Celestial Reviews 163 - March 5, 1997

Note:  I offer a free proofreading service to any interested authors.  I 
don't proofread the stories myself, but I have a list of several 
volunteers who are willing to read stories before they "go to press."  
Proofreading can be an enjoyable experience, and submitting your stories 
to an interested and competent outsider can greatly enhance your 
stories.  Some of the best authors who post on a.s.s. employ this 
proofreading service, and it is my opinion that these volunteers often 
make suggestions that result in excellent stories.  If you would like to 
either volunteer as a proofreader or submit a story for proofreading, 
please contact me.  {Do NOT send me the actual story unless it is ready 
for review - at the time you plan to post it.  If you want a 
proofreader, just let me know, and I'll match you up with a volunteer.}

- Celeste

      "To Save the Ship" by Storysman (sci fi sex) 8, 10, 10
      "A Little Afternoon Fun" by Dulcinea (water sports) 10, 10, 10
      "The Price of Freedom" by Jefferson James (Civil War sex) 
            9, 10, 10
      "Frisking The Cat" by Tooshoes (superhero sex) 10,10,10

    * "The Adventures of Me and Martha Jane" by Santo J.
            Romeo (emerging adolescence and romance) 
            10, 10, 10
    * "Princess's Court" by Plainman (romance & adultery) 
            10, 10, 10

* = Repost of a previous review (because the story has 
      recently been reposted)

"To Save the Ship" by Storysman (rda1@ix.netcom.com).  The narrator is 
an officer on one of those interplanetary starships we hear so much 
about.  It's a lonely life out there, and John has brought along his 
wife, who not only is great in the sack but is also an expert on alien 
relations.  The first hint of potential problems arises when it becomes 
obvious that John is not the only one who becomes horny on long, lonely 
intergalactic voyages.  To complicate matters, the starship rescues some 
Prommelans, members of a physically strong race who need to copulate at 
least every 30 days (whatever a day would be out there) or else they go 
into a sexual fever that has the side effect of telekinetically 
disorientating the starship.  

Well, Vicki comes to the rescue of the Prommelan ambassador, and he 
recovers from his fever and the ship rights its course.  But then he 
discloses that Prommelan sperm is lethal to earthly women, and so the 
Prommelan has literally fucked John's wife to death - almost.  But hope 
is not lost!  There's a loophole.  Human sperm serves as an antidote to 
Prommelan sperm, but it will take a large quantity - possibly the 
contribution of every man in the crew.  Shiver me timbers! We gotta save 
this ship!

Ratings for "To Save the Ship"
Athena (technical quality): 8
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

"A Little Afternoon Fun" by Dulcinea (ImDulcinea@aol.com).  On this 
newsgroup the term " water sports" usually refers to urination as part 
of sexual activities.  With regard to this story I use the term to refer 
to the use of a squirt gun filled with ice water to tease a husband and 
a bucket of water to douse the offender and render her the moral 
equivalent of a wet-tee-shirt contest winner.  This is a very, very 
exciting bit of sexy flirtation.

Ratings for "A Little Afternoon Fun"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

"The Price of Freedom" by Jefferson James (M.Shark@ix.netcom.com).  The 
Civil War is coming to its end.  Clara is a southern belle who is not 
exactly politically astute.  When her slave, Ezra, announces to her that 
the Yankees are about to overrun the plantation, she's basically 
clueless, until Ezra notifies her that he's going to make love to her.  
This startles her sensibilities, but she submits and soon discovers that 
she has suddenly become Ezra's slave.

I guess it is POSSIBLE that this sort of scenario could have occurred at 
the end of the Civil War, but my impression from studying history and 
watching "Roots" is that very few slaves actually frolicked with their 
mistresses when hostilities came to an end.  Nevertheless, this is a 
very good story.

Ratings for "The Price of Freedom"
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

"Frisking The Cat" by Tooshoes (tooshoes@concentric.net).  Our story 
begins with Supergirl feeling lonely and horny on a late-night subway 
train.  She has group sex with some strangers on the train; but when 
they depart, she realizes that they have taken her purse, which contains 
her superhero uniform.

After this introduction we learn that Supergirl is having trouble making 
ends meet in her dual identity persona.  Since she majored in Liberal 
Arts, she can't get a good job; but her platonic acquaintance, Andrew, 
hires her as a sort of roving agent for the SSA (Superhero  Surveillance 
Agency).  He first assignment is to apprehend Catwoman, a cat burglar 
who doubles as a sort of Robin Hood vigilante.

Oh, there are a few details I forgot to mention - Supergirl has a libido 
that won't quit.  She also is a transmitter (but not a receiver) of ESP 
messages.  And Catwoman has this problem of getting to the point of a 
huge orgasm and then just quitting.  Somehow all this comes together 
into an interesting plot.

