Celestial Reviews 201 - July 23, 1997

Note:  I recently posted my Celestial Summaries.  There are four 
of these - two segments arranged by title and two arranged by 
author.  If you notice any corrections, I would appreciate knowing 
about them.  If there are enough corrections, I'll repost a 
corrected version.  Otherwise, I'll incorporate the corrections 
into Celestial Summaries 300 next year.

Second note: A reader (Mat Twassel) responded to my 200th issue by 
interviewing me through cyberspace.  Here are his questions and my 
answers.  Enjoy!

Q1.  What story (or kinds of story) have you found most difficult 
to review?  Why?  

A1.  If by the most difficult stories to review you mean which do 
I dislike reviewing the most, the answer is long ones that don't 
make sense.  A very close second is the story that initially 
appears to be complete but turns out to be unfinished.  If I can 
realize these problems ahead of time, I simply decline to review 
the story.

If by the most difficult you mean the most challenging, then the 
answer would be those with complex plots that focus on concepts 
that I don't fully understand.  I thought TG stories would fall 
into this category, but the TG stories I have reviewed have been 
surprisingly good - probably because they were written by people 
like Stephanie and Vickie Tern.  Well-written D&s stories are 
sometimes a real challenge for me, because I have no interest in 
D&s in my own life.  When I review these stories I often have 
trouble ascertaining how realistic they are.

Q2.  Do you ever read stories and then decide not to review them?  
If so, for what reasons?

A2.  In general, once I read a story all the way through, I go 
ahead and write a review of it.  If I didn't like it, I try to 
find a polite way to say so.  However, I DO stop reading some 
stories if they appear to be pitifully bad after the first several 
paragraphs.  The reason I give so many high ratings is because (1) 
I look for stories by good authors and (2) I stop reading stories 
that are obviously bad, and so they simply do not get rated.

Q3.  What in sex stories almost inevitably turns you on?  What 
most turns you off?

A3.  I get turned on by descriptions that are just plain sexy and 
by situations that are carefully developed to combine sex with 
something else that interests me.  The "something else" can be 
humor, a historical context, a relationship, or any of the 
numerous devices that good authors use even in non-sex literature 
to invent good plots - the chase, crime, exotic places, people 
learning about themselves, etc.  Stories that claim to be "true" 
are not necessarily good stories; but stories about interesting 
topics that come across as both sexy and true are often real turn-
ons.

I get especially turned off by stories that stupidly describe neat 
ways to torture women and insinuate that the victims like this 
treatment.  I have enjoyed rape and even torture stories, but 
those written by simple-minded people often evoke pity for the 
authors rather than sexual excitement.  I also get turned off by 
incest for the sake of incest.  Some incest stories can actually 
be interesting and even sexy {for example, stories about kids 
exploring one another's bodies), but when moms and dads just think 
it's swell to have sex with their nine-year-olds, I get turned 
off.  Finally, while I honestly have learned to see the fun in 
some well-written watersport stories, I still get turned off by 
stories that wallow in excrement.

Q4.  What led to your decision to begin reviewing sex stories?  
What particular goals or objectives did you have?  How have your 
objectives changed over the last two years?

A4.  I started because it was fun.  Another person whose name I 
forget had written a few reviews, and I decided to give it a try.  
He stopped, and here I am 200 issues later.

Aside from the fun, I think it is a challenge to try to help 
upgrade the quality of erotic literature.  I believe I am a moral 
and responsible person, but I think that sex is good and that 
stories about sex can be fun and even beneficial to the people who 
read and write them.  Philosophically, I believe that truth will 
win out if given a chance; and so I think that by helping people 
express themselves clearly and effectively, maybe I can do my 
little bit to help the world become a better place.  If not, at 
least I can help a few thousand people have a better time in the 
sack.

I'm not really a hedonist myself; that is, I not believe that it's 
correct to evaluate moral behavior by the slogan, "If it feels 
good, do it." However, I do think integrating sexual pleasure and 
eroticism into one's lifestyle is adaptive; and I think it's even 
good to fantasize about things that one will never - and should 
never - do.  

If I can help provide a forum in which authors and readers can 
have good clean fun with sex stories, that's something I'd like to 
contribute to society.

Finally, as time has gone by, I have developed a genuine 
friendship with many people in this virtual community.  I think in 
the long run that has become my main motivation.  We have a group 
of good people who share a common interest, and I can help these 
people share their interest more effectively.  That gives me a 
nice feeling.

