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"Melisande" by Richard Todd (opera-based sex). Fiddler: 7, 9, 7
"Melisande" by Richard Todd (richard@magi.com). Guest review by Fiddler. --- Paul picks up Melisande on a foggy stretch of highway. They discover that they have much in common including a love of opera. After a day of exploring each others' minds, they have a night of exploring -- and enjoying each others' bodies. But Melisande is on a quest, and they must part the next morning. They both hope to meet again; but the story stops there. The question of reviewing stories in genres which one doesn't like is recurring once again on ASSD. This review is quite the opposite. A romance between two people with intellectual tastes leading to a hot time in bed pushes almost all my buttons. Why didn't this story push them harder? Perhaps it was because the couple matched too perfectly. Despite the tragic parting, I get no sense of conflict from the story. Paul fears a sexual dysfunction, but it doesn't happen. The two opinionated people agree on everything. One minor problem with the story is that it breaks the reader's attention with two annoyances. The first is a good deal of "high ASCII." There is an acute mark over the first e in "Melisande" (at least there is in the opera) which comes out as an asterisk on my word processor; there are also occasional "smart quotes" although most of the quotation marks are readable. The second is that the story seems to have been scanned in at some time; "d" keeps appearing where "cl" is needed, "m" appears where "rn" is needed, etc. There is very little wrong with the grammar of this story, but mechanical bad spelling is still bad spelling. Ratings for "Melisande" Athena (technical quality): 7 Venus (plot & character): 9 Fiddler (appeal to this reviewer): 7 |