Celestial Reviews 27 - Oct 11, 1995

Note:  This is a mixture of several good stories plus a weak story ("Lyrical 
Fantasy") by an author who shows tremendous potential.  I give that story a 
somewhat detailed review not to poke fun at the author, but as possible 
assistance to other aspiring writers.

- Celeste

      "Bride" by Deirdre (sex at wedding reception) 6
      "Bridesmaid" by Deirdre (training for marriage) 10
      "Brother" by Deirdre (fantasy about brother) 8
      "The Draft" by Michelle Lurker (Futuristic TG) 10
      "Libre Island" by Sharon with Sue (orgies in an island
            paradise) 9
      "Gee Spot Run" by Sue (Masturbation & voyeurism) 10
      "Lyrical Fantasy" by smoot2 (poetic sex fantasy) 4
      "Pride and Punishment" by Persephone (rape and torture
            9)
	
"Bride" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi).  I appreciate a story like 
this once in a while.  It proves that I don't just blindly give perfect 
ratings to Deirdre.  The story is based on an interesting idea - the 
bride getting it on with someone other than the groom at her wedding 
reception; but little action or even really hot imaginings actually 
occur in this story.  (Rating: 6)

"Bridesmaid" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi).  Deirdre's stories are 
just full of little surprises!  In this one a woman is getting married, 
and she meets her bridesmaid (the groom's sister) for the first time 
the night before the wedding.  To her amazement, the bridesmaid informs 
her that she'll be "training" her for the marriage.  You'll have to 
read the story to learn more about this training regimen.  (Rating: 10)

"Brother" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi).  Many years ago the woman 
noticed that her brother and sister seemed to be having a sexual 
relationship.  Then the sister told that brother that the woman wanted 
to have sex with him (which was untrue), and he came to her when she 
was sleeping one night.  This gets confusing to summarize, but it was a 
short, interesting story.  (Rating: 8)

"The Draft" by Michelle Lurker (an173204@anon.penet.fi).  This story takes 
place in a society 200 years in the future.  Paul is drafted by the military 
and is informed that the enemy has conducted secret chemical attacks against 
the nation. The aim of the attacks was to destroy the nation's population by 
rendering most of the females infertile.  The nation's genetic engineers have 
found a process by which they think they can genetically re-engineer males 
into fertile female and thereby reverse this insidious decline in the 
population. Paul has been selected to be re-engineered into a prototype 
female, so that his nation's society can continue!

When Paul is first transformed into Paula, we discover that female society has 
regressed to the 1950's.  Her new father acts just like Dad on "Father Knows 
Best" - even referring to Paula as Princess.  Society has become an anti-
utopia - much like that found in Orwell's "1984." Paula seems to have 
forgotten her previous existence as Paul and to be resigned to her role as a 
flaky, subservient female; but then an incident happens that causes her to 
recover her memory.  At this point it becomes more appropriate to think of the 
protagonist as Paul within Paula's body.  And then the Underground commandos 
come to rescue her... But I don't want to disclose any more of the plot.

From the perspective of transgender stories, this one is unique in the respect 
that the person goes from completely male (but not a hunk) to completely 
female (and quite a beauty) before returning to the state of the male in the 
female body.  From the perspective of just plain science fiction, it's a 
pretty good story - but with a lot of questions unanswered.  From the 
perspective of a hot sex story, it's still a pretty good science fiction story 
with a lot of questions unanswered.  In other words, if you're looking for 
material to heighten your immediate sexual passion, you should look elsewhere; 
but if you want to spend some time exploring some interesting possibilities 
about masculine and feminine personalities and their roles in society, this is 
an excellent story.  The story does an excellent job of exploring the 
personality of Paul/Paula.  I thought this was a superb story.  (Rating: 10)
 