Q5.  Does your husband read sex stories?  Does he comment on your 
reviews?  Does he ever substantially disagree with your judgments?  
Does he ever influence your judgments?

A5.  My husband does not read many sex stories.  If he spent as 
much time reading sex stories as I do, we'd never get anything 
done around this house!  He knows what I am doing and has no 
problem with it.  I'm pretty sure he is proud of me.  He reads at 
least some of my reviews, but I have no idea how many.  Since he 
is a normal human being with active sex drives, I presume that 
like most people with access to a.s.s., he reads each issue of my 
reviews and selects stories to read based on my recommendation. He 
likes it when I act out a part of a story with him; and some of 
the things he does with me are either deja view experiences or 
ideas derived from these stories.

My husband never disagrees with my judgments.  Why would he do 
that?

He certainly does influence my judgments.  Sometimes I directly 
ask him for a man's point of view on a story.  Sometimes I say, 
"How would you feel if I did this...?"  More often, I just know 
him real well and already know what he would tell me.

Q6.  If your daughter spent as much time reading sex stories as 
you do, would you be upset?  

A6.  I have both an older and a younger teenage daughter.  The 
older one can read as many sex stories as she wants.  The younger 
one should not be reading some of the stories that appear here.  
Some of them would give her a distorted perception of human 
sexuality.  I'm sure she'll come across stories like these anyway.  
Maybe if I do a good job, she'll read my reviews and select good 
stories.  I have no intention of telling my children that I write 
these reviews.  I don't think they could keep the secret.  If they 
ever find out, I'll talk to them about it, and I assume they'll be 
proud of me.

Q7.  In a typical week, how many stories do you read, how much 
time does this take you, and how much time do you spend writing 
the reviews?

A7.  I probably spend about two hours a day reading stories and 
writing reviews.  Maybe it's closer to three.  I think I usually 
read about 20 stories a week.  It has become my major non-athletic 
recreation.  I simply don't watch television very much or read the 
comics and the recreational parts of the newspaper.

My estimate of time spent on this newsgroup does not include the 
time it took to respond to this interview.

Q8.  Have you ever posted a review you've regretted?  In your 
judgment, what (if any) have been your biggest mistakes?

A8.  Sure, I have regretted reviews.  Sometimes I make a smart-ass 
remark that I think is funny, and it hurts somebody's feelings.  I 
don't want to go into specifics.

Q9.  Would you give us a quickie definition of pornography?  Of 
erotica?

A9.  As briefly as possible - erotica includes anything that makes 
explicit mention of sex.  Some pretty boring things can be 
classified as erotica.  Pornography, on the other hand, is 
designed specifically to arouse the prurient interests of the 
people reading it.  I think both erotica and pornography are 
morally neutral.  That is, it is possible to do either good or bad 
things with them.  {In a similar way, religious writings can be 
the basis for either morally good or morally bad actions.}

The censorship people use a different definition.  They say 
pornography is sexually explicit stuff that demeans women.  By 
that definition a lot of really sexy stories on this newsgroup are 
certainly not pornography - unless you really stretch the meaning 
of "demean."

Q10.  If a sex story is to be successful for you, how important is 
it that the story arouse you sexually?  Have you ever reviewed 
stories which have been completely successful at arousing you but 
which did not rate perfect scores?

A10.  Arousal can be an important part of one good story and a 
negligible part of another.  It depends on the purpose of the 
story.  It just like poetry or movies.  I like poems that depict 
beauty and positive emotions, but poems that make me sad can also 
be great poems.  I like action movies, comedies, and romances; but 
I also acknowledge that dead serious movies can be excellent 
movies.  It's the same way with sex stories.  I enjoy stories that 
turn me on; but a story that honestly depicts the brutality of 
sexual behavior (such as Dafney Dewitt's "Spare Change," which 
almost made me gag).  I might add that the naturalistic, brutal 
stories are much more difficult to write: lots of authors write 
torture stories that are juvenile rather than intellectually and 
emotionally honest or creative.

And yes, I have reached full orgasm reading stories that have not 
received straight 10's.  You have to realize that sometimes I 
integrate my reading with other activities and fantasies.

Q11.  Do you think reading sex stories can be dangerous or 
damaging to young people? 

