 8
Venus (plot & character): 9
DG (appeal to reviewer): 8
"The Temp of the Perverse" by Twelve (twelfth@psynet.net). Guest review by
Vickie Tern.
This story begins with a mock appeal to netsmut addicts not unlike those that
Edgar Allen Poe's narrators occasionally used to induce foreboding in Poe's
readers, those decent patrons of pulp mag perversity of his own time who
were, after all, helping to keep him in booze and drugs by buying his stuff:
"Do not judge me and the unabashed irrationality of my sordid acts until you
have heard me out. Think not that you are immune. That dark corner of your
soul though carefully hidden can be exposed in an instant, and the cool
reasoned intellect that smirks at these twisted words can be tossed into the
maelstrom that whirls and sucks all into the insatiable abyss."
Yeahhh! There it all is, big words conferring authority on everything
described, our helplessness before our own compulsions, the smug assumption
that any impulses not rationally conceived and approved must be evil, and
due warning of the sure and certain fate that awaits those who submit --
chaos of the mind, madness, death, at the very least a mind-staggering fuck
beyond imagination or hope for redemption! Way to go! Poe still rules
because behind the facade of conventional "Gothic" ghost and horror stories
he sneakily reared up all sorts of deliciously wicked desires, the kinds we
abhor in daylight and love to cultivate in the dark (if we're over 18, of
course). The drama's largely of style as we observe his overly-literate
narrators with their perfervid imaginations all going bonkers under the thin
propriety sustained by their educated discourse. Cautionary notes for us all
indeed.
So the warning provided at the outset is part of the fun in this parody Poe
tale. And if the writer hadn't overdone it, it would have come off well.
Essentially it tells of a proper middle-aged office manager with a small,
adequate office staff, reconciled in his own mind that he is married to a
frigid shrew. It then tells what happens to his employees, himself, and his
wife when a mysterious Indian "Temp" secretary comes to work wearing a
powerful aphrodisiacal patchouli, an attribute of Eastern erotic goddesses.
Something not unlike sexual desire rears its head. In fact, that's exactly
what it is, pounding, pulsating, driving the participants into mad sexual
exploits in the best Roger Corman or Universal Horror film manner. Even
during business hours! How crazed can impropriety get? Read and find out.
All good fun, especially as the narrator's language keeps paying lip service
to the supposed moral certainties of Poe's time if not ours (e.g. the Indian
Temp "had discovered the means to tap this foetid fount and loose a stream of
unchannelled debauchery on whomever happened in its path. Does evil need a
rationale for its existence?"). He's literate enough to pass dozens of
Celeste's SAT Vocabulary Training Tests, and even makes reference to Parvati
and Nabokov ("wipe your glosses with what you know," James Joyce once
advised).
But for me, after a while, even though the writer's ingenuity sustained
itself, the joke wore too thin. The "gossamer glossolalia" even got to be a
screen hiding the hot sex, instead of an amusingly ironic, heavy-breathing
revelation of it. There's plentiful wit in this tale, but even Poe turned to
single-syllables and unmannerly direct discourse when he went all out. Now
and then, "Enough already!" I cried to the writer's obdurate and refractory
muses, fists extended in supplicating entreaty. But did they listen? No.
I've got to add that no tale is negligible that begins with a classical
epigraph like this: "Consider the little mouse, how sagacious an animal it is
which never entrusts its life to one hole only." - Titus Maccius Plautus,
*Truculentus* There is deep thought here for porn fans. As there is in
the concluding motto: "Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto." - Terence.
This last is often used to justify all erotic writing, translated "I'm
human, everything human is of interest to me." In fact in the Roman play
where it appears it's a line spoken by a sexually depraved old man, and means
in effect, "I'm a man, so I'll fuck anything that walks on two legs!" Who
says the classics don't elevate our souls and sensibilities the way porn
does?
Ratings for "The Temp of the Perverse"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Vickie (appeal to reviewer): 8
"My So Called Life" by DisneyWD1 (disneywd1@aol.com). Guest review by BillyG.
"My So Called Life" is a 13,000 word emotional flat line written in the
technical style and jargon of a teenager who would have been given perhaps a
"C" in Grammar by Celeste. More to the point, the story would have garnered
a "D" in erotic appeal.
Oh, the elements, at least some of them, are there. Brian, the poor little
rich kid is introduced to sex by Sally, the high school "popular girl," only
to fall for her somewhat less-attractive girlfriend, Becky. Then hero and
Becky do the deed, each for the first time, and that story is told with all
the verve of a stock quote.
Fans of minutia and detail will be pleased, even impressed. We learn more of
the hum-drum detail of their lives that prepares us for what? Nothing, as it
turn out. Meaningless trivia that goes nowhere.
Our reluctant hero Brian is eventually seduced by his younger sister (with
Becky's consent, even urging). He labors through this menage a trois, noble
soul that he is, and remains apparently unaffected and unruffled. Later,
again with Becky's urging, they inter into yet another threesome with good
old Sally and yet later a foursome. Yawn.
This is best characterized as a monologue about largely featureless,
two-dimensional people who are moving smoothly through an untroubled life on
a flat road to no where. The peter meter never budged.
Ratings for "My So Called Life"
Athena (technical quality): 7 (The story needs a
fundamental clean up.)
