From: celeste801@aol.com (Celeste801)
Date: 18 Nov 1995 22:55:03 -0500
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.d
Subject: Celestial Reviews 38 - Nov 19

Celestial Reviews 38 - Nov 18, 1995

Note:  As I read the a.s.s. postings, I often find among the wannafucks a
message or two bewailing the lamentable quality of stories on a.s.s.  I
honestly don't see the point these people are making.  While I agree that
there are numerous weak stories in the postings, there are also some
really great stories on a.s.s. - enough to keep even the most prolific
reader occupied during his/her relatively private sexual activities.  The
stories that I review in this issue are evidence of that high quality.  In
fact, I would venture to say that fully half of the stories that I am
reviewing in this issue would be acceptable in good, reputable magazines,
except that their content makes them unsuitable for general circulation. 
Even the weakest of today's stories is a highly creative endeavor that
happens to be flawed by serious grammar mistakes; and I personally find it
reassuring that so many writers on this newsgroup work so hard to remove
errors in grammar and style from the stories they post here.

I hope some of you keep that in mind when you read a good story.  Our
authors don't get paid - except in terms of the occasional feedback they
get from readers.  I now I enjoy friendly comments from my readers, and I
imagine the other authors do too.

Writing Celestial Reviews and related stuff has continued to be fun.  The
activity actually helps keep me sane - if that's possible. Now that I have
reviewed my 300th story, I would like to comment on an interesting irony. 
When I first started writing these reviews, I used to draw on "normal"
American and world literature to clarify points to the a.s.s audience. 
(For example, I have had a lot of fun developing the theory that Deirdre
is Sherwood Anderson reincarnated - more on that in a future issue!  Even
if most of you don't know what I'm talking about, I did get a rise out of
the only person in Clyde, Ohio, with an AOL account.)  But last week the
situation reversed itself:  I found myself in front of a class of eager
high school students and I wanted to take an idea from an a.s.s. story to
clarify a point about "The Scarlet Letter."  No can do!

The paradox is that a large number of a.s.s. people (especially those who
bother to communicate with me) are highly intelligent and creative.  Dare
I say it - some of them are even brighter and more creative than some of
my colleagues in the Teachers' Lounge!  I am finding the a.s.s. atmosphere
in many cases to be more stimulating (no pun intended) than my ordinary
academic life; and the result has been that I am (1) becoming a little
more creative myself and (2) I can't tell anyone about this.  Well, it
*is* an irony.  You can decide for yourself if it's interesting.

   - Celeste

      "Experiment" by Deirdre (mind control) 10
      "Field" by Deirdre (I'm not sure) 9
      "Fixup" by Deirdre (voyeurism) 5
      "Walk" by Deirdre (outdoor sex & voyeurism) 8
      "Droit du Signeur" by Lysander (history & romance) 10
      "Wet Dream" by Caesar (sex in the great outdoors) 5
      "Taking Chances" by Frank McCoy (incest with very young
            child) 7
      "NICE" by Vickie Tern (revenge & kinky sex) 10

"Experiment" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi).  Ah! Another mad
scientist is at work in the laboratory of Deirdre's mind.  This one finds
out that one of her female students is attracted to a cheerleader, and the
scientist promises to turn the cheerleader over as a sex slave if only the
student will make love to the mad scientist.  Sounds good?  Read on! 
(Rating: 10)

"Field" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi). A college girl shares an
apartment with her girlfriend.  The girlfriend acquires a boyfriend, and
he moves in with them.  The boyfriend and girlfriend split up, and the
girlfriend goes home to mother, leaving the original girl and the former
boyfriend living together - but not sexually involved.  The boyfriend
decides to play the field for a while. Pretty soon there are women
marching in and out of the boyfriend's room.  This confuses the original
girl, because the boyfriend strikes her as rather bland.  Pretty soon the
boyfriend's women are multiplying faster than rabbits with calculators and
are overflowing the apartment.  Then the girlfriend comes back and asks if
the boyfriend has been seeing anyone.  This story certainly held my
attention!  (Rating: 9)

"Fixup" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi). The boss's wife seems to be
jealous of the female employee.  She invites the employee over and tries
to fix her up with a date.  When the boss takes the employee home, they
double back and peek in through the window and see the wife and the other
young man making out.  Just when the story starts, it stops!  It certainly
leaves a lot to the imagination.  (Rating: 5)

"Walk" by Deirdre (an65862@anon.penet.fi). "It's so dark and lonely out
here at 3:00 a.m. that I could dance naked in the street and no one would
notice!"  That's not the sort of thing a woman says out loud in a Deirdre
story - at least not unless she expects some consequences.  (Rating: 8)