A11.  Yes. Reading sex stories can definitely be dangerous and 
damaging to young people; but reading religious tracts written by 
misguided idiots can probably be even more destructive.  It 
depends on the contents of the story or tract and the context in 
which the young people live and read the material.  I do not doubt 
at all that some people live screwed up lives because they imitate 
what they see on TV soaps, in the movies, or on MTV.  I am even 
more certain that simplistic religious beliefs have screwed up 
people's lives to an extraordinary extent.  On the other hand, I 
think both religion and sex are good things if approached 
properly.  

The best way to deal with the dangers is to approach the topics 
intelligently and honestly.  I think parents have a responsibility 
to help their children deal with life - including sex, religion, 
and other elements that I have not mentioned in this interview.  
Some young children simply are not ready to handle certain 
religious or sexual concepts, and I don't think parents are 
engaging in improper censorship when they take steps to keep their 
children away from these ideas until they are ready.  

Probably the best way to discuss erotic literature with young 
people would be to introduce them to the List of Credulous 
Assumptions that I posted in CR 199.  Or maybe not.

This has been a simplistic answer to a complex question.  I'm sure 
it would be easy to poke holes in my response.

Q12.  Have you ever been so engrossed in a sex story that you've 
declined sex?

A12. Yes. But postponed would be a better word.

Q13.  What one piece of advice would you offer to someone who 
wants to write a sex story?

A13.  There is no one piece of advice.  There are actually Three 
Celestial Rules:

1.  Have an angle - a focus that will make the story interesting 
to someone other than yourself.  Actually, you can have more than 
one focus, but resist the temptation to think that a thought will 
be interesting to others just because it turns you on.

2. When you read somebody else's good story, ask yourself "what 
if" questions.  Then write your own story that answers these 
questions.  Don't just change single ideas: come up with genuine 
answers and put the story into a completely different context, if 
necessary.  My own "Virtuous Reality" got its start when I asked, 
"What if the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future had 
focused on Scrooge's sex life?" and "What if in 'It's a Wonderful 
Life' bells rang when people had orgasms instead of when angels 
got their wings?"  The eventual result really resembled neither of 
these stories very closely - largely because I stumbled onto the 
idea of doing a Madonna sex-parody of Abbot and Costello's "Who's 
on First?", which eventually became the major focus of the story. 
By asking and answering enough questions, you can come up with a 
story that is genuinely your own.

3.  Get feedback from intelligent readers BEFORE you post the 
story.  At the very least, finish the story and set it aside for 
two days.  Then reread it and make corrections before you post it.

Q14.  What advice would you give someone who wants to review sex 
stories?

A14.  If you want to review stories, contact me and I'll suggest 
one for you.  

I guess that's not what the question meant.  When you review a 
story, first read it and react to it honestly.  Then try to write 
a brief essay that shares your reaction with the people who will 
read your review.  Try to make your comments constructive, so that 
both the author and readers can use them to write better stories 
in the future.  If you're reviewing for CR, it's OK (but not 
mandatory) to have fun with your review.  Celestial Reviews are 
not strictly speaking pure reviews.  It's OK to make references to 
your own life and related sexual activities.  However, you should 
resist the urge to have fun at the author's expense - unless, of 
course, the author is the sort of person who deserves or likes to 
have fun made at his/her expense.

If you write more than a single review, then you'll have more of a 
chance to develop a relationship with the readers.  In this case 
it's a good idea to focus a little more on your own background and 
insights.  But you should still keep the main focus on the story 
you are reviewing - unless you are an underpaid sex goddess, in 
which case you can write whatever you want.

Final note: Remember: even though someone else may be posting my 
reviews for me, my e-mail address is still Celeste801@aol.com.

- Celeste

      "Rape on a Diamond" by Sabrina (rape) 4, 3, 3
      "Art Class" by Mike Hunt (small group study session)
            10, 10, 10
      "Lesbian Pedophile Nuns" by Xan (nun pedophile sex) 
            4, 3, 2
      "Walls Have Ears" by Taria (emerging adolescence) 
            10, 10, 10
      "Being Taught a Lesson" by Anonymous (orgy) 10, 10, 10

Guest Reviews:

      "Campus Tour" by Twelve (ff sex on campus) 10, 8, 5
      "As the Paige Turns" by Hawk Richards (humor and sex)
            10, 10, 10
       Martina" by BillyG (anal sex) 10, 10, 10
      "Escape from Mars" by Hawk Richards (sci fi) 5, 4, 4

Reposted Reviews (because the stories have recently been 
reposted):

