Recommended stories. Currently just a bunch of old lists collected together, until I can sort through them. The bottom of the 2009 list (originally 9 stories) was of poor quality and has been mercilessly culled.

[Reader's Picks, 2008]

I guess if there's an overarching theme to these stories it's that I like chaos, transformation and confusion. Order is nice too, but only if it's somehow transgressive.

Mind control picks

Fey by Tabico (mc ff mf) - This is my favorite story ever, by a considerable margin. The prose is breathtaking, the world-building is perhaps the best I've ever seen, and the gradual revelatory drop from moral clarity to ambiguity is brilliant. After all that, there's not much sex. But that doesn't really matter.

Matryoshka Doll by Aerosol Kid (mc ff) - It's not so much the prose here as the mood and sequencing of ideas that make this story brilliant. The reader is taken on a journey of successive revelations, each as false as the last, and each vignette is itself brilliantly paced and dialogued. It's nicely short, too.

Kerry, Queen of the Dark by William Pratt (mc ff gr) - I love Pratt's work for his boundless conceptual creativity and sense of humor, and this story exemplifies both, but so do lots of others; it's because Kerry is both more chaotic (stemming as it did from an Addventure) and packs an unusual amount of heat that I'm picking it here.

Unlimited Wishes Two by Good Boy (mc mf md fd hm) - The whole series is worth reading, but this is by far my favorite. Sara fucks everything up, changing the whole world for her own short-term gratification, but in a sense, it's difficult to blame her -- nobody ever told her that her power was conditional on being nice. Good Boy pans the camera out a bit and captures the chaos she causes.

BMOC: Black Mage on Campus by ONIX (md mm gr) - Damien's spell in BMOC is more like ordered chaos, although unpredictable reactions persist. There's also more emphasis on motivation in this story than some others, although that's not really one of my concerns. I only have weak mm leanings, but there's so much heat here that it really doesn't matter.

Trixie's Treat by Villainy (mc gr) - Villainy is a fantastic vignette author. I'm picking this one for a number of reasons: its brevity, its brilliant successes in tone and setting, its wry transgressiveness, the fact that it manages to be so hot despite no sex taking place on screen, and the fact that I just reread it for Halloween. ;D

Transformation

Faeophobia: Breasts of the Magi by XXXecil (mf tg) - Intermittent and chaotic transspecies transgender transformations against a compelling future-mythic backdrop, rendered in loving detail. One hell of a ride.

Futa stuff

Die Walk�re by Flesh Seraph (hf nc) - is probably the best story in this category: self-contained, well-written, emotional, and sexually chaotic. The meditation on morality is perhaps conventional in some ways, but it's subversive in others. It's one I keep returning to.

Inner Demon by solovn (hf nc) - solovn (the name appears to derive from "Sol Oliver," although it's also Danish for "solar furnace") is a voluminous producer of herm erotica, and frankly I don't like most of it. But this story is brilliant, particularly in dialogue. Mothers, please don't call upon demonic forces to curse your daughters -- you might wind up creating some very interesting problems involving evil twins that you won't be able to get rid of.

Dexter Chronicles by Mysty Mason (hm nc extreme) -Whoo boy. When this story got cross-posted to a forum someone wrote that it gave them nightmares. They can't be the only one. It's lurid in detail and unbridled in cruelty far more than anything I've ever read; not all the pain is even sexual; and in fact, the only thing that seems to carry the story as far as it goes is misandry. But having said all that, it's perhaps the apotheosis of all transgressivity, it's well-written, and it's intensely compelling. I'd go so far as to say it's cathartic in the classical sense: it evokes such intense and focused pity and fear that it reorients and cleanses something deep within the mind. And there's a lot to be said for that, in the end.

[Favorites of 2009]

#4: Riposte Revenge by Retta - Retta told me this was her most researched story, because she had to learn about fencing. But I'm not recommending this story because of the allegedly accurate fencing match, about which I've no idea. I'm recommending it for the clever dialogue, the delicious water imagery, and, of course, the reflection-play. (Is that a thing? It goddamned well is now.) My initial thought was that the story didn't really explain its universe well, but upon reread I don't think that matters -- the piece stands alone just fine.

#3: Battle Hookers (Episode 1) by TheGreenGoblin - This story has one of the best first scenes I've ever read. It then backslides into being merely pretty good -- there are long stretches where nothing interesting happens. Plus, at one point, Goblin thought the following sentence was the best way to express an idea: "Beautiful in its simplicity, the tongue licked the pussy." (I swear it's not any better in context.) But by the end of part 3 it recovers somewhat, and there's enough creativity and appeal to make it worth pushing through the rough patches.