"Libre Island" by Sharon with Sue (SueNH@AOL.com).  Sharon and Sue are 
not only the authors but also the protagonists.  They are presented as 
two really hot, sexy woman who go on vacation together to an island 
paradise.  They meet Tyla, a beautiful black woman, and her friends; 
and they engage in some raucous sexual festivities.  That's really all 
there is to the plot.  It's sort of like those porn movies that none of 
us admit we watch: a lot of sexual acrobatics tied together with no 
real plot.  There's little character development (other than 
demonstrating that these really are very sexy people), nor does the 
author take advantage of the island's atmosphere to add to the 
intensity of the sex (as did Deidre Ng in "Aegean Interludes" or as 
would occur in a porn movie presentation of the same material). As long 
as you're willing to accept the story on these grounds, it's an 
excellent story.  This story is almost the opposite of the previous 
one.  If you're interested in exploring personalities and plot 
development, this may not be for you; but if you want material to 
heighten your sexual arousal, this one may do the job.  If what you 
want is hot sex scenes, this story is full of them in enthusiastic, 
explicit detail. (Rating: 9)

"Gee Spot Run" by Sue (SueNH@AOL.com).  I consider this story to 
exemplify what the preceding story was missing.  (Note that I have 
already given the other story a high rating; so don't take this as 
overly critical of that story.)  The big difference is that in this 
story the protagonists have a *reason* for having sex.

When Sue meets a casual friend and gets into a deep conversation, she 
discovers that the woman is sexually repressed.  To help out, she 
discloses the fact that she is an author of highly regarded sex stories 
and offers to let her friend read some of them. Sue goes off to take a 
shower and leaves her friend reading "Craftsmanship," which readers of 
these reviews will recognize as one of the stories I often cite as an 
example of hot, well-written erotica.  Well, I was right in rating that 
story a 10; because when Sue returns from the shower the woman is in 
the throes of masturbation that was instigated by reading the story.  
The woman is embarrassed, but Sue comforts her thus: "Even when I'm 
writing the stories, I get so turned-on sometimes that I have to stop 
typing so that I can reach down and rub my cunt for a big orgasm. And 
when I read other people's stories, I usually masturbate. I'm sorry 
that you feel bad about what you were doing, and I'm even more sorry 
that I interrupted you. So I'm going to leave the room again so that 
you can finish what you started." 

But alas, the woman has a learning disability: she doesn't know how to 
masturbate very well.  She feels that the characters in Sue's stories 
achieve heights of ecstasy that she has never reached.  Like a true 
humanitarian clinician, Sue reluctantly offers further assistance.  The 
two masturbate in each other's presence, and her friend learns by 
observing the genius at work.  The descriptions are hot and vivid.  Not 
only does Sue's friend figure out how to do it right; I also managed to 
eliminate a few bugs from my own system.  (However, there are a few 
things I could teach Sue too.)

This is a really hot story.  At the end, we are left with the 
impression that Sue's friend will probably get over her inhibitions and 
with the promise that we can find out what happened later by reading 
Sue's next story, "Fun with Dick and Jane."  (Rating: 10)

"Lyrical Fantasy" by smoot2 (smoot2@ix.netcom.com).  This fantasy is 
presented in the form of a letter from a man to his female lover.  Each 
paragraph in the letter is preceded by a line from one of Prince's 
songs (that is, from the songs of the Artist Formally Known as Prince); 
and the prose text is loosely related to these song lines.  I 
personally don't like Prince, but this did not interfere with my 
enjoyment of the fantasy.  What did interfere with my enjoyment was the 
frequent grammatical and textual carelessness.  This author is 
literate; that's not hard to see.  But the careless mistakes are just 
plain distracting - to the point of ruining the story.

I don't know why there were so many silly mistakes.  Maybe some of them 
were created by the author's text processor or mailer.  I mean - I know 
the author doesn't really think "the" is spelled th <space> e, but 
mistakes like that occurred frequently in the text.  In addition, the 
song lines and the other lines were all run together so that I couldn't 
easily tell which was which.  How the author spells and formats the 
text *does*make a difference.  In addition, the author sometimes refers 
to his true love as "u" and sometimes as "you".  I suppose the u bit is 
derived from Prince; and so I can accept it.  But why are one-third of 
the second-person pronouns spelled "you"?  Is there a difference 
between you and u?  If it makes no difference, why bother at all?  If 
it does make a difference, why not be consistent?  How hard is it to 
have the word processor look for all instances of <space>you<space> and 
change them to <space>u<space>?  These are little things; but these 
distractions add up.