"Droit du Signeur" by Lysander (Lysander@vnet.net).  This posting of
Chapter 8 represents what I'll call the rejuvenation of one of my favorite
long stories.  In my original review of this story, I reported being
wonderfully excited at its beginning and then disappointed as it seemed to
loose its steam.  Eventually, it just seemed to stop.  Lysander reports
that he had written the beginning of a garden rendezvous between Tomas and
Esmerelda immediately after she leaves Kirsten and Heinrich in Chapter 6. 
It was supposed to be tender and uplifting, a life-affirming act between
two people who needed each other; but it was also incredibly cloying.
Nevertheless, he stubbornly stuck with that plan from the middle of '93
until two nights before he posted Chapter 8.  Then he took a 90-degree
turn and it practically wrote itself.  The result is much darker than he
had intended, and it will be interesting to see how the story eventually
fulfills its original potential

HERE'S WHAT I HOPE:  I hope Lysander breaks with the a.s.s. tradition of
"improving" stories by just adding new chapters.  He wrote four brilliant
chapters and then three chapters that seriously limped.  Instead of just
adding eight more chapters, he should go back at some time and revise the
weak chapters.  In some aspects of life it is necessary to live with our
mistakes and to correct old weaknesses by merely adding new strengths; but
this is not necessary with electronic publishing.  All an author has to do
is revise an old chapter and push a button and <poof!> the bad parts of
the story are gone and the story becomes much better.  The only authors I
know of on a.s.s. who consistently do this are Backrub and the Ng Sisters.
 These are some of the best authors on the newsgroup: there's a lesson in
this.

The elderly among you will perhaps remember the old "Dallas" TV series. 
The writers of that series wrote once themselves into a corner when they
killed a major character.  Then the character came back to life the next
season, and they tried to reconcile this contradiction by saying that the
death had been only a dream.  Since evening soap viewers are not as
sophisticated as a.s.s. readers, this approach worked.  But on the
Internet this approach is not even necessary.  It's perfectly fair to
simply revise the earlier episodes - don't kill OJ or JR or whoever in the
first place.  Lysander has some serious weaknesses and contradictions in
Chapters 5 through 7.  If he both (1) finishes the story and (2) gets rid
of these problems, he will have written one of the best sex stories ever.

Let me be clear about one thing: Lysander is already one of the best and
most versatile authors on a.s.s.  He doesn't just repeat one plot with
minor variations; his stories range from the thrilling and even brutal to
the sentimental.  I have given him high ratings for other stories.  But
this story has the potential to be his very best - IF he will revise it as
well as finish it.  The reason I am saying this in a public review instead
of in a private letter to the author is because numerous other writers can
benefit from the same advice. Consider revising and altering your stories
to improve them when you repost them.  I advocate treating the stories
like successive versions of computer software.  I eventually want to see
Droit du Signeur 2.0.  This strategy has worked for Bill Gates and for
numerous software developers.  Believe me; it will work here too.

Anyway, since Lysander has reposted the original episodes, here is my
original review:

Nice story!  That was my reaction after I read the first chapter and
plunged ahead into the second.  This tale takes place in Germany during
feudal times.  In those days the lord of the serfs had the right to have
sexual relations with a new bride on her wedding night.  The hero and
heroine in this story initially resist this as a barbaric custom; but
eventually they comply.

This story borders on greatness.  At the end of the third chapter, I was
truly impressed.  But then the author gets sidetracked on tales about
warfare and torture. These chapters are not bad; in fact they're good -
but perhaps a little too detailed.  The problem is that the author never
gets back to a full treatment of the sex and romance.  All of a sudden the
story just ends, and we are informed that Heinrich married Esmerelda (who
is barren) after miraculously rescuing her from Assan and that Kirsten
will have Heinrich's baby.  There's a lot more room for development and
resolution here.  For example, how will Tomas (Kirsten's husband) react to
this state of affairs, and how does Kirsten feel about her husband?

When sex occurs, it is really hot.  In addition, the plot allows room for
real sexual tension and creative character development.  Assume that there
really is a rule that the lord gets the bride on the wedding night and
that the bride can help her husband (who has attacked the lord) only by
making the lord as happy as possible.  She expects the lord to be an
asshole; but instead he turns out to be a responsible ruler and kind
lover, whose happiness apparently arises from making her happy.  How
should she react?  There's an important moral and emotional angle here,
which is worth developing: should she let herself go and enjoy the
pleasures she has been offered, or should she hold back her true affection
for her husband?  If she does react favorably to the lord and if she does
conceive a child, how will this affect her love for her husband?  And then
there's Esmerelda.... These and many other dilemmas could make this into a
story that is not only titillating, but also just plain good literature.  

