Celestial Reviews 5 - July 22, 1995 - by Celeste

      "Deliberate" by David Cain (anal sex) 8.5
      "Window View" by David Cain (exhibitionism) 7.5.
      "Dream Sitter 1 & 2" by The Court-Jester 1
      "TEX Raped Teen Burglar" by Tex (rape & revenge) 10
      "Star Wars: Tie Fighter" by Walter Slaven. (sci fi  & hot sex) 10
      "Mysterious Ms" by Le Lalique (sex with mystery woman) 7
      "The Golden Goddess" by Twiddler (straight sex) 6
      "A Nice Plain Story" by Richard Harris (gentle love) 7.5
      Scene from the Cabin" by TropicCool (sweet romance) 9.99


"Deliberate" by David Cain.  Too many of the stories I've been reading 
portray anal sex as an act of degradation.  I can see the logic and 
emotion of some anal sex as being degrading.  (For example, my 
understanding is that in biblical times the soldiers of the victorious 
armies used to buttfuck the losers as a symbol of humiliation.  Hence, 
the apparent condemnation of sodomy in the bible.) But the taboo 
against anal sex is basically silly (as long as participants follow 
health precautions), and so violating it can be fun and harmless.  When 
my husband gives it to me up the ass, we are doing something "dirty" 
together that feels really good and isn't hurting anybody.  I liked 
this story, because it caught the spirit of breaking the anal taboo 
without degradation.  I also like the way the author throws in his 
"words of wisdom" and observations on life without disrupting the flow 
of the story.  (Rating: 8.5)

"Window View" by David Cain.   This is an adaptation of a story by 
Boswell.  I didn't catch the original, but I enjoyed this one.  A 
sexually hot, naked woman opens the front door, expecting to flash her 
husband, but she accidentally flashes the newspaper boy as well.  Some 
time later she deliberately makes hot love to her husband while she 
knows the boy and his friend are watching.  (Rating: 7.5)

"Dream Sitter 1 & 2" by The Court-Jester.  If you're new at writing 
stories, READ THIS REVIEW.  In his introduction, the author of the 
story expresses dismay that nobody seems to be responding to his 
stories.  Here are the reasons why I think no one is responding:  (1) 
Each chapter is three parts long.  That requires an investment of a lot 
the potential reader's time.  Something interesting had better happen 
early in the story to make others want to spend that much time.  (2)  
The writer spends way too much time on irrelevant details.  Most 
readers don't care if the protagonist of the story has brought his 
toothbrush with him (unless he plans to do something interesting with 
it).  (3)  The grammar and punctuation are really pretty bad.  Most 
readers are not going to grade authors of sex stories on their grammar, 
but the grammar in this story is just plain distracting.  Stories with 
really bad grammar gave the impression that the author has just written 
them off the top of his head and hasn't even taken the time to 
proofread them.  Most readers consider this to be rude - especially if 
the author is asking them to spend a lot of time reading the story.  
Added to the first two problems, this makes it unlikely that a person 
will want to bother continuing, especially if there are viable 
alternatives (like other stories on a.s.s. that don't have these 
problems).  Even worse, most readers will flag other stories by this 
same writer and deliberately avoid reading them.  No kidding.  This 
happens a lot.  Most writers can get rid of almost all their obvious 
mistakes by proofreading just once.  Since almost all writers for 
a.s.s. use a word processor, it's extremely easy (and even fun!) to 
make corrections.  I myself have reread this specific review three 
times and have made changes that made me feel more comfortable with 
what I was trying to say.  I may fail, but at least I give readers the 
feeling that I am trying to communicate with them.

After these first three problems, many readers will have already given 
up.  But the ones who are patient or who (like me) have already 
invested the time to download all three parts of the story will do what 
I did - they'll skip ahead to see where the sex scenes are.  I found 
one scene, and it was really pretty good.  (So this guy's a lover, not 
a scholar! That ain't all bad!)  The sex scene that I read was 
sensitive and provocative.  In his sex scenes the excessive details 
aren't so bad: I think it's fun to know what each of the young people 
are thinking while they're starting to have sex on the dining room 
table.  On the other hand, even in the sex scenes some details get 
boring.  For example, the author spends too much time telling us what 
the right hand and left hand are doing, when there's no point in this 
specific detail.

So here is my advice to budding writers of erotica who feel they are 
being neglected by their public: (1)  Have an angle (topic, point of 
view, or whatever you want to call it) and introduce it early.  Give 
the readers a reason to want to read the story.  (2) Don't waste your 
time with irrelevant details.  (3) Use an effective writing style.  It 
is sometimes effective to write in a deliberately illiterate style in 
order to achieve an effect (Note my extremely effective use of the word 
ain't in the preceding paragraph!); but even people who say they don't 
care about grammar become turned off when writing becomes just plain 
confusing.  (4)  Make the sex scenes achieve the effect you want.  Not 
all sex scenes need to be "hot"; but this writer wanted to achieve that 
effect.  He has made a decent start, but he can improve this by 
following the first two rules.

