Celestial Reviews 68 - Mar 9, 1996

Note:  I have begun using a new rating system, which gives each story 
three discrete ratings.  These are explained in more detail in my FAQ, 
but here is a summary.

Athena Rating.  This rating covers such matters as grammar, spelling, 
formatting, and creative use of the language.  A story with essentially 
no serious grammar, spelling, or usage problems will receive a rating 
of 8.  To get a rating of 9 or 10, the author will have to do something 
creative with the language.  

Venus Rating.  This rating describes such matters as plot and character 
development.  

Celeste Rating.  This rating describes how much I myself liked the 
story.  

On the summary line, I'll simply list these as three separate ratings: 
{"Name of Story" by Author (topic) 8, 10, 8}.  In the first few weeks 
of using this system, I have also tried (with some success) to be a 
little more "strict" - I give three 10's much less readily than I used 
to give simple 10's.

Second Note:  I approached March with good intentions.  I even pulled 
from the postings a story by an author who I "knew" would write a story 
that would be good but not excellent.  I resolved to zap even good 
stories with lower ratings in at least one category.  However, I was 
bombarded with excellent stories this week.  I hope you enjoy these.

- Celeste

      "The ECE Shop" by  D.A. Ignatius (inspirational
            anecdote) 10, 6, 10
      "Blame It All On The Internet" by Morpheus' Twin (fantasy
            and orgy) 10, 9.5, 9.5
      "Tidal Passion" by Patrick Donovan (romance) 10, 10, 10
      "200-Year-Old Porn" by Zifferman (voyeurism) 10, 7, 8
      "Anything" by Delta (fantasy & flirtation) 10, 10, 10
      "Cross Country" by Angelique (mindless rape) 4, 4, 2
      "Poisonous Flower" by Kokujin (prison rape of psychotic
            victim) 4, 4, 3
      "Black Cat" by Mark Aster (sex on drugs) 10, 9, 9
      "College Reunion" by Deirdre Ng (hot lesbian sex) 10, 10, 10
      "Mom's Story" by Morpheus' Twin (mid-age romance &
            passion) 10, 9.5, 9.5

"The ECE Shop" by D.A. Ignatius (jash@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu). One of my 
favorite songs is "Do You Know You Are My Sunshine?" by the Statler 
Brothers.  It tells of a singer leaning down from the stage to accept a 
request from a concert goer; and the young woman says, "Do you know 
'You Are My Sunshine?' and would you play it one time more for me?"  
The young woman's smile changes the singer's life, even though she is 
gone "as fast as the song that she asked for," taking his sunshine 
away.  And so, as the singer goes "border to border and ocean to 
ocean," he's constantly "searching the crowds for her face," so that 
he'll get one chance to say to her, "Do you know you are my sunshine, 
and won't you do it one more time for me?"

It's a corny story, but it runs exactly parallel to this one, in which 
a young woman's outlook on life is changed by the briefest encounter 
with a stranger.  There's no explicit sex at all in this story or in my 
song; but I hope you can see how something like this can revolutionize 
one's sex life. I know that I myself have had a similar experience.  
I'm not going to tell you the details, because that would definitely 
blow my anonymity.

One of the reasons I think I keep teaching my classes and writing these 
reviews is that I hope I can return the favor by passing on a similar 
experience to someone else.  I like to think that without even knowing 
exactly when it happens I can help just one or two people feel as much 
better about themselves as I do or as the narrator of this story does 
as result of our encounters.  As far as I'm concerned that outlook on 
life does more good than most organized religions.

This is the fourth story in the DarkNites series.  It is NOT a great 
story, because it really doesn't go anywhere.  But it IS a great story 
because it reminded me of so much that has been important to me.  Read 
it for general inspiration; and then read another story for a specific 
turn-on.