#2: Bite by Chew Toy - I mean, I understand why I like the story, but it's hard to explain why I like it so much. The characterization -- of all the main characters -- is pretty great, and there aren't a ton of glaring flaws; but, on the other hand, nothing spectacular happens, and I complained in the update thread about the ending being a strange decision. As I wrote in that review, a lot of the story's success is down to tone, and to "making serial recruitment seem cute." I detect the same sort of consistent emotional timbre as I do in blankpage's better stories -- the melancholic but lyrical tune that seems to accompany the enforcement of love by unabashedly unnatural means. Or something like that, at any rate. Sadly, this is another great story by an author whose other works I largely don't like.

#1: School Girls by Cristina Prince - I'll never understand why people continually praise virtually every other CP story -- in this thread, the consensus seems to be Sandy in Church Country -- over this one. In my opinion, School Girls is the home run of her oeuvre. First of all, it's much longer than Sandy, and none of that length is wasted: the story features, in order, a musicologist, avocado (and cactus) flavored gum, the description of a breast as "a big triple-pounder of backwoods sustenance," and a pink beverage -- known as "Prep Juice!" -- that turns scrawny men into jocks but surprisingly doesn't turn them gay. How can that not be awesome? Of course, the central elements of CP's universe are there: the age regression, detailed transformation and the twisting of religion. But the way we those elements' effects on a range of individuals from outside Cherub Cove, in some detail, is unparalleled in the other stories. To be honest, I don't really share the central fetishes in full -- old men, or even young men, getting girls pregnant isn't exactly what I seek out. But CP is such a superb writer -- essentially William Pratt reincarnated -- that this theoretical lack of appeal doesn't even matter very much. That's why, for now at least, she deserves the #1 spot.

Not rated, but worth mentioning

Good to the Last Drop by Mister Harvest. I don't feel comfortable ranking this story because the best parts were published multiple years ago, and because it still might not be done. Still, I don't think I've explicitly endorsed Brigid as one of the best characters I've ever read in an EMC story, so I'll go ahead and do that.

[Favorites of 2010]

10 Sockubus by Vanderbilt (mc ff cb) Kira Blake shows off her personality. And her shapeshifting socks. Slightly muddled, but amusing and hot enough to bear rereads.

9 Elgin's Rise by Mr. J. (mc mf ff fd ma gr) Some fairly promising elements, such as theft of boyfriend and athletic prowess, but I didn't like what happened once the plot started twisting.

8 Hospital Hijinks by Retta (mc ff gr) As insubstantial as candy, at least as a standalone. When it didn't hit my hot buttons it dragged a bit, but when it did (which was frequently) it was great.

7 Girls with Guns by Vanderbilt (mc ff fd) Definitely seems to read longer than 1783 words. I'm a sucker for tall dommes, and the induction was creative here.

6 Best Intentions by softi (mc ff) I don't think anyone can say this is a bad story. I definitely liked Bailey, but Tatiana didn't intrigue me at all, and at times the story got a bit solipsistic. Still, well-written, hot, I'll take it.

5 The New Way by Der Nibelung (mc ff mf fd) This isn't on the list because of graphic sex (there's none) or great prose (it could use an editing pass). But what eroticism there was hit me in just the right spot, and there's a lot of creativity on display.

4 Pink Moon by Retta (mc ff gr) Retta drops all the pretense and shows off her personality (in the person of the witch, whom I kept seeing as Dark Magician Girl for some reason.) The setting is simple, but the story does its job and with panache.

3 Gift of the Succubus by purpleocean0139 (mc ff gr) I put this one on the list even though I'm only halfway through it, because of the energy, skill, and eye for detail with which it's written. Molly and Xeira are both quite believable, and the scene at the end of the first chapter just made me thuddd, more even than the constant sex with Lucy that follows.

2 Paint it Black by Jukebox (mc ff) Last year I had a mediocre story on the list just because it dared to transform a "good girl" into a badass with some level of detail. But the transformation that Henna works on Rachel is much more specific, targeted and beautiful, and there's actually a workable story around it. Jukebox stories rarely work for me, but when they do, they work very well.

1 Sea Foam by Baochai Jya (mc ff mf fd ft gr in) It's ff gr, it's got realistic demonstrations of incredible power, it's got details, it's got wit, it's got structure, and it's got the word "hierodule." What it doesn't have yet is an ending, but it could have ended after the second chapter and it would still be my story of the year.