    * "The Black Knight: An Erotic Adventure" by Alan Barclay
            (chivalry, bdsm & humor) 10, 10, 10
    * "Snarl" by Uther Pendragon (playful sex) 10, 8, 9
    * "The Addams Family: Eddie Comes to Visit" by Shelby Bush
            (sitcom parody) 10, 9.5, 9.5
    * "Tripping the Lights Fantastic" by NetWanderer (mind
            control) 9, 8, 9

"Rape on a Diamond" by Sabrina (Kristen's collection).  This story 
was listed as "baseball.txt."  Sabrina wrote this story because 
someone dared her to write a rape story and she's a good ball 
player.  Linda is pitching a ballgame and gets hit - by a line 
drive, I suppose.  Everybody rushes to the mound and proceeds to 
give her comfort.  Actually, the other players gang-rape her right 
there on the pitcher's mound.  This explains where the missing 
player was in the famous Abbott and Costello dialogue - he was 
humping the pitcher!  

This is actually a pretty lame story.

As the author points out in an epilogue, when a woman says no, she 
invariably means it.  Well, that may not actually be true, but 
that theory will hold up in a court of law.  The author reminds us 
that rape, date rape, or forced sex with a non-consenting woman - 
even with a baseball bat as the phallic instrument - can bring 
dire consequences. The author says that the average prison term 
for rape in the U.S. is 25 years.   This story "was fantasy and 
should be considered as unusual entertainment only." The author 
says we should treat all women with respect; they are the fairer 
sex!

Ratings for "Rape on a Diamond"
Athena (technical quality): 4
Venus (plot & character): 3
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 3

"Art Class" by Mike Hunt (MrM1ke@aol.com).  Roberta is the lady 
who is the most fun in the art class.  One day she bets Mike Hunt 
that she can give the male model an erection by standing close to 
him and letting him look down her cleavage - and she loses.  To 
avoid another loss, she agrees to share a solo nearly-nude 
modeling session with Mike Hunt, who demonstrates the value of 
unilateral disarmament.  As you may have surmised by now, 
sometimes it's hard to describe the plots of this author's stories 
without giving away too many details.  Let's just say that some of 
the things art students have to draw are hard.

This story is more cute and seductive than outright sexy.  I like 
that sort of thing once in a while.

Incidentally, you'll notice that the author has a new name.  It 
seems that AOL has a person whose job it is to look for obscene 
names - just as most states have a person who looks for and 
eliminates obscene license plates.  I guess Mike had them fooled 
for a while with that number 1 in his name, but AOL finally 
figured out that there was a hidden meaning behind M1keHunt.

Ratings for "Art Class"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

"Lesbian Pedophile Nuns" by Xan (Mr. Double Repost).  Have you 
ever wondered why girls in boarding schools "ran by nuns" bathe 
only twice a week?  It's because when the nuns personally wash 
them on those two occasions, they have to get them really clean; 
and the girls' little cunnies tingle while the nuns wear special 
habits with which they sit on the edge of the tub and masturbate 
while they rock back and forth on the thingy that's inside the 
habit.  I wouldn't believe some of this, except that the story is 
labeled True Ff.  When the girls tell their sins to the mother 
superior in the confessional, she asks leading questions and 
really gets herself off while telling them that God wants them to 
let women but not men touch their pussies.

I dunno.  There's something fishy about this story.  If you want 
to read a good story about nun sex, try "Conventional Sex" by 
GreatxIam, which I reviewed in CR 199.  The things that happen in 
that story are likewise pure fabrications, but at least they seem 
to be interesting.

{Technical note:  Mother superiors don't hear confessions.  An 
author writing a "true story" that has mother superiors doing this 
will probably lie about other things as well.}

Ratings for "Lesbian Pedophile Nuns"
Athena (technical quality): 4
Venus (plot & character): 3
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 2

"Walls Have Ears" by Taria (Taria29c@aol.com).  The teenage boy is 
spending an evening alone with his hormones.  After an hour or so 
of no hard luck, so to speak, he accidentally hears the young 
couple next door making love.  He carefully eavesdrops, and in no 
time at all his little feller is raging and shooting cum.  Then 
his mother tells him to bring that couple some mail that was 
accidentally delivered to his apartment by mistake....  

What's a short refractory period? 

The story was very well written.  I enjoyed it and recommend it to 
those of you interested in understanding or reviewing the workings 
of the male adolescent mind under hormonal stress.