The author starts with a great plot for the first few chapters - a plot
that involves real personalities - and then settles for a war story,
purely hormonal sex, and an ending that leaves us hanging.  At the
beginning, this story reminded me a lot of the movie "Indecent Proposal,"
in which Demi Moore's husband was offered a million dollars if he would
let her sleep with a rich guy who looked a lot like Robert Redford.  But
"Indecent Proposal" maintained the moral and potential ambivalence all the
way to the end of the story.  In addition, Demi Moore's sexual activity
was not purely hormonal.  I hope the author of this story realizes what he
has here and goes back and turns it into the work of art it could become. 
(Rating: 7)

"Wet Dream" by Caesar (jsharpe@access.awinc.com).  This is a really weak
presentation of a really interesting idea.  An older adolescent boy comes
upon a younger adolescent girl in the woods.  She starts to masturbate but
becomes aware that someone is watching.  The boy remains unseen but gives
the girl instructions to continue masturbating.  The problem with the
story is that it is full of simple grammatical errors that are terribly
distracting.  I simply do not understand why creative authors cannot take
the trouble to make their stories presentable before releasing them to a
wider audience.  (Rating: 5)

"Taking Chances" by Frank McCoy (mccoyf@millcomm.com).  Here we have a
story about a man with a frigid wife and a hot daughter whom he starts
humping when she is nine years old.  The wife is actually a nice person,
whom both the husband and daughter love, and so they try to be discreet. 
But then it becomes obvious that the wife, who is sterile, is thrilled at
the idea of the little girl becoming pregnant by the father.  This heats
up everyone's sex life.  Eventually the family visits an unnamed, utopian
city in an unspecified, out-of-the-way part of the United States, where
down home hospitality is a way of life, where incest is the norm, and
where Mom, Dad, and Marlene could raise their children/grandchildren in
blissful harmony. The sad thing is that they leave this Walden-like
paradise behind; but the good news is that Mom's sex drives are coming
alive, and they always have the 800 number of the Society For the
Preservation of Incest in America.

I guess if we function in a science fiction world where there's no such
thing as harm from genetic inbreeding and where nine-year-olds suffer no
psychological trauma from being boinked by their daddies but actually have
their personalities enriched by becoming pregnant before they are
teenagers, then this is a kinda sexy story.

I might add that in real life if I clearly believed that this was
happening to a child for whom I was teaching I would be required by law in
my state to report my suspicions to an appropriate agency. I have no
problem with this law.  As an educator I am aware of the very real effects
that genetic inbreeding can have on the intellectual ability of the cute
little offspring of incestuous matings.  (The problem is one of increased
probability of double recessive genes, which would be much less likely to
occur among unrelated sex partners. People often make crude jokes about
parts of the country in which fathers are reputed to have children by
their daughters; and while these jokes are certainly rude, they are not
entirely fiction.)  In addition, in real life (as opposed to this story)
incestuous relationships often do entail an abusive use of power that
results in personality dysfunctions.  I've seen these very real results
and am not amused by them.

The preceding paragraph does not mean that I think the author is a pervert
or that this is a bad story.  In my American literature classes I require
my students to read a short story about a maniac who kills an old man
because he doesn't like the ways his eye looks, then chops up his body and
buries it under the floor, and then sits on top of those very floorboards
and casually talks to the police officers until the beating of the
telltale heart becomes so loud that he blurts out that he committed the
crime.  I require them to read another story by the same author in which a
man gets revenge on his enemy by burying him alive in a wine cellar.  I
have a colleague (more sinister than myself) who requires his students to
read a novel about a man with an incredibly insipid personality and
vacuous system of morality who is nonetheless labeled as Great in the
novel's title.  I have even tried to get my students to read a lengthy
tome about a blasphemous ship captain who sails around the world and has
nearly his entire crew killed while he tries to get revenge on a huge
mammal that he incorrectly refers to as a fish.  Need I go on?  My point
is that many of the finest leaders of our nation have read and enjoyed
these stories without being corrupted by them.

I am not so blase as to believe that there is no potential for harm in
this story.  Nor am I putting this story on a level with the stories to
which I have alluded (except, of course, "The Great Gatsby").  What I am
saying is that I think we can agree that reasonable readers should be able
to read a well written story and refrain from imitating obviously
inappropriate and socially destructive behaviors.  I know I can.  In fact,
in the many years since I have read Poe, I have buried alive only two
people (not counting lawyers and a lexicographer); and both of them were
English professors anyway.

As for the author - I doubt that he's really a pervert.  In fact, I would
be willing to let him babysit for my own children, as long as the
surveillance cameras were working.

