Message-ID: <26215asstr$968296203@assm.asstr-mirror.org> From: Celeste801@aol.com X-Original-Message-ID: <35.9e3ebb9.26e84459@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Language: en Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by sara.asstr-mirror.org id VAA06699 Subject: {ASSM} {REVIEW} Celestial Reviews 366 Sept 9 Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 23:10:03 -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/Year2000/26215> X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Story-Submission: <ckought69@hotmail.com> X-Moderator-ID: RuiJorge, kelly, newsman Celestial Reviews 366 -" Sept 9, 2000 Note: I'm back again! As many of you know, I took a "vacation" to publish my novel. I wish I could tell you that I have met with success, but that's not the case -" not yet, anyway. It has been an interesting but frustrating experience. I contacted about ten agents, all of whom declined even to look at the manuscript. The two people (non-agents, unrelated to publishers) who looked at the entire novel liked it very much and gave me some extremely useful feedback. So my pre sent status is that I have an even better, still unpublished novel. Second note: I missed writing these reviews and am eager to resume. However, I am going to change my modus operandi just a little. First, I am going to be a little more willing to toss out bad stories without reviewing them. In the past, my viewpoint was that I had a right to review whatever I wanted to review; and so I occasionally posted a review that an author viewed as a preemptive attack. I still think anyone has a right to review anything that is posted to this newsgroup, but I have never intended to offend anyone. I'll still give occasional unsolicited reviews -" simply because the First Amendment says I can and because common sense says I should; but if you want your story reviewed, you'll increase your chances greatly by emailing me a copy and asking for a review. In the past once I read a story, I would review it, even if I hated it. In the future, I intend to take that attitude only if the author or someone else asks me to review a story. In other words, if an author sends me a story or asks for a review, I'll write the review even if I dislike the story. In addition, if there's public debate about a topic or story, I may discuss it in Celestial Reviews. Otherwise, I am not inclined to give advice to people who don't want it. The preceding paragraphs suggest that there will be a tendency for the stories that I review to be ones that I like, and the result might tend to be too many high ratings. I'll try to counter this tendency by giving really high ratings more sparingly. What this means is that a story that might have received straight 10's a year ago might receive lower ratings now. This will make some of the new ratings non-comparable to the older ratings; but the alternative is to have way too many 10's, and that wouldn't be good. I'm going to stick with the guest reviewers. I have enjoyed working with them, and I think I have provided a useful service by prodding them to write occasional reviews and posting them in one place. If a particular reviewer bothers you, you really oughta have the sophistication to skip or ignore that person's reviews. If you are a guest reviewer and want me to send you some stories again, please contact me. Even if you have never been a guest reviewer but would like to give it a try, please contact me. I'm going to retain my introductory jokes. I know some people don't like these, but those people can exercise their freedom by screwing themselves instead of reading my jokes. When I post the jokes, people send me some good ones -" many of which I don't publish; but at least I have a continuing source of things that make me laugh. Finally, I'm going to try to be more regular in my Celestial Grammar notes. I have a publisher who wants me to write an underground grammar book, and writing the grammar column in Celestial Reviews may prod me to finish that project. If you have grammar questions or suggestions, please send them to me. Third note: I am trying to expand my computer literacy. One perk of using AOL is that they give me a free web site. I have set up my web site as simply as possible -" using a package called 1-2-3 Publish. This limits me to three passages of limited length, plus some links. My plan right now is to post each new issue of my Celestial Reviews there, and to have a link to my older reviews in ASSTR. I'll also post a few other things there. Right now, the other two things are the first two chapters of my novel. So, if I manage to figure out the address, and if I manage to post everything there that I want to post at that site, you can go there and find these things. My web page address is http://hometown.aol.com/celeste801/myhomepage/index.htm l