Ratings for "Walls Have Ears"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

"Being Taught a Lesson" by Anonymous.  Julie is an 18-year-old who 
gets caught by her mother having sex with her boyfriend while her 
cousin Ann is slurping up her clitoris.  The boyfriend gets sent 
home, and the girls go to their rooms.  Then Mom surprises them by 
first giving them a sex questionnaire downloaded from 
alt.sex.something and then taking them to an orgy house where the 
two girls learn to have sex the right way.  There's not much to 
say about this story: it's a well-written, hot story about two 
girls having a wild coming-out party.

Ratings for "Being Taught a Lesson"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

"Campus Tour" by Twelve (twelfth@psynet.net). Guest review by 
Bookman.

A young woman from a lower-middle-class family has a work-study 
job as a guide for new freshmen at an exclusive East Coast 
college.  She is assigned to a daunting, imposing woman and her 
daughter. During the tour our heroine discovers that attributes 
she once considered problematical come to her aid when she most 
needs them, leveling out the power-play field at least a little.

The story is technically perfect; you'll find no misplaced commas 
or homonym confusion to throw you off.  The situation is 
believable (considering we're dealing in what is basically a 
fantasy medium), and the style is a nice tight Modern Laconic.  I 
found the characters, unfortunately, a bit cardboard, and would 
have like to have seen them more fully fleshed out (you find that 
contradictory? It's not.).  The daughter, whose imminent campus 
career is the impetus for the story, is little more than a walk-
on, and the mother, who provides most of the tension in this pas-
de-deux, changes gears a little too fast.  But it is the 
protagonist-narrator who needs it most.  We see this story through 
her eyes, and I would have liked it if she had allowed us to know 
her better and share her experience more fully.

The sex, once we get to it, is quick, almost perfunctory.  Much 
more time could have been taken, savoring the event.  As it was, 
we're barely into it, and it's over.  

I did like the final paragraph, the closer.  Here the author's 
laconic style pays off, and what the paragraph doesn't say, says a 
lot.

Ratings for "Campus Tour"
Technical: 10
Appeal (personal): 8
Appeal (Eros): 5

"As the Paige Turns" by Hawk Richards (heminway@epix.net) Guest 
review by Mike Hunt.

A week ago I wrote a review of Hawk Richards' "As the Paige 
Turns." And I slammed it pretty good. I even noted that Celeste 
had given him low marks on an earlier story and he had revised it 
and gotten all 10's on the revision. That showed me that he cares 
about his work, and I urged him to revise "Paige."

The sonofabitch went and did it. And he did it again. It's a great 
story now, certainly worth 10's, and I highly recommend it.

The story still revolves around a lady psychiatrist who helps a 
client through his modem fetish and along the line discloses her 
own fascination with the stories in the <alt.sex.stories> 
newsgroups. And while there's no graphic on-screen copulating or 
masturbating or blowulating, it's still sexy; it's still a quick 
read, and it's now quite worth your while. The typos are gone, the 
logic is logical, the story is fun!

One reviewer's disclosure: he mentions me in the story. That's a 
nice stroke, but I wouldn't change my opinion just for that. 
Another disclosure: he's stealing my fucking format, and has added 
closing remarks that dropped me to the floor with laughter.

Any author who can write a sexy story AND make you laugh at the 
same time is, uh, probably a mope. Take it from me. But a funny 
mope, and maybe one who shows a helluva lot of promise. Read "As 
the Paige Turns (Revised)". It's a goodie.

Ratings for "As the Paige Turns" (Added by Celeste)
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

Martina" by BillyG (Hayden@mindless.com). Guest review by Fiddler.

The story opens in medias res.  Billy is tickling Martina's 
breasts with a feather.  He goes on to tickle her fancy with a 
story, or rather his description of a situation, which he 
attributes to Nancy Friday.  

When he has her mind and body sufficiently hot, he seduces her 
into their first anal experience.  The process is gentle, well 
described, and the effect is quite hot.

BillyG, from a quick search of Dejanews, has a great interest in 
the parts of a woman a few centimeters from the part that 
interests me most.  I don't particularly share that interest, but 
this story overcame that barrier.  It got me hot, and would 
probably be even more effective for those who share his interests 
in anal sex and urination.

This version had a few uneven lines and one typo ("by" for "be"); 
BillyG thinks that erect is an intransitive verb.  That still 
leaves this story in the 98th percentile of Usenet posts in 
readability.

