Monday, March 25, 2013

Painted Doll, An Excerpt

In celebration of the re-release of my cyberpunk BDSM erotica novel, Painted Doll, here's an except...


Chapter 2

... Qui Dan Road to the High Street, a stumble of crisp British in a city of fish sauce and MSG. The change didn’t alter her steps, modify her movements.

Beautiful? Oh, yes: without doubt, without a question. The splendor of a rose, the loveliness of an orchid. The kimono is flawless, as is the china white of her immaculately applied artificial complexion. As she walks, hearts stop then race. As she walks, heads twist, eyes widen. As she walks, breaths are hissed in, sighed out.

Beautiful? Oh, yes: without doubt, without a question. But she is a knife-edged rose, a razor sharp orchid. Her stride is mechanically perfect, as is her perfectly vertical posture. Their hearts might race, their heads may twist, their eyes certainly widen, their breaths absolutely hiss in and hiss out, but as she steps nearer they instead step back. As she walks, they avert their eyes. As she walks, they pull themselves in.

The woman walking down the High Street feels them watching her, their glances furtive tickles, their quick stares barely felt hooks out of the corners of her always forward facing eyes. Passing a bookseller – tight fans of rough tan paper with lurid Cantonese chops on their glistening plastic covers hung in sagging arcs of cord – a reflection was revealed to her, a caught sight of what they were seeing.

But not what they were thinking. But she knew, nevertheless: each of them lost in illusions and fantasies as carefully crafted as her rouge, as flawlessly presented as the mae migoro and ushiro migoro of her kimono, as immaculately assembled as her performance:

She’s a dragon, some might think: the cruelty of a reptile, the flawlessness of a myth. You may approach her, with bravery beyond that of any battlefield, speaking with a stammer and a twitch, and if you were fortunate beyond your worth she’d slow, pause, turn with prudently measured grace, deeming your presence not completely disgusting. With that look, at that glance, would be a flickering forked tongue of cruel invitation, a scintillating promise of peaked breasts topped with fist-tight nipples, a belly steel plate flat and firm, a behind curving out in twin clenches of muscular intensity, thighs sculpted by rigid posture, and between them a scented valley of ruby silk.

But first, a miniscule task. But first, an all but insignificant request: to firmly stand guard for her honor and dignity; to fetch a inestimable gem, an incalculable jewel, or just a unexceptional sticky-sweet pastry; to perform for her a melody of praise, or a stammering litany of desperate worth; or a quick athletic demonstration of physical merit; or become for her an avenging knight, a battle to defend her honor against some heinous offense.

A minuscule task. An insignificant request. Accepted without doubt or hesitation, the reward a slow curl at the corner of her cold stone face, a bow of gratitude, and a bright flash of serpentine green eyes. Totally entranced by her, completely captured by her, the dragon would then reveal the metaphorical points of venomous teeth, sinking the illusion of her love deep into the shaft of your encouraged penis by showing you the true face of her cruelty.

The prize was yours but the tasks were actually anything but miniscule, not at all insignificant: firmly stand guard for her honor and dignity – for a year; fetch a inestimable gem, an incalculable jewel, or just a unexceptional sticky-sweet pastry – from a thousand miles away; perform for her a melody of praise, or a stammering litany of desperate worth – perfectly, without the tiniest flaw; a quick athletic demonstration of physical merit – unattainable by even the greatest athlete; or become for her an avenging knight, a battle to defend her honor against some heinous offense – in combat against a killing machine.

And so the dragon passes by, a smile on her cold-blooded face. No one approaches her, no one is willing to come near. And so they live, by letting her just walk by.

She’s a doll, some might think: a porcelain figure, an ivory representation. Beneath the silks and satins would be a body as perfect as only a master artisan could create. Breasts both delicate and womanly, nipples as delicate as rosebuds, a belly with an ideal swell, hands with the grace of ten Noh performers, calves a perfect taper, thighs an entrancing form, back a clean surface of alabaster, neck a musical curve, feet delicate and precious, a behind highlighted with sacral dimples, and a female cleft that was a pale oyster and a tiny pink pearl.

Like a doll, she would belong to whoever buys her. Cash, credit, merchandise – the right amount and the woman would instead walk behind, following her owner towards palace or hovel, both with the same unmoving mask of her face.