Meanwhile, I'll keep posting the reviews as usual to a.s.s.m. and a.s.s.d. THIS WEEK'S JOKE: A little girl was leading her dog through the park when an old man stopped her, saying, "That's sure a pretty dress you're wearing." The little girl smiled, "Thank you, Sir. My mama bought it for me. This is my dog Porky." The old man chuckled, "I'll bet a nickel I can guess why you called him that." She shook her head, "I'll bet you can't." He laughed, "You called him Porky because he's so fat." She shook her head. "No Sir, we call him that because he fucks pigs." ===================== Celestial Reviews Index: ===================== "Double Take" by Admiral Cartwright (twin incest) 8, 9, 8 "Trail Magic" by Wiseguy (outdoor sex) 9.5, 9.5, 9.5 "Seducing Tina" by Left Side Signals 8.5, 8, 8.5 "Missy, JD, and the Night" by The Mysterious Mr. Lee Organization (first time teen ff sex) 8, 8, 8 ===================== Here are the Reviews: ===================== "Double Take" by Admiral Cartwright (admcartwright@starfleet.hotmail.com). The author says this story is a variation of Erich Kaestner's Das Doppelte Lottchen, but it is easier to recognize Walt Disney's hand than Kaestner's in this madcap adventure. Imagine this: twin twelve-year-old girls -" one has lived only with the mother, and the other has known only the father. The twins meet at summer camp, notice their similarities, and realize that they are twins when they discover themselves having simultaneous orgasms accompanied by a sort of harmonic vibration during masturbation. The author is somewhat vague about the exact nature of what happens when the twins masturbate together. Even when they work out on different sides of the Pond, an orgasm in London leads to a sympathetic vibration in Texas. When they're together, the earth moves, so to speak. I interpret this as a special case of harmonic theory, which I learned about back in high school. Harmonics play an important role in everyday life. For example, harmonic vibrations sometimes cause cars to shimmy at high speeds. The harmonic series is a mathematical definition, generally used when talking about frequencies. The harmonic series is important in musical applications because most instruments (including guitar) produce sounds that contain harmonic frequencies. My theory is that the girls hit upon something here that the nuns managed to suppress back in high school physics. This sort of information explains why rocket scientists are so damned good at sex. But I digress. As Disney would suggest, the two girls trade parents. That is, at the end of their vacation {i.e., holiday} at Camp Keweenaw, Sandi goes to London and Sarah goes to Texas to meet her pa {i.e., father}. Sarah-as-Sandra, of course, discovers that her father loves his little girl more deeply than she had suspected. As in most Disney variations on this theme, the girl is eager to get to know her parent more biblically. So you might suspect that Sandi-as-Sarah goes off to England and does the wild thing with Mum. Wrong! What kind of perverted story do you think this is? 'Tis her grandfather whom she shags. And of course, the girls plot to bring Mum and Pa back together. Otherwise, one or the other would lose access to Daddy's cock, and grandpa doesn't taste near as good. To accomplish the reunifuckation, they have to enlist the assistance of the other woman who caused Mum and Pa to break up for some really bad reasons. As is always the case with Disney stories (which support family values), the parents are really meant for each other, and they realize this during the ensuing orgy. The harmonic vibrations were interesting, but distracting. I kept wondering what applications there might be of the Doppler effect to the undulations of sex. The best accidental pun in the story was this one: "It wasn't long before he came." Well, it was longer before he came than after he came! As usual, upon my return from a hiatus I am trying to start a new life and stop giving every fucking story I review a set of tens. Taken as a serious attempt at an interesting romance (as serious as " Das Doppelte Lottchen," that is), this story is weak. I mean, even given the suspension of huge amounts of disbelief, normal people don't act this way without screwing up one another's lives. Likewise, as a testimony to hedonism the story is simplistic compared to, say, the "Trinity Trilogy" or to the adventures of the Allen sisters. So I decided to treat the story as a parody of the vaguely serious identical twin motif in "Parent Trap." From this perspective, it's a fun story, but not a great parody in the tradition of Shelby Bush. I think maybe the story would be a little better if the sexcapades didn't appear to be piled on quite so heavily with sometimes inadequate logic. I'm also trying to stiffen my requirements for the Venus (technical quality) rating. I'm going