After reviewing the first four DarkNites stories, I have finally 
managed to contact the author; and so I no longer have to label her as 
Unknown Author.  She maintains a WWW home page where the entire 
DarkNites and Immortality (new work) series can be found.  The address 
is http:\\falcon.cc.ukans.edu\~lafemme\darknite.htm.

Ratings for "The ECE Shop"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 6
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

"Blame It All On The Internet" by Morpheus' Twin 
(an282402@anon.penet.fi).  I don't download nude pictures from the 
Internet.  This is simply because I have better things to do with my 
life - namely relate to my friends and family, teach my classes, and 
read stories to review for this newsgroup. However, I have received 
three pictures by e-mail; I have no idea how or why they showed up.  
One was of such poor quality that I threw it away.  The second was a 
photo of some guy with an obviously retouched penis (if you'll pardon 
the expression).  The third was a high quality photo of a beautiful 
woman - the kind you see on Sports Illustrated calendars, but sans 
bathing suit.  So my experience with the topic of this story is 
limited.

The guy in this story does enjoy the pictures from the 'Net.  He 
downloads them regularly, and he especially enjoys the ones that guys 
submit to show off their wives or girlfriends.  He'd like to post his 
own wife's picture, but he thinks she would be reluctant to cooperate.  
Besides, he doesn't have a scanner. But wait!  The story doesn't end 
there!  The wife IS willing, and a friend DOES have a scanner, and it 
WOULD be titillating to have the friend see the wife's luscious body 
while he scanned the pictures for them.

Well, it sounded like a good idea; but wouldn't you know it, everybody 
gets turned on before much scanning even occurs.  And then it turns out 
that the friend has nudies of his own wife already on file.  The 
scanning session shifts to a regular Show-and-Tell party and then to a 
veritable orgy!  The scanning gets finished some time the next day.

My favorite part of the story, of course, occurred when the author 
spelled "discreetly" correctly.  That's no mien feet on this newsgroup!  
The story started slowly - too much irrelevant dialogue at the start; 
but then it became very good toward the end.  The author did a good job 
of describing erotic pictures in such a way that they seemed really 
sexy to me, even though they existed only in my imagination.  That's a 
neat trick!

Ratings for "Blame It All on the Internet"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9.5
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9.5

"Tidal Passion" by Patrick Donovan (drwho@world.std.com).  I had to 
reread the first few paragraphs of this story to make sure I had it 
right.  This couple was traveling together to Florida for a winter 
vacation; they were obviously in love; but they were sleeping 
separately!  Oh, great; amateurs with a worldview that suggests you're 
supposed to be deeply in love or permanently committed to each other 
before you make love.  I've had enough of that in my real life; I want 
raging sex in my fantasy life.

Actually, I got both.  This is by far the best story I have read by 
this author.  The protagonists come across as being deeply in love, and 
the simple act of consummating their relationship becomes extremely 
engrossing as it takes place on a Florida beach.  This is a beautiful, 
romantic story.

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

"200-Year-Old Porn" by Zifferman (zifferman@aol.com).  Its title 
suggests that this story was written during the late 18th century by 
Comte Gabriel Honore Riqueti de Mirabeau in his "The Lifted Curtain."  
However, it reads so much like modern a.s.s. writings that I doubt its 
authenticity.  If anyone can document to me that there was a person who 
wrote such a text in the 1790's, I would be surprised but happy to hear 
about it.  Nevertheless, this is a clever forgery, describing the 
reactions of a young girl who spies upon her father and his mistress 
while they are doing the deed in the room next to her own. 

Ratings for "200-Year-Old Porn"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 7
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8

"Anything" by Delta (an248969@anon.penet.fi).  Lance is driving his car 
on a dismal night, concerned and annoyed because his wife is 
inexplicably upset and has gone to visit her sister.  In this state of 
emotional tension, he picks up a young, female hitchhiker.  Susan 
thinks she recognizes Lance, but she doubts that this is really the 
case.  Susan comments that she would do "anything" for a ride all the 
way to her distant destination by 9:00 the next morning.  Lance quickly 
takes her up on her offer, and off they go on their mutual odyssey.  
Susan is upset when he pulls up at his house - obviously to cash in on 
"anything"; but it turns out that he has to feed the cat.  The shifts 
in mood and in sexual tension continue throughout the story.