Incidentally, the Supergirl in this story is not to be confused with the 
one in "Supergirl and X" by MD James, which was written with the most 
up-to-date comic-book readers in mind and included numerous inside 
references.  The present Supergirl is the one that Ann Douglas also has 
written about.  This one appeared in the older DC Comics but was killed 
off several years ago and was replaced by the newer Supergirl with very 
different powers.  Just thought you'd like to know that.

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

* "The Adventures of Me and Martha Jane" by Santo J. Romeo 
(73233.1411@compuserve.com).  I first reviewed this story in CR 18, 
which was posted on September 9, 1995.  At that time I gave it a 5.  It 
was a good story, I said; but I was genuinely pissed off because it just 
ended in the middle of nowhere.  I further refused to read any more 
parts of the story until the author would assure me that he was 
finished.  I was tired of this neverending story crap.

Well, the author has finished the story, and it has been worth the wait.  
I saw a message on a.s.s. that compared the author to Harold Robbins.  
That evaluation is not far from the mark.

The narrator is presumably a man in his fifties, retelling a story of 
his youth.  At the beginning of the story, the 6-year-old Steven 
(Speedy) harbored a wonderful, non-sexual admiration for Martha Jane, 
who was nine years older; and she showed a reciprocal respect for him. 
The two lived next door to each other in a federal housing project 
around 1950 and shared a common front porch.  The focus of the story is 
the maturation and fulfillment of their relationship.

Although the early lines of this story hint of sexual activity, the 
first several paragraphs are devoted to demonstrating that the 
protagonist of the story was a precocious child - not a sexually 
precocious child, but a run-of-the-mill precocious child.  This full-
life focus continues throughout the story, and it emphasizes that the 
hero and Martha Jane should be regarded as whole persons, not as simple 
sex objects.  The development of non-sexual aspects helps set this story 
in a truly rich and interesting psychological and emotional environment.  
The story is one of the longest coherent stories I have seen on this 
newsgroup, but it is also one of the best.

Certainly there is moral ambiguity in the story.  For example, near the 
beginning the mother tells the young Steven that pregnant women get that 
way by eating too many popsicles and that babies come from storks.  
Shortly thereafter, Martha Jane corrects this stupid explanation by 
playing with his penis to give him a hard-on, while giving him an 
accurate biological account of the facts of life.  If I had a son, I 
wouldn't try either of these approaches to sex education.  It's 
interesting that normal society rejects Martha Jane's approach - to the 
extent that Redbook and the Sunday supplements would never even consider 
publishing an account like this without labeling Martha Jane a pervert; 
but sitcoms routinely laugh about the mother's explanation.

I'm running the risk of preaching to the choir here: most readers of 
this review are likely to be predisposed to want to like a story like 
this.  On the other hand, large numbers of equally civilized readers 
outside a.s.s. would react to this story as an example of perversion.  
Most of us will counter by describing these people as sexually repressed 
puritans.  And so forth.  I think we should be willing to simply admit 
but tolerate the moral ambiguity of the story.  It's fiction and it's 
interesting.  There's nothing perverse in setting aside our moral 
scruples and enjoying a good story.  Millions of American high schoolers 
are required every year to read Edgar Alan Poe's tale about a pervert 
who tears the heart out of an old man and buries it under the 
floorboards in his house.  We practically require these students to set 
aside moral scruples and to enjoy the beauty of this atrocity.  I'm not 
recommending that we make "Martha Jane" part of the sophomore 
curriculum; I simply think adult readers can set aside moral reactions 
long enough to enjoy this story without taking a position that it would 
be "better" if all children grew up this way.  

When I myself was a young baby-sitter, I did not give head to any of the 
children I cared for; and I would hope that my own daughters likewise 
refrain from that practice.  The psychologists and counselors who 
suggested to the narrator later in his life that this activity was 
abnormal are quite likely right (although, again, these sages would 
simply laugh about the goofy explanations of sexuality given by the 
mother and other adults.).  It would be much better for little boys to 
receive accurate answers from their own parents and for young baby-
sitters to have internalized a code of ethical conduct that enables them 
to understand their own and their clients' emerging sexuality and to 
rule out genital contact without resorting to primitive mythologies.  
But that still doesn't make this a bad story.  One of my own favorite 
novels is Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."  I would never raise 
my own children the way those children grew up in that story, but it's 
still a good novel (and an excellent movie).  

Again, I'm probably preaching to the choir.  But someone is surely going 
to label this story "pedophilia."  There are legitimate gripes against 
many pedophile stories; they essentially recommend the adoption of 
lifestyles that would be destructive to children.  What we need to do is 
acknowledge that some stories that describe genital activities with 
children have the potential to be destructive - especially those that 
are simply unrealistic or that promote the exploitation of children.  On 
the other hand, other stories that describe genital activity with or 
among children are either harmless or actually have the potential to 
lead to moral or emotional growth among readers.  To take a sexually-
related analogy, there are numerous examples of books and movies about 
adults having affairs.  Some of these are badly written or stupidly 
conceived and seem to have as their only goal to degrade the value of 
marriage and other permanent relationships.  On the other hand, many of 
these books and movies are well conceived and have the overall effect of 
enabling us to understand human emotions - and, indeed, marriage and 
other permanent relationships - more perfectly.