Ratings for "Martina"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Fiddler (appeal to this reviewer): 10

"Escape from Mars" by Hawk Richards (Heminway@epix.net ) Guest 
Review by Sven the Elder.

Celeste asked very nicely - so I said 'yes' - to becoming a 
reviewer, one of the panel, as it were. Now the difficult bit, a 
sensible, useful critique that fills in the reader with 
information.  Well Celeste, you make it look easy.....

'Escape from Mars' is a difficult title for this piece; there is, 
you see, no escape at this juncture. The author admitted in his 
tailpiece that this is a 'first attempt at writing SF'.  It is 
good as far as it goes, but I have to prefer stories that have a 
beginning, a middle eight, and a conclusion.  This makes my task a 
little difficult as this piece, as reviewed, consists of a just a 
prologue.  The story is promising, but all we have is perhaps 2 
pages of a 75 page novella.  Technically the start is a little 
disjointed between the first and second paragraphs, and the reader 
is left hanging at the end as the story simply stops in mid 
stride.

I desperately wanted to be enthusiastic and encouraging, but in 
the end I have to ask Hawk to take this back to the drawing board.  
Look at the construction, the scene setting, and try and write it 
within the context of the complete story that you intend this to 
be the prologue of. (Damn a split infinitive - I think?).  {No.  
Just a dangling preposition.  Sven probably should have said "... 
the complete story of which you intend this to be the prologue." - 
Celeste}

I am a fine one to talk, as I prefer the 'short story' as a genre. 
I have yet to find the time to map out a larger, longer, more 
rounded item.  Unless you have a mind that can encompass a 
complete entity and can be disciplined to write to that end, then 
homework or preparation is needed to form the skeleton that you 
wish to flesh out.  Especially on a longer work.  

Sorry Hawk - I wanted to be generous on this first review for CR 
but I can't manage to be so.  On my ratings a B- . 

{Note from Celeste:  I hesitated to ask Sven to review this one.  
The problem he saw was the same one I saw: the author does not 
have a complete story.  Too many authors start out like Hawk does 
here and then eventually get into a bind and then simply stop 
their story - leaving their readers (if they have any) hanging.  
Sven and I both want to be constructive here.  Authors should 
avoid "rushing to press" with just the first 2 pages of a possible 
75-page novella.  Other authors who write long stories - Ann 
Douglas, Jim Fix, Vickie Tern, and Tooshoes, to name just a few - 
wait till they're finished with the whole thing before posting 
their stories, and readers really appreciate the notion that there 
is actually an entire, carefully composed story for them to read.  
A few authors - Mark Aster and Uther Pendragon are good examples - 
publish longer works in fragments, but they do this in such a way 
that each segment is actually a complete story in itself.  My 
constructive criticism to Hawk is to return to the drawing board 
and write the good story that it right now only vaguely formed in 
his mind.

As a final note, I might add that Sven himself - the person who 
wrote this review - offers a good example of positive reaction to 
criticism.  His writing has improved significantly in his more 
recent stories.}

Ratings for " Escape from Mars " (Added by Celeste)
Athena (technical quality): 5
Venus (plot & character): 4
Sven (appeal to reviewer): 4 

* "The Black Knight: An Erotic Adventure" by Alan Barclay 
(editor@spellbinder.bc.ca). Sir Englebert the Ungainly is in the 
midst of a rather hectic adventure when he comes upon a naked 
woman - I mean fair maiden - tied to a stake. The young lady is 
the nearby village's offering to one of the great beasts of the 
forest to persuade that monster to spare their homes from 
destruction. If the dragon devours her, he cannot then in good 
conscience attack the village. It was a sensible thing for the 
villagers to do, and the good knight very nearly rides on by.  But 
there's something about the fragile beauty of a damsel in distress 
with her naked body dangling like a misplaced modifier from a 
stake so that her breasts....

This is the sort of story that really upsets me!  It includes a 
focus on sex slavery and a large amount of spanking - but that's 
not what upsets me.  After all, this is a story about chivalry, 
and chivalry has specific Rules.  For example, a chivalrous person 
must always open doors for lady of rank equal to or higher than 
his own, allow an opponent to be armed before he lops off his head 
or blows his brains out, and accept sex slaves when they are 
assigned to him and treat them as their status deserves.  No, 
that's not what bothers me.  What upsets me is that at the time I 
am reading this story, I already have TWENTY-ONE stories on my Top 
15 List for this month; and here I am reading number TWENTY-TWO!  
In today's mail I received the "J" story from Mark who does the 
Alphabet series.  I'm going to wait until December 4 to review it.  
I can't stand any more really excellent stories this month!