The author constantly switches rapidly but smoothly between the 
viewpoints of the two protagonists, describing the thoughts and 
emotions of each.  Neither knows what the other is thinking, and we 
constantly see how each is sometimes right and sometimes wrong in his 
or her perceptions of the other.  What Delta does as well as or perhaps 
better than anyone is tell a COMPLETE STORY - a story with a plot that 
involves me as the reader and plays with my mind as I think I know what 
is going to happen next.  This is a truly excellent and sexy story.

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

Cross Country" by Angelique (P8gan@msn.com).  Joe and Pete are two fun-
loving guys who sabotage Tanya's car so that they can kidnap her and 
rape her while they travel across the country in their van.  They do 
really neat things like calling her Bitch and beating her with a belt 
and sniffing her underpants and fucking her like crazy.  Before they 
fuck her, they make her beg for it real nice; and they threaten to beat 
her if she asks wrong.  These young moral philosophers figure this way 
they're not raping her - just giving her what she asks for.  She begs 
to be released; they say no; and then the story ends.  No big loss.

Incidentally, if an author is going to post under a nice, sexy, French, 
female name like Angelique, he should at least show some insight into 
the female personality.  You should have stayed with Tammy Faye, Jimmy!  
Gotcha!

Ratings for "Cross Country"
Athena (technical quality): 4
Venus (plot & character): 4
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 2

"Poisonous Flower" by Kokujin.  This is a story about a woman in prison who is 
repeatedly raped by the guards and their friends.  The woman is thoroughly 
confused and experiences hallucinations.  I think there's probably a very good 
idea behind this story.  The problem is that stories about confused people who 
hallucinate are very difficult to write.  Paradoxically, it is necessary to 
write very clearly in order to convey the sense of confusion.  In this case, 
the author has written haphazardly; and the result is that the author's 
confusion merges with the protagonist's confusion to the point where the 
reader has no idea what is happening most of the time.  With proofreading and 
revision this might become a good story.

Ratings for "Poisonous Flower"
Athena (technical quality): 4
Venus (plot & character): 4
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 3

"Black Cat" by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com).  I enjoy corresponding 
with this author.  Along with the present story he sent me a note 
stating that he enjoyed CR 67, and he added:

"ROTFL!  Maybe our senses of humor are just similar, but it's very
dangerous for me to read your reviews in public.  Ah, but here I am
buttering up the reviewer again.  (Hm, interesting image...)  Not
to imply that they're JUST funny; but the mix of humor in among
the wisdom is always a delight."

Here's my reply:

"Yeah, right!  So you read my reviews in public, and the person at the next 
terminal or the really serious librarian says, "What are you laughing about?"   
You can reply, 'These back issues of Calvin and Hobbes on the Internet really 
slay me!'  Or if you think the person might come and check the cartoon, you 
can reply, 'I love this Rush Limbaugh humor!  It's so much better in the 
original German!'

"But were I to read your stories in public, I would have no equally palliative 
replies.  'Oh, I always get a little moist when I read....'  What can I say?  
No matter what I would say, I'd still come across as slightly more 
dysfunctional than you would."

Back to this story.  On Friday the 13th of September our unnamed protagonist 
agrees to use a hallucinogenic drug called Black Cat, which he receives from a 
woman named Marilyn who has just broken her compact mirror.  I don't know the 
significance of the name Marilyn, but everything else suggests a bad trip as 
my parents used to say back in the 60's.  Bad trips can actually be fun - as 
long as they're imaginary.  The images the author concocts in this story range 
from the erotic to the grotesque.  From what I've heard, the descriptions in 
this story are pretty accurate.  I don't do hard drugs; and so my own 
experience is limited to mixing excessive drinking with sex.  Usually I fall 
asleep before I get really going. That doesn't bother me, because I go so 
early and blissfully into a sound sleep with very few inhibitions while this 
guy whom I completely trust is making sure I have sweet dreams.  However, my 
husband often comments that he's not really into necrophilia, and so I try not 
to do this too often.  Oh, and there was the one time I got really drunk and 
puked all over him - but that's not a pleasant story.