Palace or hovel, she would walk in the door, standing still and quiet with an item’s posture. Maybe she’d look better in the living room window, where the afternoon would bathe her in golden light? Or perhaps she’d be better exhibited in the bedroom, where her kimono could be removed like one from a real woman.

Yes, the bedroom. That was where she would be best displayed. Moving past, it was clear in their eyes, the allure of her perfect submission. A thing. An object. A piece of feminine sculpture. Unable to disagree, unable to refuse, bendable in all kinds of imaginative ways. From behind, cock sliding between her cool ivory cheeks. Face to face, marble breasts for unimpeded kiss, licks, and sucks. On top, her tight thighs spread apart and welcoming upward thrusts. Anything you wanted, anytime you wanted.

Desire was a rippling wave behind her, a heat distortion in the warm city air. It was obvious in their eyes that there, in her, was a world without ‘no,’ a land without complaint, a woman without a soul.

Then they stopped, that wave of erections and licked dry lips chilled with a slap of frigid revelation. Stepping back with the rest of the crowd, these men retreated from the precise rhythm of her steps, with whimpering fear in their wide eyes, their shaking heads.

Ivory arms, marble legs, alabaster body: inflexible, unfeeling, stiff, unbending, unyielding, and -- worst of all -- cold. With her you’d never hear ‘no,’ never be refused, never be denied, but you’d also never hear the beat of her heart, the music of her voice, the chimes of her laughter, the moans and screams of her pleasure. You’d perform with her your deepest, darkest, most subterranean – and all she would do would be to look at you with inscrutably glass eyes.

She’s a tiger, some might think: a beast with the stripes of a traditional Japanese dress. Hidden beneath her Asian camouflage was a woman’s body, exercised into an extension of her erotic drive. Where other women had euphemisms and poetic alliterations, she had simple, direct, and powerful words to describe herself. Where other women had bosoms, she had tits of ideal jiggle and sway, covered in thrilling smooth skin. Where other women had nipples, she had a pair of dark brown direct connections to her clit. Where other women had posteriors, she had two plush muscular globes that clenched and released with the beating heat of her clit. Where other women had sexes, she had a demanding, insistent cunt.

To see and handle these differences would be more fortune than seduction. You did not take the tiger to dinner and slip hot words between dessert and coffee. You did not lay flowers at the feet of this hot blooded woman within the cool disguise of a geisha. You did not whisper poetry into the shell-like ear of this elegantly robed bitch.

There was no way to make her do anything, no way to slyly allure or simply trick her into a private room, no way to seduce her. The only thing anyone could do was to stand within the range of that sweeping predatory glance and hope that her eyes would positively estimate your worth as a device for her pleasure. Then, and only then, would her red-painted lips open ever-so, more than a whisper but less than full voice, and speak the one word you’d prayed to hear: “Come.”

Behind her, pulled along by her insatiable need, you would follow. It wouldn’t be a long journey, for her cunt has a very short attention span. Cheap hotel on the next street, expensive one even closer by, or just the nearest fetid and slimy alley – whatever was within range.

Patience was for ladies. Hesitation was for women. Tigers – even ones hidden within silks and satins – had no need for foreplay, patience, or hesitation. They wanted, so they took.

And if you were lucky, she would take you. Hands down to your cock, a squeezing judgment for size and firmness. Lips to yours, a tongue penetrating your mouth, am attacking kiss wanting nothing of you but to be kindling to her roaring heat.

On her knees, she would take you. But only because that was what she wanted. Your come was not expected or important. A flesh device to penetrate an orifice, you would be used until she was bored and ready to move onto other penetrations of other orifices.

Or perhaps she’d require something else. Falling back, satin fabric pulled roughly aside, she might bare an insistent slickness, the gleaming lips and fast-beating clit, and demand your service. Failure to accept or in performance too terrible to contemplate.

At the end, your cock would be needed: hard, strong, and fast -- nothing else important to her. Burning hot, insanely wet, you’d enter and execute the task she’d ordered, working until her screams tore at your ears and her nails scratched along your back.

Then that would be it. Humiliating? Being reduced to only a device for someone’s pleasure usually is. But the blistering heat of her, the ferocious need of her cunt would put – and keep – a smile on your sweaty face.

