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"March Twenty-First" by Crimson Dragon (hot dreamlike sex)
10, 10, 6
"March Twenty-First" by Crimson Dragon Stephen Peters (sxjames@aol.com). This story opens with the protagonist (Lori) having left her lover (Heather) to return home to a cold and lonely apartment. Lori misses Heather something fierce -- she needs her lover's body badly, if for no other reason than to keep her warm on a cold and snowy winter's evening. Well, as luck would have it, as Lori drifts off to sleep she finds her heat (both kinds) by entering a phantasmagorical, druid-like dream world of chanting women, warm fire and cold stone. After a short, sexy encounter with a woman who is/isn't Heather, Lori can no longer contain her desire so she rushes back to Heather's apartment...and to a rather surprising ending to her night's adventure. This story idea has all the makings of an very entertaining read. The soft, semi-conscious realm between wakefulness and sleep is a great setting for a fantasy of this type, and the author did an admirable job as the tour guide. The various settings were well described, I was able to connect with Lori's distress, and the dreamlike atmosphere was sustained throughout. In particular, the transition between the cold apartment in winter and Lori's dream/fantasy world was startlingly good -- probably the best image in the piece. Unfortunately, the storytelling itself was marred by a writing style that kept me (the reader) from establishing a strong narrative voice. The repeated use of sentence fragments and single words to indicate Lori's thoughts kept my narrative 'head-voice' from achieving any sustained rhythmic flow. For this reader (and I should emphasize "this reader"), establishing that flow is crucial. More seriously, the ambiguous use of the pronoun 'she' in the paragraph that introduced the names of the dream characters had me associating "Akana" and "She-al" with the wrong people -- a very frustrating experience. Finally, as a reader I would liked to have seen a better-described sex scene between Lori and the dream women. The setting was all there, but the heat wasn't. From a purely technical standpoint (grammar, spelling, punctuation) the story rates a ten -- I don't think I can take off points for the pronoun problem. Plot and character (or rather, the story idea itself) is this tale's strong suit -- again, a ten. For the above-mentioned reasons "appeal to reviewer" rates a six.... but understand that all my reviews come with this disclaimer: Numbers mean nothing without context -- read the damned review. Ratings for "March Twenty-First" Athena (technical quality): 10 Venus (plot & character): 10 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 6 |