The distractions become serious because the author tries to write in a 
hurried, from-the-heart style that is supposed to convey intensity and 
passion.  This style is fine - when it works.  As a matter of fact, if 
it weren't for the errors described in the previous paragraph, the 
style would be excellent.  However, when readers have to stop and try 
to debug the writer's text, the passages lose their continuity.  The 
result is that the style gets lost and the fantasy loses much of its 
impact.  Normal people - not just oversexed English teachers - will 
have problems with these distractions.

{As a side note, interested persons - including the author - should 
compare this writer's style to that of Deidre or Tammy Ng.  They often 
try in their stories to accomplish almost exactly the same effect that 
this author has tried to accomplish, and they are much more successful.  
However, if someone inserted all the mistakes from the preceding 
paragraph into Deidre's or Tammy's stories, their stories would lose 
their impact.}

Note that in a different context, this story would be appropriate in 
its present format.  For example, if the author whispered this fantasy 
it in a sexy voice over the telephone, the errors would not even 
appear.  Likewise, if he wrote this into an IRC (interactive relay 
chat), where urgency of expression is important, the recipient would be 
inclined to ignore the errors - because they are expected in that 
context and everybody knows that a guy who is all hot and bothered is 
likely to have trouble typing correctly.  Indeed, if the only person 
who would read this essay were the lover to whom it is addressed, even 
then it might be acceptable, since she might know the guy well enough 
to automatically circumvent his idiosyncratic writing.  (However, even 
there, I would consider it to be polite to proofread.  I mean, what 
harm can there be in giving her the impression that you care what you 
have said to her?)

However, when the author decides to publish this in a public forum like 
a.s.s., he can no longer assume that readers will be able to 
automatically ignore his errors.  Readers have a right to expect 
finished products.  I am not saying that while writing the *first 
draft* the author should worry about his commas and spelling or even 
that he should stop and make a correction if he notices that he has a 
space between "th" and "e".  What he should be concerned about in the 
first draft is the emotion that he wants to convey.  The problem with 
this story is exactly that: it's a *first draft*.  The author should 
simply turn the first draft into a final draft before publishing it - 
and probably before sending it to his true love.  Actually, if I 
received this as a love letter from an ardent admirer, I would probably 
read it carefully, figure out what he really meant, and have at least 
one good orgasm.  I would *not* correct the grammar and send it back to 
him.  {Was it "Up the Down Staircase" where the English teacher 
corrected the grammar in a kid's suicide note?}  However, if I decided 
to marry the guy, *I* would insist on writing the wedding invitations 
and thank you notes.  Aha - maybe this swain has a hidden agenda!

I have written this lengthy analysis not because I am in a bad mood, 
but rather because this is a new author who is typical of many other 
new authors.  I think if this fantasy had the kinks ironed out of it, 
it would be in a class with the writings of Deidre and Tammy Ng - which 
is a pretty good class.  I hope this author receives this review in the 
constructive spirit in which it is intended, that he writes more and 
better stories, and that other writers benefit from this advice as 
well.  (Rating: 4)

"Pride and Punishment" by Persephone (an140915@anon.penet.fi.).  As we 
read the first paragraphs of this tale, we learn that the Lady 
Catherine is a prissy snob in bygone days who has married Lord 
Ridgehurst to grab onto his wealth.  She is a virgin (nicknamed the 
Snow Queen) and she plans to stay that way, since she feels she has 
already done enough for her Lord by letting him become associated with 
her proud beauty.  Shakespeare broke his vixen one way in "The Taming 
of the Shrew," but Persephone espouses the more simple expedient of 
gang rape.

It's hard to feel sorry for Catherine.  After all, from the beginning 
of the story she is the consummate bitch, and such people need to be 
taught a lesson.  She should have become suspicious when she heard that 
the estate was named Sordida Park. Shortly after she arrives she finds 
herself securely bound in the library.  She finds out that Ridgehurst 
married her for her beauty, but chiefly for the very great pleasure he 
felt he would have in shaming and degrading the overweening pride she 
took in it.  He left her her virginity for only so long as it took to 
get her to his own property, the better to take it with violence and 
force.  This lady was in for a long night!