to dock this story a point not because there are egregious errors, but rather because the transitions are sometimes week. That is, although the story was generally clear, I sometimes felt that I was being jerked around in an uncomfortable manner. Ratings for "Double Take" Athena (plot & character): 8 Venus (technical quality): 9 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8 "Trail Magic" by Wiseguy (wiseguy35@hotmail.com). Leo and Bridget are taking a 50-mile hike along the Appalachian Trail, during which Leo hopes to get some nookie, while deciding whether he wants to initiate cohabitation with Bridget. His plans are interrupted by an interloper named Gretel. The story is simple, pleasant, and sexy -" first a twosome, then a threesome, then -" well, you read it and find out. Sex in the outdoors is a real turn-on for me. Sex in the RAINY outdoors is a bonus. The author does a real nice job. Ratings for "Trail Magic" Athena (plot & character): 9.5 Venus (technical quality): 9.5 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9.5 "Seducing Tina" by Left Side Signals. Dr. Barstow has long admired Tina, his administrative assistant. One day -" a day on which the poor young lady is just plain hot to trot - she gets stood up by her husband. That's the bad news. The good news is that one day when the poor young lady is just plain hot to trot, she gets stood up by her husband. So Dr. Barstow fills in <wink>. It's really pretty hot stuff. As part of my policy of discussing grammar and style, I have selected some examples from this story. I'll discuss these below, under CELESTIAL GRAMMAR. At this point, I'll simply note that these flaws do distract from the flow of the story, but not so much as to put a serious damper on matters at hand. Once Dr. Barstow gets Tina into the sack, the sex is quite nice. Ratings for "Seducing Tina" Athena (plot & character): 8.5 Venus (technical quality): 8 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8.5 "Missy, JD, and the Night" by The Mysterious Mr. Lee Organization (TheMrLee@hotmail.com). What we have here is a teenage lesbian seduction with a strong dose of romance. The girls get together to watch Thelma and Louise on video. One of them has some prurient interest in the other, and the other is not all that hard to convince. The sex is dreamlike and, well, sexy. Ratings for "Missy, JD, and the Night" Athena (plot & character): 8 Venus (technical quality): 8 Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8 CELESTIAL GRAMMAR: Effective parallelism and subordination can contribute to a good story. The author of "Seducing Tina" made some mistakes that can be instructive. One tool for showing parallelism is by joining two independent sentences together. You can do this in two ways: (1) Use a semicolon to join the sentences. We made love for an hour; then we had lunch and came back for more. (2) Use a comma plus a coordinating conjunction to join the sentences. {Coordinating conjunctions include, AND, OR, BUT, and FOR.} We made love for an hour, and then we had lunch and came back for more. It's almost that simple, but there's one final detail. If either of the independent clauses (the originally separate sentences) contains internal punctuation, then the comma in rule (2) becomes a semicolon. We made love for an hour; and then we had lunch and came back for more, while her husband watched us through binoculars from the balcony where I had stationed him. Here's an example of where the author of "Seducing Tina" missed the mark: It was usually a mixed-gender group, some married but mostly not, and Matt often behaved like one of the single people, sitting in the center of the group batting ideas around and leaving Tina isolated on the periphery, serving the drinks and snacks. The above sentence clearly needs a semicolon to separate the two main clauses. In addition, the second clause needs some commas to separate the items in the list of "sitting, batting, and leaving." Finally, I would revise the second clause to get rid of the final participle (serving). The problem with "serving" is that it (1) gives the appearance of being parallel to the other participles, when in fact it is not and (2) it gives the impression that the writer is just chaining ideas together, without any concern for subordinating one idea to another. Here's how I would rewrite the sentence: It was usually a mixed-gender group, some married but mostly not; and Matt often behaved like one of the single people, sitting in the center of the group, batting ideas around, and leaving Tina isolated on the periphery, where she served the drinks and snacks. There's little seriously wrong with the author's way of stating this sentence, and I could be coming across as a snob by suggesting that my way is better. The advantage of my way is that it gives the reader a little