The only significant problem with the story was this sentence: "I 
told her that I labored under a curse; that I could not enjoy a 
woman who was well and recently spanked."  Actually, the opposite 
was true: he could not enjoy a woman UNLESS she was well and 
recently spanked.  It's a big difference, but I figured the curse 
correctly from the context.  Since the story was otherwise so 
good, I decided to forgive this one sin.

Anyway, this is a really excellent story.  I don't want to ruin it 
for you, but I'll advise you that it's meant to be funny.  Thomas 
Mallory and Alfred Tennyson may have taken knighthood seriously, 
but more recent authors have discovered that knights were really 
funny people.

This story was presented by Lust So Stories.  Since it was a good 
one, I might was well cite their web page: 
http://spellbinder.bc.ca/lss/

Ratings for "The Black Knight"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

* "Snarl" by Uther Pendragon (anon584c@nyx10.nyx.net).  This is an 
interesting snippet that describes the playful sexual exchanges 
between a husband and wife while he helps her get the snarls out 
of her beautiful, long hair.  I have given this author so many 
perfect ratings recently that I feel compelled to find excuses for 
giving ratings of less than 10.  There's nothing wrong with this 
story; it's just short a short chunk of the life of two people in 
love rather than a complete story.  But it's still very good.

Ratings for "Snarl"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

* "The Addams Family: Eddie Comes to Visit" by Shelby Bush 
(stbush@iglou.com).  This story is actually a combination of "The 
Munsters" and "The Addams Family."  Eddie Munster comes to visit 
the Addams children.  After some enjoyable torture, Wednesday 
Addams gives head to her brother Pugsley.  Just as Eddie is about 
to get the thrill of his life from Wednesday, the full moon takes 
effect; and Eddie runs off to the bathroom, where he turns into a 
werewolf - actually, a werewolf cub.  Although she's a bit 
distressed at Eddie's disappearance, Wednesday takes the cub to 
her room.  

Since this is a sitcom episode, Morticia and Gomez are engaging in 
raucous sex in the background; and Uncle Fester is jerking off 
somewhere in the shadows.  Gomez has a French fetish.  Morticia 
speaks imperfect French. "Manger moi. Respondez s'il vous plait" 
is close enough for Gomez; after all, this is a sex fetish, not a 
French language lesson. 

Meanwhile, Wednesday has taken Eddie the Werewolf to bed, thinking 
he's a stray puppy.  When she starts to masturbate, Eddie behaves 
in a beastly manner.

Meanwhile, Cousin Itt joins Morticia and Gomez for a "menage 
e'tois."  I don't know if incest is a meaningful concept in a 
family like this.  What could be the logic behind an incest taboo 
in a family that could only be improved by genetic mutations?  Kay 
Sarah Sarah, as the French say!

If you know absolutely nothing about the monster shows of the 
1960's, you might get lost in this story.  But I enjoyed it 
immensely.  And there's more to come!

Ratings for " Addams Family"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9.5
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9.5

* "Tripping the Lights Fantastic" by NetWanderer (Mr. Double 
Repost). The narrator is a 26-year-old male who states at the 
beginning of the story that he is a pedophile.  He works part-time 
at some sort of psychology lab and part-time with a gymnastics 
class for young girls.  While working in the psychology lab, he 
accidentally discovers a way to use lights to hypnotize people.  
He installs the light system at his gym, and soon he has the two 
17-year-old assistants happily serving as his sex partners.

The story offers an interesting blend of mind control and 
voluntary sexual behavior, of ethical and unethical behavior.  He 
uses hypnosis to make the girls predisposed to want to have sex 
with him; but after that initial push, their sexual behavior is 
voluntary.  He is making the girls his sex toys, but he uses 
condoms when he has sex with them.  The behavior of the girls is 
controlled, but a lot of what they do sexually is at their own 
initiative.  

I normally do not like pedophile stories; but I enjoyed this one - 
except that I vaguely knew that it wasn't finished and that the 
author would eventually try to rationalize some kind of sick 
behavior with 10-year-olds as "normal."  The author has a pretty 
good story within the existing framework; I don't see why the 
eventual pedophile behavior with younger children will be 
necessary to the plot at all.

Ratings for "Tripping the Lights Fantastic"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9