If you enjoy a tale about a proud bitch being raped and tortured, 
you'll enjoy this story. I just saw the movie "Seven" the other night.  
I thought it was disgusting, but I stayed; and the theater was full of 
people who enjoyed the movie and brought their kids to see that story 
of gruesome murders.  It scares me to think that men actually get 
turned on by reading about stuff like this; but I guess I should be 
grateful that in England they rape and torture genteel ladies instead 
of hard working English teachers.  I might point out, however, that in 
real life people who act like this man are themselves selfish assholes 
who are not likely to derive much permanent happiness from this kind of 
activity.  Shakespeare's Petruchio - though still enough of a 
chauvinist to satisfy most a.s.s. readers - is a little gentler in his 
approach; and so "The Taming of the Shrew" ends with potential 
happiness for both shrew and shrewee.  It figures.  A British author 
has to set his story in Italy in order to deal humanely with women.

Alas, this is a well written story that achieves its purpose quite 
well.  (Rating: 9) 

"Slumber Party Massacre" by Ymi (an398616@anon.penet.fi).  This story is 
interesting not for its content, but rather because of its disclaimer, which 
I'll quote in detail: "The following story  contains heavy torture, rape and 
mutilation of non-consenting teenage girls. I you aren't into such things, 
don't bother decoding it... caveat emptor: I wrote this story quickly and 
sloppily. i ran it rhough a spell-checker but that's it. there are probably 
tons of syntactic errors and stuff. i don't give a toot. also, these stories 
were written with win 3.1's notepad -- i normally write with word 6.1, which 
has wonderful autocorrection features, which affects my writing style -- no 
caps. i ran a macro through to try to fix this, but no promises. Ie: I wrote 
this for my and maybe other sicko perv's pleasure. i ain't exspecting to win a 
prize I do not condone or practice this sort of behavior. In real-life, I'm a 
sweet, if somewhat strange, guy. then again, I don't condone or practice 
christianity either :-)"

I don't recommend this story at all.  I agree with the author's 
assessment of it, and I think you would be wasting your time to decode 
it.  What I think is valuable is that the author himself has been 
courteous enough to give us this information *in a separate, unencoded 
file* (labled 0/2), so that sensible readers won't bother to download a 
story that they will almost certainly find to be a frustrating waste of 
time.  More authors of bad stories should follow this practice.  
(Rating: 1)

TIP OF THE WEEK:  In each issue of Celestial Reviews I present one of 
the guidelines from Celestial Grammar, which I have posted on alt 
sex.stories.d. and which I'll continue to develop and revise from time 
to time.  My theory is that if all of these tips were followed, about 
95% of the really distracting errors in a.s.s. stories would be 
eliminated.  I was going to name this part of the column TIP OF THE 
{something sexual}, but I thought the innuendo might detract from the 
sober serious business at hand.  Here is this issue's Tip:

SETENCECE FRAGMENTS.  Make sure every sentence contains a full thought 
that makes sense.  

     Bad: "He kept fucking her.  Until she begged him to stop.
     Better: "He kept fucking her until she begged him to stop.

Actually, it's sometimes OK to have an incomplete sentence (like the 
one marked "bad" above); but you should only do that on purpose.  And 
for a good reason.  Like emphasis.  Like this.  But it gets distracting 
if you do this too often. Like this.

Improper fragments seem to occur most often when the writer has a long 
sentence that concludes with a subordinate clause.  The writer often 
incorrectly puts the last thought into a separate sentence, like this:

      Bad: "While she continued to drive him crazy by fondling his 
balls with her free hand, she began to suck on his cock.  Until he came 
in a wild explosion of excitement."

In this example there should be a comma after cock, and a lowercase 
"until."  (One Freudian theory is that women make this mistake more 
often then men - because they think something bad will happen if they 
skip a period. I myself don't subscribe to that theory.)