more help in seeing which ideas belong together. It would certainly be possible to "improve" this passage by stating the ideas in completely different ways, but I have no urge to go there right now. So then we have this sequence: Picking up the new lecture notes, I pulled my swivel chair over to the outside door. With my feet planted on either side of the jamb, I leaned back to check them over, but, paging through, I gave them little more than a cursory review; I was still thinking about Tina. I personally would have said, "I leaned back to check the notes"; but maybe I would be showing paranoia over the possibility that my reader might think it was my feet that I was checking. I also think there should be a object to the preposition "through"; but in an age when we "come with" -" and possibly even "cum with" -" sans object of the preposition, maybe this usage is OK. However, the main problem is that the second sentence needs better use of semicolons. I would rewrite it as follows: With my feet planted on either side of the jamb, I leaned back to check the notes; but, paging through them, I gave them little more than a cursory review. I was still thinking about Tina. Finally, I think this author overuses the present ( -"ing) participle. It would sometimes be better to say something more specific. In the previous example I changed "serving" to "where she served"; and I think this led to more precise expression. In this case, I would get rid of one more participle: With my feet planted on either side of the jamb, I leaned back to check the notes; but as I paged through them, I gave them little more than a cursory review. I was still thinking about Tina. Authors should not sweat this sort of thing while writing the first draft -" or even the second, third, or twentieth draft. But sometime before or during the FINAL draft these imperfections and mannerisms need to be considered. Focusing on them may seem burdensome; and if it's a real pain in the ass, get a proofreader to do it for you. But many authors discover that by focusing on these details they are able to say more precisely exactly what they wanted to say. That sort of thing leads to real improvements in the final product. The following two sentences (already corrected) demonstrate when you need a semicolon and when you don't: I could feel her nipples like little stones pushing into my chest through our clothing, and her pubic bone was just above my own. Then she pulled her face away from my shoulder, her expression serious but her eyes twinkling at me from a distance of only a few inches; and she reached up to put her hands on my shoulders. The first setence contains two clauses with no interior punctuation. Therefore, all we need is a common plus "and" to join them. The second contains two clauses, but with interior punctuation. Hence, it needs a semicolon. Finally there's this sentence: Her nipples were a dusky brownish-pink, prominent against her pale skin, and I was startled to see a tattoo, a delicate rose, on the upper slope of her firm left breast. Actually, all the preceding sentence needs is a semicolon. I'd also throw in a pair of dashes around "a delicate rose." However, the main reason I cited this sentence was to put an interesting picture into your dirty little mind. Her nipples were a dusky brownish-pink, prominent against her pale skin; and I was startled to see a tattoo - a delicate rose - on the upper slope of her firm left breast. As the Bard said, "A rose by any other firm left breast would still be a rose." Note that "so" is not a coordinating conjunction. Therefore, when it joins two sentences, it goes by rule (1), not rule (2). That is, if you join two sentences with "so," then you need a semicolon. He was almost ready to come; so he pulled his cock out of her and squirted his jism all over her body. But note that "so" can serve purposes other than joining two sentences. In such cases, it is normally preceded by a simple comma. He pulled his cock out of her, so that he could squirt his cum all over her body. Final exam. Is this sentence OK? Before I could say I didn't think that was possible, Tina lowered her mouth over the head of my cock and proceeded to lave it with her flashing tongue, cleansing it of the remains of her exquisite blow-job and stimulating it to a freshened stiffness. Answer: It's fine as-is. However, if the author inserted the word "she" before "proceeded," then he would need a semicolon: Before I could say I didn't think that was possible, Tina lowered her mouth over the head of my cock; and she proceeded to lave it with her flashing tongue, cleansing it of the remains of her exquisite blow-job and stimulating it to a freshened stiffness.>> Either way is fine with me. <end> -- 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. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+