Incidentally, I discuss with my students only the first three rules.  
These rules work even in stories written for bible classes.  The fourth 
rule is unique to this specific newsgroup.

Again, I am writing this review this not because I want to pick on 
somebody, but because the writer asked for it by putting the <*> in his 
title line.  It takes courage to ask for help and advice; and I respect 
that kind of eagerness to improve.  There are a lot of other stories in 
a.s.s. that have the same problems; and if those writers followed these 
four rules, I think they'd get a lot more favorable reaction to their 
stories.  

If this advice helps anybody, I'd like to know about it.  On the other 
hand, if this advice turns vast numbers of conscientious young scholars 
into really great writers of smut, I'm not sure I want to hear about 
it.  I hope to see other (and better) stories by The Court-Jester.  
(Rating: 1)

"Raped Teen Burglar" by TEX.  This is a fiendishly clever story.  TEX 
has taken another story (by Dachthyus) and has modified it to give it a 
completely different impact.  In the original story, Dan has a good ole 
time raping a teenage girl whom he catches burglarizing his house; and 
the story ends with her becoming his permanent sex slave.  The new 
version continues with Dan being arrested and convicted of rape.  
Almost the moment he enters the prison, "Danny girl" is himself raped 
and humiliated by another prisoner; and it seems likely that Dan will 
become his permanent sex slave.  I won't ruin it by telling you the 
ending.

I would never have noticed or downloaded this story, except that TEX 
sent me a personal copy with a request that I review it.  I didn't see 
the original; and so I'll just accept TEX's word that the first half of 
his revised story is word-for-word the original.  The brilliant thing 
that TEX has done is that he uses almost *the exact same words* to 
describe what is happening to Dan as Dachthyus used to describe what 
Dan was doing to Melissa - and the effect is dramatically different.

I showed this story to my husband, and he remarked that it reminded him 
of a "real good Death Wish movie."  He meant that as one of his highest 
compliments.  (That's right, fans, I'm married to a person who would 
rather watch a Charles Bronson movie than read an Ann Douglas story!)

I don't know whether TEX is the nom de plume of a moral crusader or 
just a really good writer.  What I do know is that the revised story 
gives a different insight into the value of raping "little virgin girls 
with ripe young bodies."  Incidentally, if you want to get this one 
from the current postings, it's listed as TEX Raped Teen Burglar 1/2 
and 2/2. (Rating: 10)

"Star Wars: Tie Fighter" by Walter Slaven.  The author was kind enough 
to send me a review copy of the first three chapters of this story.  
The fourth chapter just appeared in a.s.s. along with reposts of the 
earlier chapters; and so I'll post this review now, even though I have 
not yet had time to read the most recent posting.  If you enjoy science 
fiction of the Star Wars variety, this is a really good story.  I liked 
it because the sex is really hot and fits in nicely with the plot.  The 
best comparison I can make is to a good James Bond novel.

A lot of readers will be hesitant to download something that goes on 
for twelve parts - with possibly more to come.  But this one is worth 
it.  (Rating: 10)

"Mysterious Ms" by Le Lalique.  A man gets pulled into a dark hotel 
room and makes passionate love to a woman he never actually sees - 
before, after, or during the lovemaking. I like the basic idea of the 
fantasy; but somehow I think the author could have pulled it off a 
little better. (Rating: 7)

"The Golden Goddess" by Twiddler.  This is a very short account of a 
man screwing his very sexy next door neighbor.  This is well written, 
but I'd like to see a little bit more happen.  (Rating: 6)

"A Nice Plain Story" by Richard Harris.  Another short but romantic 
bit.  These two writers should get together.  Twiddler writes more 
clearly; he separates his ideas, but his sexual activity is mostly 
mechanical.  Harris succinctly describes the emotions (the reasons why 
they're doing what they're doing), which turns this into a love story 
rather than a sex story.  But he runs everything together into a single 
paragraph.  I added paragraphs to my copy and reread it, and I liked it 
better.  (Rating: 7.5)

"Scene from the Cabin" by TropicCool.  This is a beautiful story - one 
of the best I've read.  However, most of the readers out there will 
hate it, however, because there's no hot sex in it.  Just love and 
sentiment and all that wonderful stuff that makes hot sex so wonderful 
when it happens too.  I have to commend the author for resisting the 
temptation to throw in the hot stuff.  I desperately want to give this 
story a 10, but I just can't bring myself to give a perfect rating to a 
an alt.sex.story that's not about sex.  (Rating: 9.99)