Venus (plot & character): 8 (The stuff of a story is there
but it just doesn't work.)
BillyG (appeal to reviewer): 6 (It's a social worker's
case report.)
"Tease" by Hawk Richards (hawkrds@aol.com). Guest review by The Bear
(thebear@io.com).
The time has come for The Wease1 to come scampering out of the closet, or
slinking out of the closet, or turning cartwheels out of the closet, or
whatever the heck Wease1s do -- and to reveal himself as none other than The
Bear (aka The New Bear or TheBear@io.com). Those that understood the joke are
probably tired of it, and those that didn't understand didn't miss much.
"Tease," by Hawk Richards, is a good story. It begins with a man and woman on
a date at a nice restaurant. The male narrator describes the woman's
exquisite features in appreciative detail while they flirt over dinner, and
then he takes her home and she invites him in for coffee. Sexual activity
ensues, including an arousingly written session of cunnilingus. I'm not going
to say anything further about the plot, except that the teasing you expect
may not be the teasing that you find.
This story gets a 10 on technical quality, meaning not that it was perfect
technically but that it was at least as well written as the last thing *I*
posted <g> and that minor errors didn't detract at all from the story. I had
a harder time with the plot and character rating - the story doesn't have a
great deal of plot or character development, but then it is a fairly short
and straightforward story and didn't need much. I say it has the right amount
of plot and character for the story it tells, and that gets it a 10. I had an
even more difficult time with the subjective appeal to reviewer rating. The
story as a whole didn't really push any buttons for me, but then there were
those nice descriptions of the girl and those hot paragraphs of oral sex ...
I finally decided that was worth a 10.
Ratings for "Tease"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot and character): 10
Bear (appeal to reviewer): 10
"Prissy" By Waldo (MelLin6695). Guest review by Kim.
Back from the dead, I've been lucky enough to review some more. Praise the
Goddess for second chances. Anyway, this is the strange story of the downfall
of Bryan Patterson, former ace reporter for the Washington Post.
It begins with a phone call to a former colleague and part time lover, Trish.
Busy trying to finish an article with a fast approaching deadline, she
nevertheless is sufficiently intrigued by Bryan's pleading to talk to him,
that she stops to listen to his incredible tale.
He describes to Trish how he left her for another woman, Priscilla, a
bookish, frumpy woman who has helped him to write a book. This, of course,
pisses off Trish, but that's not the main thrust of hapless Bryan's story.
One night Priscilla and Bryan happen to cross paths with the mysterious and
powerful Gary Franks and his entourage of a dozen beautiful, flawless women
in a restaurant. One of the beautiful women happens to be a past friend of
Priscilla. Soon Bryan and Priscilla are drawn into a nightmarish world of
mindless sex and transformation, led by the enigmatic Franks.
So was it any good? Well, it's very well written, the first three quarters of
the story read more like a good mystery thriller. Unfortunately the mood is
not sustained and it either dissolves into science fiction farce or gay sex
romp, depending on your views and tastes. The ending is either silly, or sexy
I guess, depending on that view.
The central concept that a woman would want to trade brains for looks and
libido is pretty offensive too.
Personally, I have a slight antipathy towards TG stories as I once lived with
a man who had a taste for them. It's caused me, erm, problems ever since.
Ratings for "Prissy" By Waldo
Athena (technical quality): 10 (Very well written)
Venus (plot & character): 8 (Some unlikely characters and a
silly end)
Kim (appeal to reviewer): 7 (Interesting yes, sexy no)
"Her Little Sister" by Charles Wood (wood2chuck@hotmail.com). Guest review by
Piper
When I first read the story title, what immediately sprang to mind was some
sort of illicit, immoral tale of incest, debauchery, and hot sex between a
pair of sisters. You know, one of those semi-literate pieces where the story
is some sort of patchwork used to bridge the gaps between sex scenes?
I was only partly right.
What I found when I got into the story, was a well-written, emotional,
imaginative tale filled with incest, debauchery, and hot sex.
Donna is the older sister. Robert sort-of fell in lust with the beautiful
21-year-old woman (10 years his junior). When he visited her house to help
her with her resume (he was her sort-of co-worker), he fell in even deeper
lust with Allison, who is the younger sister. Allison is the more aggressive
of the two, so she gets to Robert first, later that same evening. She is also
the more mature and intelligent of the two, with a soul-deep understanding of
human nature and motives. She understands Robert in a way even Robert doesn't
(reading her big sister's diary helped). She also knows (from the diary) that
her big sister has a serious case of the hots for Robert. The trouble is, big
sister is being a good girl. Little sister cooks up a plan to change that.
Somewhere in the story, the sisters' mother, Debbi, gets involved. Somewhere
in the story there's a little incest (which surprises all of the involved
protagonists). Somewhere in the story Donna gets funky, much to Robert's
delight. Now, Robert has a choice to make. Who does he want? Where is his
heart leading him? Which of the beautiful women who he is so attracted to is
the right one for him? What a difficult choice to make. I just wish I had his
problem!
This is a first posting by Chuck. It's a long (150k) story. I hope we see a
whole lot more stories of this quality from him.
Ratings for "Her Little Sister"
Technical merit 10
Plot and character 10
Appeal to reviewer 10
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