Message-ID: <24313asstr$959490607@assm.asstr-mirror.org> From: LadyCyrrh@aol.com X-Original-Message-ID: <ba.5ffac91.26618b2d@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: {ASSM} {REVIEW} The Annex Reviews, 5/27/00 Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 01:10:07 -0400 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail X-Is-Review: yes Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org> Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories,alt.sex.stories.d Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: <URL:http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year2000/24313> X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Story-Submission: <ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Moderator-ID: gill-bates, apuleius, dennyw The Annex Reviews, 5/27/00 by Lady Cyrrh (ladycyrrh@aol.com) Website: http://members.aol.com/ladycyrrh OR http://home.aol.com/ladycyrrh The stories: Jen's Titillating Behavior (DrSpin): M/F cons, exhib, oral, breast, cheat Hard Dick High (Kari Alarus): m/f, f/f, teen, high school, humor, femdom The Secret Lair (Barbara B): F/M/M, cons The Seduction of a Desert Prince (Killashandra, Rachael Sabotini, elynross): M/M slash, first, Highlander Jen's Titillating Behavior [A] Where posted: ASSM When posted: 3/14/00 Author: DrSpin Address: drspin@newsguy.com Website: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/DrSpin/www/ Four suburban couples in their thirties are used to meeting regularly for dinner, drinks, and the occasional partaking of weed. At one such occasion, when everyone's gotten a bit tipsy, the subject turns to each wife's wifely attributes: hair, tits, legs, ass. Jen has the tits. When her husband, the narrator of story, turns in for the night, she decides to show the other guys just what her demicup contains. The narrator feigns sleep as she flashes them from the window, but soon she goes downstairs again, and because this behavior is unusual for her, he follows. As he watches from outside, he gets more than an eyeful as they tease out one of her fantasies: She bent her head and took him in her mouth, holding him with her left hand. I watched bewildered as she applied herself, her head bobbing slowly and evenly. This was Jen? My Jen? I mean, we'd done this plenty of times but it was by no means her favourite activity. It was always something of a gift she made to me, certainly not a wanton act of lust on her part...[They] both pumped furiously, their hands over hers. Martin pointed his shaft urgently at her breasts and she thrust her shoulders back, lifting her breasts forward. His first spurt landed directly on her right breast and he clutched himself, jerking, as he sprayed her in four or five powerful bursts. Geoff was adding his contribution before Martin was finished, sending ribbons of semen across her chest. She fell back suddenly, hands free and weight on her heels, her chest area smeared with their sperm. Her head slumped forward and I thought she'd lost her balance. It looked as though she been knocked over by the primitive force of ejaculation. Then I realized. Both her hands were kneading at the crotch of her jeans and she was in the throes of orgasm. The narrator, naturally, is stunned. Though he chooses not to call his wife to case, the dynamics of his marriage have changed forever. I liked the story a lot; it seemed realistic of the way feckless couples in their thirties would entertain themselves in well-ordered suburbia. The ending was a letdown however. The happy group breaks up under the strain, as if poor Jen had opened a Pandora's box of adultery, with the narrator having no regrets about it. This I didn't quite buy. The story would have been so much stronger if it had ended right after the incident, with the narrator drawing his conclusions and moving on. But what came before was pretty damn good, and for that I recommend it. Hard Dick High [A] Where posted: ASSM When posted: 5/13/00 Author: Kari Alarus Address: head2fat@soon.com Posted by: <removed at request of poster 2003-02-08> Poster address: <removed at request of poster 2003-02-08> How can you resist a story with a title like this? Hard Dick High is an imaginary place where the girls dress like sluts and cocktease all day long and the boys are kept in perpetual frustration. The author truly used his or her imagination in describing the sluts ("Buxom Tamara Smith arrived in a top hat, black heels, and a nylon see-through body suit. Unconstrained by any bra, her magnificent 38DD knockers were full, firm, and deadly. The gorgeous vixen's sole concession to modesty was a teeny tiny black thong. ") and their language ("Whew! Is it drafty in here or are my holes exposed? Perhaps someone's stiff pipe will plug the gaps") though they sound suspiciously more like Showgirl rejects than high school girls. The young men and the teachers are forbidden to respond to any of this by the school's amazon guards, so they walk around with perpetual hard- ons all day long. But sometimes the sluts just go too far, and for that they're sent to the principal, who fucks them silly and spray-coats them with cum. After that, things *really* get out of hand, with the sluts streaming out into the halls and literally raping any male they encounter. This was more of a porny scenario than a story, and it was very, very silly. The author said in the introduction, "Here's some straight up porn designed to get your dick hard. I won't even pretend that there's much of literary merit here" yet it was so ridiculous, so crass, and so over the top, I just had to give it an A--it was possibly the sluttiest high school story I've ever read, and I literally grinned right through it, and even broke out into laughter in a few places. I wonder if the author realized how humorous it was, or if it was even intended to be humorous. It had the overdescriptive, deadly earnest tone a lot of stroke stories have, one that usually receives my drubbing. But this time, for some odd reason, everything worked. The Secret Lair [A+] Where posted: ASSM When posted: 4/18/00 Author: Barbara B Address: babs42ne@hotmail.com Like the writer of this piece, I'm a big fan of libraries. They're the perfect place to people-watch and the quiet lends itself to building fantasies about those people, as the narrator of the story does: I'm about to open the Astronomy magazine when an older man comes in. He doesn't even seem to notice me as he takes his book and settles into one of the oversized chairs that frame the fireplace. I watch him as he puts on his reading glasses, opens the volume he's brought, and soon is deep into the story. <<Wonder what he's reading?