The Nifty Archives began around early 1993 as an FTP site specializing in gay pictures and stories. This makes it ancient by Web standards, and a workhorse by Web standards; it has grown over the years since to encompass a five servers, broad- bandwidth access, and a library of over 10,000 stories. It's safe to say it's the largest and most-hit collection of gay and lesbian stories around. Not only that, it's completely non-commercial and there aren't any weird cookies to harass and keep track of you. The site is run on a strictly volunteer basis and donations are requested in a tasteful way to keep it up and active.
Design-wise, the site is very professional. The loading is fast and it's easy to navigate, with no banners or advertising. The stories are sent in by readers and authors, with most of them first appearing on various gay-relating newsgroups. They are then split into Gay, Lesbian, Bestiality and Transgender sections, with each section divided again into 25 sub-categories such as adult friends, historical, masturbation, and interracial that give you an idea of what the subject matter is. Most stories seem to be one-shot deals by the author, but frequent contributors to the archive (those who can claim 3 or more stories to their credit) are featured in a section of their own. Among the heavy hitters represented are Anne Douglas, Candy Kane, Davis Trell, Marc Tremaine, Andrej Koymasky, Author22, and Michael Gouda, all of which I've reviewed positively in previous editions of the Annex, with many, many more frequent authors waiting to be discovered. Ultra-prolific writers Elf Sternberg and Ian Duncan are called out separately on the main page, as well as a collection of gay Native American fiction and the intriguingly titled "Chronicles of Kovzland," but unfortunately these links weren't working when I dropped in and produced no stories. (Note: As of 3/20/99 these links have been fixed.)
As most stories come from newsgroups their quality varies. There's lots of good reading available, but I also noted dreck like "Stone of the Phalanx." How the latter slipped in is beyond me, as the only gay content I remember it having was various young females having mechanical lesbian sex under a 15-year-old's hypnotic suggestions (which doesn't jel with the NA's credo that it doesn't accept stories with "unwilling participants" or "coercion of minors".) Someone must have been asleep on the job. Get that turkey out of there, fast--it will give newcomers a very bad idea of Nifty's standards. Other subject matter the archive won't accept is rape of minors, abusive situations involving minors, graphic violence, and dangerous sexual acts. Some of the stories that failed the grade were "Chained and Raped Chicken," "Sphincter Boy," and "Ugly Fucker"; one of the reasons given was the author's guardians requested removal. (Huh.)
The archive's only shortcoming, as far as I can see, is a failure to provide synopses or author credit in the listings for the one-shot gay stories, which comprise the majority of the archive. The stories aren't given their correct titles, just whatever their file name was, so the previously mentioned "Stone of the Phalanx" could turn up as "stone.txt," thereby inflicting incredible suffering on an unknowing reader. I'm being sarcastic here, but at least listing the correct titles would be nice. A search function is available for the site to alleviate problems like this, but it costs extra for the user ($4.95/yr, not a bad deal actually, if you're a frequent user of the site.)
The site also includes many links to story sites, sexual information, and gay issues; a list of posting codes, a mission statement, and other information for readers and authors. It currently resides on five mirror servers: NE America, SE America, the Mid-Atlantic states, the Western US, and SW Europe including Portugal.
Bookmark this site if you like fiction like this; it's essential.
Interface: A+
Content: A+
Will I visit again: Probably.