But – and again men standing step back, retreat in shivering dread when she walks back – one does not ever tame a tiger, even after it is fed. Who knows what she might hunger for after? Meat, blood, flesh, dignity, any number of horrible violations – any of them within her grasp, and you too exhausted to resist.

Tigers are wild things, after all: enjoyable to watch in zoos, penned behind restraining bars, but far too bloodthirsty in bed.

She’s a machine, some might think: isn’t it wonderful what they’re doing with shape memory alloys, mnemetic plastics, optical fibers, and conductive polymers? Absolutely wonderful things coming out of Japan, India, the Wilding, and the young turks of the École Polytechnique, these days. Look up and there are dragonfliers pausing for location fixes before darting off at near-invisible speeds, packages clutched under their iridescent fuselages. Look down and there are myriad scurrying mechanisms trailing polished tracks of perfumed cleanliness through the city’s persistent grime. Look around and there are cinematics lazily scrolling across a lady’s fluttering fan, posters for the newest Malasian blockbuster cycling through tantalizing glimpses of furious martial arts and stiffly chaste duets, the hushed commuting fuel-cell and ethanol traffic, and the softly creaking carbon fibers of a prosthetic hand on a crumble-faced veteran of the Chinese genocide as he lays down a mah-jongg tile.

Look at her and you might see a device as carefully machined as a German car, a Swiss watch, a Japanese entertainment center, Indian software, or an African running shoe: breasts as ideal and resilient as silicone, skin of perfectly cured plastic, muscles as precise and strong as actuators, a genital-pleasuring interface between her thighs, a mouth with the same technology.

It was a safe bet that without her protective kimono covering, the pseudo-body of hers was as superlative as a supermodel, as sensuous as a Playmate of whatever month, as adept as an amalgamation of every courtesan who’d ever lived, as refined and machined as her manufacturers could make her.

Movement like the architecture in fine software, presence as authoritative as graceful as a jet fighter, skin as smooth as the polish on a fresh-from-the-factory-floor Ferrari, she passed by – and with her passing the tracking of lust and greed in the eyes of the male crowd, and sour envy on the faces of everyone else.

Here was the best of both of a man’s world: the twin allures of a clever device together with a well-articulated woman – or, to be more specific, as those men revealed so obviously, ‘coupled’ together, a mating between flesh and sex and advanced technology and power. Purchasing this – or simply leasing with an option to do the same – and putting it in the garage or the bedroom, would mean not just a product but also a woman of every dream, not just a sex partner but also a sophisticated piece of fine engineering.

But that wasn’t all. Look at them watching her move by. Lust was there, both for machine as well as woman, but there was also the dawning realization that there could be even more there: things that squeezed, buzzed, vibrated, hummed, heated, cooled, swirled, oscillated, tingled, and more, more, more so much more.

But then they pulled away, out of her way, out of her traffic, their fantasies dropping behind to be passed by the rushing acceleration of a nightmare, the barreling truck of a terrifying understanding.

Engineering, went their minds as they retreated, is fine and good, stimulating and thrilling. Sex, they thought as they ran away from her, is fantastic and wonderful. But to fuck a machine, to be intimate with gears and cogs, synthetics and electricity, hydraulics and radiators, could be good, but also could be like thrusting into a meshing, tearing, burning, shocking, scalding, blistering industrial accident.

Rude Mechanicals

 

Saturday, March 23, 2013

The QR porn room

Arnhem has Qlimax and now – the QR porn room:

Afbeelding-019-500x360

Hotel Modez based in the Dutch city of Arnhem (close to Germany) has launched a guerrilla marketing product: the QR-code porn room, available for just € 119 per night. During your stay you might not get a lot of sleep though. From walls to pillows, the whole room is covered with QR-codes. Walk around the room with your smartphone pointed at the codes, and they will unlock a world of erotic dreams on your screen

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Excerpt: Better Than the Real Thing


Now here's a treat: the great folks at 4-Letter Words not just feature a lot of my books but also just posted a sweet excerpt from my new collection, Better Than the Real Thing.  Check out the story, "A Light Minute" over there ... but in the meantime here's a tease:
How are you today?  was all the message said.  It was their ritual, a tight tradition between them.  Sasha was an night timer, a sunset-to-dawn kind of girl.  Before she crawled into her “warm flannel cave and drew sleep up over her eyes” (she’d written) she always left that message for Alyx to find in her own preferred morning.

