"Perfect Love" by Uther Pendragon (nobody@REPLAY.COM). And now for something completely different. This is a story about love and sex in America at the end of the 22nd century. If a similar account were written by an anthropologist in, say, the 25th century (or if the present story were written by a current anthropologist about similar events and customs during the 11th century), the author would probably start with definitions of key concepts that would enable the reader to relate the time being studied to events and customs in the reader's own life. For example, in the present case, it might be useful to say that the dangers of sexual diseases and pregnancy had been brought under control by the end of the 22nd century, that sexual activity was accepted by society as a natural part of growing up and that young people were actively assisted in their sexual development by more mature partners who played an important but temporary role in the life of the adolescent, and that what we now call marriage had been subdivided into a period of time referred to as pairing followed by a more permanent relationship referred to as partnering.

There's more to sexual life in this futuristic society than what I described in the preceding paragraph. I have mentioned this much simply to state that the author does not take the systematic approach of an anthropologist, but rather uses more of a chain-of-thought approach to introduce us to Jared, Dawn, Tai and the others in this story. This more casual, sometimes poetic approach is designed to make the story less technical and more enjoyable than the anthropological approach. Unfortunately, it also makes the story somewhat confusing. My advice would be to express the ideas more directly through action instead of intellectual discourse and to focus on a single point more cohesively. I would also suggest doing something about the names. The atmosphere of the story was already strange, and on top of that I had to deal with weird, hyphenated names. It was like dealing with a Russian novel or the British aristocracy! I reacted by ignoring most of the names that I considered to be unimportant, and this probably added to the confusion that I experienced.

I hasten to add that in spite of my comments in the previous paragraph I think this is already a very good story. However, this is an author who revises and improves his work even after he has posted it; and my guess is that someday this author will revise this story to make it really excellent.

In addition to describing a futuristic society, the author describes the love life of a young man who departs from the traditional style of that society. He appears to be a romantic in a scientific, pragmatic, structured civilization. What the author is asking us to do is to imagine a world that is quite different from our own and then to imagine a person whose lifestyle is interesting because it departs from the strictures of that society. This is hard to do - we're being asked to imagine hypothetical variations about a hypothetical society to which we have barely been introduced. Although I found the effort to be at times frustrating, overall I found it to be interesting and worthwhile.

There's not much I can really say about the story itself. You have to read it to believe it. The plot begins with the sex education of an emerging adolescent boy at the end of the 22nd century. The society refers to this process as maturing the libido, and it is essentially a sort of apprenticeship during which the young man matches up with an older woman who teaches him the necessary skills and attitudes. The young man decides to enter a state of suspended animation in order to let a younger woman become closer to his own age, so that their union will be more acceptable to their culture. But as the 20th-century song by the Stattler Brothers says, "Life gets complicated when you enter suspended animation." As I said, read the story and enjoy it for yourself.

I'd like to make two final comments about this story. First, the other story with which I most closely associate this one is "Tales of the Seeding" by Wollstonecraft. The level of civilization in the two stories make them almost opposites; but in both cases the reader's enjoyment arises from trying to figure out what in the world the protagonists are doing as they work out their sexual feelings and from comparing the activities and emotions of the protagonists to their own. I encourage you to read both stories. Elf Sternberg has also written several similar stories about sexual relationships in a futuristic society.

Second, I find it interesting that this story can be written by the same author who wrote the recent series of stories about Bob and Jeanette Brennan. Those stories (all beginning with "For...") focused on the developing, romantic relationship of a couple who seemed so realistic that I felt I knew them personally. The present story, on the other hand, focuses on people who by definition cannot exist at all. I am impressed that one person can write so effectively on both these levels.