But I digress.  The story was clearly written and fairly creative.  There
were points at which it got to be just too much to believe, and toward the
end it began to sound like an infomercial or a chamber of commerce
pamphlet; but on the whole I found the story to be interesting.  Just
remember: you can go to jail for doing things like this.  (Rating: 7)

"NICE" by Vickie Tern (vickietern@aol.com).  The title refers (among other
things) to the fact that the husband wanted to be nice to his wife by
engaging with her only in the nice kind of sex she wanted, which was
generally placid and rare. Away from home he was selected as a sexual
playmate by a coworker with decidedly anti-nice tendencies.  That torrid
and kinky affair came to an end and vanished into the past. However, from
the very beginning of the story we know that the man's wife is a
vindictive sort: to her a deal is a deal; and if she'll sue the painter
for finishing a job late, we can just bet that she won't be very nice to a
husband found to be unfaithful to the marriage deal. 

Now my Word Count utility tells me that I am 2929 words (259 lines) into a
story that is 10858 words (1022 lines) long, and the wife has just found
out that this sweet little husband has been unfaithful.  As you know, I
like sweet cuddly sex; and I don't like stories in which someone is
humiliated sexually. And you must certainly realize that if my husband
were ever similarly unfaithful to me, I would simply pat him on the head,
ask him not to do it again, and beg his forgiveness for failing to be the
woman he deserved.  If you believe that, then you're a few french fries
short of a Happy Meal and I have a snippet of Princess Di's cunt hair that
I'm willing to sell you at a bargain price.  Au contraire!  This author
has my permission to have the wife do anything she wants to this slimeball
for the rest of the story; and I'm going to enjoy all 7929 words (763
lines) of it!

And the plan for revenge that the wife outlines is ingenious.  I've never
thought of this method of revenge before.  As the wife dictated her terms
to the husband, I couldn't help thinking that the plot rivaled an Edgar
Alan Poe story in its macabre thoroughness. But hark!  The story has a
surprise ending; and that's putting it mildly.  I cannot tell you more. 
Read this story.  You'll love it.  (Rating: 10)

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.  (The
other 5% will eventually be covered in Advanced Celestial Grammar.)  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 week's tip:

THE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD

In the present tense the subjunctive is usually the infinitive of the verb
(that is, the form of the verb listed in the dictionary).  In the past
tense the subjunctive looks just like any other past tense, except for
"were," which is the past subjunctive of "to be."

The subjunctive mood states a requirement, a desire, or a suggestion; or
it states a condition that is contrary to fact.


The previous sentences make the subjunctive sound harder than it really
is.  The following examples will probably sound natural to native speakers
of English.

     His wife suggested that he fuck himself. {suggestion}
     His wife requested that he lick her cunt. {suggestion}
     I insist that you be here for supper if you expect me to eat you out
afterwards. {Requirement}
     I wish that I were a more competent cunnilinguist. {Desire}
     If I were you, I would be in love with me. {Condition contrary to
fact}

There are really only two problems with the subjunctive.  First, many
writers don't know about the subjunctive or feel uncomfortable with it,
and so they "talk around" it.  For example, instead of the first example
they may say:

     His wife suggested that he should fuck himself. {suggestion}

This is not actually a mistake; it just misses the opportunity to use the
subjunctive, which I think is a little more elegant.

The second problem is a little more serious: many writers tend to use
"was" instead of "were."  For example, in the fourth example they may say

     I wish that I was a more competent cunnilinguist. {Desire}

If someone says this to you, the socially appropriate response would be to
make a quick estimate of whether you want this person to give you a
demonstration.  If he/she looks like a major turn-off, reply

     "You mean 'were.' That's the subjunctive mood."

The person will leave you alone.  On the other hand, if he/she looks like
a promising prospect, just reply

     Let me help you practice.

In some cases, the misuse of "was" for "were" actually gives the sentence
a different meaning.

     If Melissa was behind the curtain with a gun, she could have stopped
her sister from fucking him.  {This sentence suggests that Melissa was
actually behind the curtain and therefore could have taken the designated
action.}

     If Vicky were behind the curtain with a gun, she could have stopped
her sister from fucking him.  {This sentence clearly means that Vicky
wasn't behind the curtain, but she could have taken this action if she
would have been there.}

If you want to use a more elegant expression, you can even omit the "If"
and convey the idea by using the subjunctive with an altered word order. 
For example, the preceding example could become:

     Were Vicky behind the curtain with a gun, she could have stopped her
sister from fucking him.  {This sentence clearly means that Vicky wasn't
behind the curtain, but she could have taken this action if she would have
been there.}

It's good to know about this usage, because when you use it people know
you're making an unusual point.  {Shakespeare does this effectively in
Julius Caesar, III, ii, 237-239: "Were I Brutus, and Brutus Antony, there
were an Antony would ruffle up your spirits....}  It lets the listener
know you're "in the mood."  This line has worked for me:

     Were you as good a lover as Pierce Brosnan, your tongue would be
moving a little faster right now.

Use this approach sparingly.