Happy, Alyx sent back with a flutter of keystrokes, love you.  Another ritual, much more recent.  Alyx felt it, though, with a tug of hesitation, a grip in her chest of uncertainty.  It might well have been totally true, that Sasha was the love of her life – but they’d never met.

So much was known – despite all that was unknown (the sound of her voice, the way she smiled) – that Alyx was very certain about the feelings she had for the tiny, dark-haired girl with the sweet little bulb of a nose, deeply tanned cheeks and vibrant brown eyes (I’m a Mediterranean princess who likes the night): a color print of her framed neat over her machine’s monitor.  Even without hearing her voice or really seeing her face (beyond the picture she’d transmitted) she knew that Sasha somehow fitted perfectly into her life.  Their conversations, though time-delayed, hummed and clicked with a familiarity that belied their three month relationship.

At first Alyx was hesitant about venturing into the electronic unknown.  The world was still much too loud, hard, and brilliant for her back then to learn the unfathomable language of baud, server, gateway, and the like.  Jo had left her – taken her pictures, blankets, clothes, books, and herself and left Alyx nothing but her little Santa Cruz bungalow.  That, and a series of pains when Alyx did anything – anything at all.  Till, that is, her brother smashed open her front door, emitting a torrent of painful light and crashing street noise and slammed down a small box next to her antique computer.  In a sympathetic whisper that sounded like a torrent of dishware pouring down a tin-shod mountainside, he had said, “If you won’t go out, maybe at least you’ll meet someone else.”
[MORE]

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Zee Likes Rude Mechanicals and The Bachelor Machine

Here's a sweet review of my collections The Bachelor Machine and Rude Mechanicals by Zee.

M. Christian is the most phenomenal erotic short story writer - ever! He is wildly diverse. Think heterosexual, gay, lesbian, threesomes, robots, technorata and other interesting objects against crazy settings, like historical, futuristic, present day and virtual reality. And the characters - immortals, robots, prostitutes, pornography photographer,  spiritualists, technophiles, androids, police officers, and humans just like us. M. Christian redefines sex, love and bdsm. And the greatest part about M. Christian's work is that he has something for everyone and in perfectly crafted bite size short stories for every appetite. (I have previously reviewed Blow Up and Beep, both of which I found hilarious and on a light, funny side.) Every lover of romance needs to read at least one of M. Christian's books, and I have two fantastic recommendations for you today - The Bachelor Machine and Rude Mechanicals. 

The Bachelor Machine consists of 18 short stories. Some are light and  funny, others are quite sexual, and others are somewhat grim. There are a wide array of characters, guaranteeing that no two stories will be the same. What I love most about The Bachelor Machine is the surprise. You finish a story feeling shocked, in awe, and thinking differently about sex, and when you read the title of the next short story, it gives nothing away as to the contents it holds secret. I feel like it challenges you in a way. "You won't know what this is about until you read me." Yes, that is how it mocked me. So I read the next story, having my world completely thrown into chaos over and over again. The same is true for Rude Mechanicals. This title features four fantastic shorts and two novellas. Just as hot, as provocative, and as daring as his previous work, M. Christian once again stretches your mind to its sexual limits. Perfect for those long, warm winter nights, or shorts spurts of lag time during your hectic day. Priced just right, you can grab both (22 shorts and 2 novellas) for under $12. That's definitely a steal. I promise these titles won't let you imagination down.

In the words of M. Christian, "Imagination is Intelligence with an Erection!"

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Zee Likes "Blow Up" From Rude Mechanicals

This is so sweet! Zee previously reviewed my story "I Am Jo's Vibrator" and also just reviewed "Blow Up" from Rude Mechanicals. Thanks so much, Zee!


I am thrilled to tell ya’ll that M. Christian is an absolute sweetheart. After my review of I Am Jo’s Vibrator, he so kindly sent me Rude Mechanicals. Isn’t this cover insane! I’m sure ya’ll know about my love of the short story, and I must say that M. Christian is a phenomenal short story writer. It really takes talent and a keen eye to compact essential details into only a few pages! I am truly excited to read and share all of the shorts with ya, but today I will just be talking about the first short: Blow Up.