A final word of advice:  If you want to find out if a drug has negative 
side effects, get this information from someone other than the pusher.  
I find it amazing that people who would never put comparable trust in a 
used car salesman or fruit peddler will say to the person offering them 
drugs, "This isn't bad for me, is it?"

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

"College Reunion" by Deidre Ng (Deidre Ng@aol.com).  Every year each 
school throughout the entire world has a parents' night or something of 
the sort, when parents dutifully trot off to school and find out how 
the kiddies are doing.  At the lower grade levels, nearly all the 
parents who can possibly do so show up; but as kids enter high school, 
the crowd of parents thins out substantially.  Probably the single most 
common comment in teachers' lounges at this time of year is, "The 
parents I need to see never show up.  The only parents I ever see 
around here are those whose children are already doing good work!"

We have a similar phenomenon here on this newsgroup.  (After I noticed 
this analogy, I had to point it out to someone; and I figured you 
people would handle the analogy a little better than those in the 
teachers' lounge.)  The writers who least need to revise their stories 
are the most likely to revise them before reposting those stories.  
This is the THIRD revision by Deidre Ng of this story.  When she first 
posted it, I rated it a 10.  So she revised it and reposted it; and it 
was even better.  So I rated it a 10.  At least this time, I have a new 
rating system, and so I can give it three 10's.

Briefly stated, this is a story about a passionate reunion between two 
woman who had previously been very fond of each other as college 
roommates.  The author effectively moves back and forth among past and 
present scenarios.  An interesting aspect of this story is that Deidre 
gets away with the use of the second person (you), which I normally 
find obnoxious.  In most cases, "you" stories put the reader in a bad 
spot.  For example, in the present case the "you" is a female lesbian 
(actually, a hearty bisexual); and so all males and many females would 
possibly have trouble identifying with that perspective.  However, 
Deidre manages to use this point of view effectively.  As an ultimate 
test, I asked my husband to read the story and to let me know if 
anything bothered him.  He showed me what "bothered" him all right, and 
we had a delightful rest of the evening.

Incidentally, to encourage such revisions, I WILL consider revisions of 
old stories to be eligible when I make up my monthly and annual Top 15 
and Top 100 lists.

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

"Mom's Story" by Morpheus' Twin (an282402@anon.penet.fi).  Mom is 
having trouble getting along with her adolescent daughter.  In a flash 
of insight she realizes that this is because she has gotten into a rut 
as a single mother and has stopped thinking of herself as a sexual 
person.  She quickly finds fulfillment by trying on a sexy dress 
engaging in three-way sex with Lori and her boyfriend, who express 
their admiration of her newly released sensuous body and personality.  
At this point I was afraid I had walked into some sort of cheesy incest 
story; but that turned out not to be the case after all.  In the final 
three-fourths of the story the mother and her boyfriend deepen their 
relationship in really sexy ways.  This was a good story!

Ratings for "Mom's Story"
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9.5
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9.5


CELESTIAL WORD USAGE:  I don't have much time for word usage this week.  
I found only one interesting mistake:

LUXURIANT/LUXURIOUS.  "Luxuriant" means lush or overgrown.  "Luxurious" 
means "having to do with luxury."  There may be times when sex takes 
place in a luxuriant environment, but most authors really mean to say 
"luxurious."  Interestingly, both words have been tactfully and (I 
think) correctly used to refer to my vaginal area.  And the preceding 
sentence has nothing to do with carrots.