>> I ask myself. He's dressed casually in a white polo shirt that sets off his tan and the muscles in his arms, a man who was obviously handsome in his youth and doesn't look all that bad now. <<He probably likes tropical settings,>> I decide or how else could he have gotten that tan in the winter. He's very tall and slim. <<Probably was an athlete, and smart with a good sense of humor>> I deduce. He has most of his very curly hair, which is now entirely gray, and except for a very slight, almost imperceptible limp, he's in great shape. About 62 years old is my guess. And as I often do when I study someone, I wonder about the women he's made love to, the ahhh's and ohhh's he's heard, the pussies he's tasted, the mouths he's explored, the breasts he's fondled and suckled. I wonder if his dick still gets hard when he's holding his beloved. And I wonder when he falls asleep at night if he dreams about the ladies who over the years have brought him pleasure as he returned the favor. I wonder how many fond memories he's made. In the course of her visit she fantasizes about another man...and her fantasies come to life when he seduces her behind the stacks, and then the first man joins in! This is a type of story I don't review that much, because it's the hardest type to do well: the plotless encounter that is steamy, realistic, AND written well enough to be unique and entertaining. It took a while to get going, and was slightly rough in the beginning, but the sex scenes, which were sweet, passionate, and explicit, made up for it. So for that a hearty recommendation from me, plus I do like the idea of getting it on in a library. It's a secret fantasy I didn't know I'd had. The Seduction of the Desert Prince [B+] Authors: Killashandra, Rachael Sabotini, elynross Available from: Lair of the Krell Address: http://mediafans.org/krelldom All right, I admit it. I've got a love/hate relationship with slash. On the one hand I like its audacity and its pink-cheeked, crochet-potholder endorsement of the kinky, the maudlin, the melodramatic. On the other hand, I'm frustrated with its sloppy structure, its repetitive stories, its lack of true imagination. When I came upon this novel-length story I thought "Oh boy!" anticipating a juicy M/M sex slavery tale in a Middle Eastern setting, with lots of hot sex, angsty emotional confessions, and florid language, not to mention D/s and bondage. Well, I got that, but ...there were problems. This was a Highlander fandom story about Duncan (the slave) and Methos (the tribal leader who buys him). It was a whopper -- over 75,000 words, and yet unfinished. I should say here I don't watch Highlander and never have, although I'm familiar with the basic premise of it. Logically, a fan of the show could say "That's why you didn't get the story, dumbass" but in my defense I'll say I've read slash from shows I watch or watched a lot (Star Trek, Gatchaman) shows I watch only occasionally (Xena) and shows I never watch (Buffy) and -- guess what! What makes me enjoy a story is how well and convincingly it is written, not how familiar I am with its predecessor. In other words, a fanfic story stands alone as a work of writing, not an extension of a TV show. Slash writers often seem to dismiss or make excuses for this truth. In fact, they have ready excuses for a lot of authorial shortcomings, which they post both on their websites and in various newsgroups. Many times they purport to want feedback on stories but tell us in big capitals NO FLAMES ALLOWED. Some go as far to say they aren't interesting in learning to become better writers (read: communicators) at all -- they're just doing it for the fun of it, a handy way of escaping the critical glare. So say anything negative about slash fiction, and you're bound to offend someone. That said, the story began well. Duncan, an Immortal good deed-doing Scottish warrior, is being sold at a slave auction and Methos, an older, more cynical Immortal (the "Desert Prince" of the title), buys him. The Highlander TV show is set in the present day with frequent historical flashbacks, but this story plays with canon a bit: it is an AU (alternate universe) depiction of how these two met sometime in 16th century Morocco or Algeria, after the rise of Islam but before the widespread dissemination of firearms. I expected, as is common for slash, long, detailed descriptions of the two falling in love with each other: the slave overcoming his pride and rebelliousness and learning how to be properly submissive and love his master, while the master must how to see his slave as a human and not a plaything, and open up his heart. However, the writers fumbled things by having the slave obviously attracted from the get-go: Movement at the edge of the crowd drew his eye, and the Immortal he'd seen drew in close. Hope surged at the thought -- he might not need a sword. An Immortal's loyalty lay with other Immortals, perhaps this man would buy him merely to keep him out of mortal hands, to keep the Immortal secret safe. Duncan could finally make out the fair features under the swath of black that covered the man from head to toe. Pale skin and well-formed features, lips that drew the eye, framed by a narrow beard, and a searing, piercing