To be completely honest, Blow Up is laugh-out-loud hilarious as well as sensual and erotic. Blow Up is about a man with a fetish for… a blow up ball. Picture an exercise ball, but smaller. Written in the first person, we get to travel with our man to the local Toys R Us to purchase his plastic ball, and then travel back to his house where he decribes his prep for and execution of his next orgasm.

I made the mistake of reading this short at work. My cubicle-mates were definitely looking at me when I would shriek with laughter one minute then have my mouth drop the next minute. I find his fetish so amusing because I know there is someone out there in the world who really does this! What I like best is how M. Christian’s writing style reminded me of reading someone else’s diary, peeking into their most secret habits, truly being a fly on the wall.

Well done! M. Christian. I can’t wait to dig in to the rest of your shorts, and I will never see a plastic ball the same way again! If you want a sneak peak, read an excerpt here!

Monday, March 11, 2013

Haha- Beat Ya To It!


 


From Saskia Walke's blog, The Naughty Lady From Shady Lane:
The other novel I have had the pleasure of reading recently was M.Christian's PAINTED DOLL. Very different, but another absolute treat of a read. Now, this one is not out yet, but I'll be nudging you again when it is. M.Christian got in touch with me to ask if I would blurb one of his forthcoming novels. Gulp. He also said he admired my work. I confess I wondered if he’d sent the mail to the correct person! :) I’ve never been asked to do this before, and whilst M.Christian is a writer who I’ve shared pages with in anthologies before, I’m pretty much in awe of all that he does. His fantasy novel, THE VERY BLOODY MARY'S was a super, gripping, thoroughly entertaining read.

It was a great honour to be asked to blurb a new novel, and I set about the task nervously. Wow! My nervousness was nothing to the sheer uselessness I felt after having read the novel. I don’t know whether my blurb will be used, but I had to give the novel mention. If futuristics are your thing, you really have to watch out for PAINTED DOLL.

PAINTED DOLL is set in an eerie future world -- the type of world that always gets me, where things are both similar to what we know but also not of our experience, so that the vivid images we encounter tease along our perception uneasily. In this future world we encounter the story of PAINTED DOLL, a woman who works as a dominatrix in order to hide a secret past and her true identity. As the story progresses and The Painted Doll slowly removes the layers of her mask for us, we find out her story and the reasons why she’s had to take on a new identity and hide. I don’t want to say too much and spoil the plot, but PAINTED DOLL is on the run from some very bad people. Most importantly she has had to leave and hide in order to protect her lesbian lover from those very bad people. The novel is compelling, gritty, erotic, and at its centre lies an intense love story.

M.Christian is an author who straddles genres with apparent ease, as well as writing with literary panache. In this novel (and in his previous works) he plays with the recurring themes of sexuality, gender, and identity, questioning them by setting them at odds with what we know and understand. PAINTED DOLL resonates; it truly is a story that will stay with you. 

Meditating Machinery


Meditating Machinery: Mechanical Buddhas and Other Religious Icons by Wang Zi Won religion machines kinetic sculpture
Meditating Machinery: Mechanical Buddhas and Other Religious Icons by Wang Zi Won religion machines kinetic sculpture
Meditating Machinery: Mechanical Buddhas and Other Religious Icons by Wang Zi Won religion machines kinetic sculpture
Meditating Machinery: Mechanical Buddhas and Other Religious Icons by Wang Zi Won religion machines kinetic sculpture
Meditating Machinery: Mechanical Buddhas and Other Religious Icons by Wang Zi Won religion machines kinetic sculpture
Meditating Machinery: Mechanical Buddhas and Other Religious Icons by Wang Zi Won religion machines kinetic sculpture
Meditating Machinery: Mechanical Buddhas and Other Religious Icons by Wang Zi Won religion machines kinetic sculpture
Meditating Machinery: Mechanical Buddhas and Other Religious Icons by Wang Zi Won religion machines kinetic sculpture


South Korean artist Wang Zi Won constructs intricate mechanical figures of Buddha and bodhisattva that appear to be lost in meditation or enlightenment. The electrically-powered figures are fused with numerous mechanical components which at times resemble halos or lotus flowers and simultaneously move the humanoid figures through repetitive motions (see videos above). The artist says his intention is to examine a future where humans and technology merge, something he views in a particularly positive light. Via Shin Seung-ho of Dukwon Gallery:
The artist predicts that in the future humans will evolve and adapt themselves to enhanced science and technology just as men and animals in the past evolved to adapt themselves to their natural circumstances. He sees this future as our destiny, not as a negative, gloomy dystopia. His work is thus based on neither utopia not dystopia. Wang represents the relations between man, technology and science through the bodies of cyborgs.