Although the most important aspect of this story is the sexual 
relationship between the narrator and Martha Jane, it's not really a sex 
story.  Rather, it's a story about the emotional development of two 
young people.  Less than a third of the lines in the story are even 
remotely devoted to their sex lives.  The non-sex scenes are extremely 
realistic and vivid, giving us information needed to understand the 
background and personalities of the two main characters.

If a reader wants a source of information about how much fun it would be 
to have sex with a precocious little kid, this would be a good story for 
that purpose - although all the details about the child's emotions would 
probably be viewed as distracting.  However, I really don't think this 
was the author's purpose.  On the other hand, if a person (like myself) 
is reading this story to obtain sensitive insights into the 
personalities of two young people as they mature sexually and 
emotionally, this is a good source for serious reading.

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

"Princess's Court" by Plainman (an10176@anon.nymserver.com).  
These seven stories are interconnected to such an extent that I do 
not want to review them separately.  It IS reasonable to read one 
story, then stop, then read the next a few days later.  However, I 
don't think it would be a good idea to read story 7, then 1, then 
4, etc.  The proper order is:

1. Confession
2. Pre-Trial Proceedings
3. Girl Talk
4: Crime Scene
5: Claire
6: Motion to Dismiss
7: Night Court

The author describes the series as mainly a married male-female 
romance, with lots of adultery in the "wife-watching" vein, lots 
of consensual brother-sister incest, a fair amount of female-
female fun, several loss of virginity scenes (in reminiscence), 
some anal sex, and a threat of fairly harsh consensual (but 
protested!) punishment that hangs over the whole series and is 
brought to fruition in the final part.  There is no explicit male-
male sex, although one character hints of interests in that 
direction There is also no pedophilia. The adult characters have 
children, whom they speak of; but they take appropriate care to 
keep the children away from their sexual activities.

Each story consists entirely of dialogue; we have to infer what 
else is happening.  It's like overhearing telephone conversations 
or listening through a thin wall at a motel.  Everything not 
spoken is left to the imagination.  Since the conversations are 
vivid, the reader's imagination is likely to be busy.  

Early on we learn that somebody referred to as Princess is married 
to a man called Trooper.  She has been unfaithful while away on a 
trip.  She tells Trooper about her infidelity, and although he 
seems titillated, he plans to convene something called the Family 
Court to punish Princess.  The other members of the Family Court 
appear to be David, the sister of Princess who has been sexually 
active with her in the past, and Judy, the Princess's childhood 
friend and current sex partner who is apparently intimately 
involved with David.  The interrelationships among these 
characters become clearer in succeeding stories.

Each story reveals its details in interesting ways.  For example, 
in one segment Princess discusses her infidelity with her husband 
by telephone from an airplane, while she is in danger of being 
overheard by the people around her.  In another segment we hear 
Dave and Judy making love, talking about their past experiences 
and integrating fantasies from the past with their present 
lovemaking.  The author uses flashbacks and innuendo to build some 
really hot images.

The series was originally entitled "Family Court," but the author 
changed the title, in order to distance the story from any 
suggestion of pedophilia.  I see his point; but the change lost 
something important.  The term Family Court occurs in the story, 
with obvious reference to the trial and punishment administered to 
Princess.  However, a second meaning of "court" (which is not 
initially evident with the original title) is the group of people 
who hang around a royal person - as in "the king and his court."  
As the reader moves through the story, it becomes obvious that 
this second meaning is also relevant - the Princess is not only 
SUBJECTED to a court, she also HAS a court.  The new title shifts 
the initial emphasis so far toward the second meaning that it 
ruins the fun that comes from the insight of discovering this 
second meaning.  If you have any idea what I am talking about, 
this paragraph may have been interesting.

I have a brother and sister and associated in-laws with whom I 
have never had sex and don't intend to do so.  However, I think 
there is a little bit of the Princess in me; and I truly enjoyed 
the vicarious experiences I found by eavesdropping on the Princess 
and her court.  On another personal note, I'm still not interested 
in getting into the punishment and humiliation stuff that Princess 
gets off on.  On the other hand, stories like this help me believe 
that I really wouldn't be upset if my next-door neighbors were 
into this kind of thing - as long as I had binoculars.  I might 
even let my kids play with theirs - as long as they didn't have 
binoculars.

This was an excellent, highly creative story.

Ratings for "Princess's Court"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