gaze... he quickly looked away, those eyes knowing more than Duncan could even understand, yet he could not look away for long. The strength and desire he'd glimpsed drew him like a moth to flame, and he shuddered to think of his duties should such a man --such an Immortal -- buy him. Thus punctured the tension a lot, as we already *know* they're going to get together without any real problems, right? Duncan winds up being an oddly narcotized captive. He spends most of his time feeling only slightly embarrassed, as if the authors wanted to honeycoat his predicament. In fact he comes across more as a sincere, logical, cautiously detached female than a sword-swinging warrior. He gets wet a lot (it's precum, but described suspiciously like vaginal wetness) and his abdominal muscles clench when he gets aroused and his belly burns; he feels all-over tinglings rather than organ centered ones. This I don't have problem with; it's a fantasy, and it's slash, and many female readers identify with the male sex objects in the stories. But in the logic of the story, if he's a warrior, and a proud honorable Immortal warrior at that, he should be acting more proudly and aggressively, so we know that's who he is. Methos, on the other hand, is more of a "man," but even he flubs up; as a tribal leader he's supposed to be leading his people through a tense time but instead he paces about and moons excessively over his slave, and one moment he's distant and the next companionable -- very inconsistent. Some of the problems with the romance may have been due to the fact the story has three authors (among them Killashandra, highly regarded in Trek circles), and it may have been written in a round-robin fashion. If so, it's a good job, because the joins were seamless, and the proofreading, as usual for slash, is excellent. But the effect is still that of the characters being used as puppets moved around a game board for the benefit of the writers...which can be seen as a parallel process to the act of watching the shows and projecting the homosexual relationships into them. There's something both endearing and insulting about this; it's like the writers are deliberately playing dumb as to what they're *really* writing and fantasizing about. I've seen this in a lot of slash, and usually, it's part of the fun; but 75,000 words of it was just too much. Again, one could say, "Well, who cares, it's a sexual fantasy about two straight men having a gay relationship." Right, but if its entertainment value is based on romance and gradually growing feelings of love, why not make the process as realistic and believable as you can? That said, I found most of the sex scenes to be pretty steamy and they were written well, though they became repetitive after a while. Oddly, I found the best of the bunch were the most blatantly heterosexual -- one in the beginning, where poor Duncan is mortified to be oiled up by an attractive female slave in preparation for his master's bed; and the other where, having established an uneasy relationship with Methos, he masturbates on the bed for his pleasure. Aside from the organs, he could have been a woman. Actually, the whole thing was almost a female wish fantasy: the relationship does not develop in a linear way, but instead eddies around in little pools, backcurrents, and stagnations, with Duncan as the "female" who is constantly losing control of himself and Methos playing the "man" who is just as passionate but feigns cruelty and detachment because he doesn't want to get hurt for loving too much. But despite the hot sex the story moved very slowly. This was a shame, as the authors had a very nice subplot going with the tribe under threat from another, and the minor characters were well drawn, and the sociocultural bits, while not especially detailed, seemed well-researched and plausible; but this made the romance all the more draggy and tedious. Between Chapters 5 and 18 nothing is advanced in the relationship besides a mild master-slave accommodation and a sort of transcendental soulbonding accomplished through sex. Usually when two people of whatever gender develop a relationship they share fun times together, or talk about what they have in common, or endure/enjoy common experiences; all the emphasis on pure passion, while fun for the authors, is lost on the reader, as it's a well-nigh impossible concept to get across to someone not in the relationship (or not creating it, as the author is.) The story was also not served well by depicting events from both Methos' and Duncan's POVs--it was like the entire story was neatly plotted and stitched and laid out in advance so you could see it all at once. To be fair, the story shaped up around Chapter 18 when things finally started happening, and the two Immortals began to have conversations and got to know each other, and some real excitement began to gel when Methos considers abandoning his charges and running off with his bed-slave. But those chapters that came before were very hard to get through. So, do I recommend this? Yes, if you are a slash fan and love the show or you want to read some hot M/M sex in the slashy vein. The writing was good and so was the sex. But if you're looking for good novel length D/s erotica, I'll think you'd be frustrated. This is the last slash story I'll review for a while, I promise. ___________________________________________________ Comments to: ladycyrrh@aol.com Website---> http://members.aol.com/ladycyrrh -- Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: <ckought69@hotmail.com> | | FAQ: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/faq.html> Moderator: <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Archive: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org> Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository | |<http://www.asstr-mirror.org>, an entity supported entirely by donations. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+