The artist considers it important to escape from human bondage in order to achieve harmony between men and machines. He thinks this harmony can be achieved through the process of religious practices and spiritual enlightenment. In Buddhism, the Bodhisattva of Compassion helps people attain enlightenment, Arhat is a spiritual practitioner of asceticism, and Buddha is a being who reaches the highest level of enlightenment. Through them, the artist intends to follow the path of enlightenment, breaking away from anxiety, agony, and pain. The artist has no intention to emphasize religious connotations through these Buddhist icons but to reflect his own or our own existence between utopia and dystopia.
While it may be difficult to grapple with the artists intentions I find the figures and their motions to be really quite beautiful and indeed meditative, somewhat reminiscent of the robots used in Chris Cunningham’s amazing All is Full of Love video for Bjork. If you have some patience (the site loads quite slowly) there are many more examples of Wang’s work and several more videos over on his blog and you can learn more at Art Nova and Hanmi Gallery.

(via Colossal) 

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Mykola Dementiuk Likes Rude Mechanicals

This is ... well, I don't really have the words for how wonderful this is: Mykola Dementiuk - who is a brilliant writer as well as a fantastic friend - did this very sweet review for Rude Mechanicals. Thanks, Mick!

It’s always a treat to read a new M. Christian ebook, especially at this holiday time of year, and though Rude Mechanicals isn’t Christmasy at all it has a lot of surprises and wonderment in its pages. I would even say it’s as surprising as his other books Me2 (body changes), Very Bloody Marys (hip vampires), and other books by this prolific author. He’s only getting better and better… 
In the one of the stories, "Blow Up," the theme of masturbation is prevalent throughout the tale until it explodes right in one’s hand or satisfied face, you might say. In "Billie" a female motorcyclist meets up with another female on the highway and the fun begins, if you can call it fun. While in "Beep" a machine orders a character to sexually respond, and he does so, by telephone to a mechanical voice. And by "Hot Definition" a pretty Japanese girl is sexually taunted by holographic images until she gets the better of them, in more ways than one. In "I Am Jo’s Vibrator" a woman, Josephine, gives her vibrator a good going over, until you have to question who is getting the working over, Jo or the vibrator. But by "Speaking Parts"…well, I think I will leave that up to you to see how great writing of a story can be…that is until you try it. The story is a marvel! 
Yet Rude Mechanicals is more than just stories about mindless dirty fucking it is sex with a living thinking brain, devious at times, soft and tender at others, or as good as a machine can do it. With Rude Mechanicals M. Christian shows us he is reaching the top with his creative power in that the writing is more complicated but also very satisfying as a whole. I can just imagine how high he will reach up as a prolific writer. The best to you, M. Christian, show us what it takes to be a great writer, because you certainly are one… 
Mykola (Mick) Dementiuk author of Holy Communion, Vienna Dolorosa, and Times Queer and others.

Rude Mechanicals



Humanoide by Rafido

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Rude Mechanicals



Recharge -Sketch by GarretAJ

Here's Looking At You!

 

Future Fire Likes Love Without Gun Control

Now this is a treat: not only did the folks at Future Fire ("social political & speculative cyber-fiction") like The Bachelor Machine, my collection of erotic science fiction, but they also just posted a nice review of my non-erotic collection of fantasy/science fiction/horror, Love Without Gun Control:


I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect when Love Without Gun Control  showed up to be reviewed. The cover is very retro-pulp-comic, a scene on Mars, all bright colors and simple lines, misleading as to the  content. It seems more like a graphic-novel cover, or a series of 70's porn. The book itself is quite thin, only 155 pages. I was pleasantly surprised. The collection opens with the eponymous story, ‘Love Without Gun Control’, published for the first time in this collection. Ultra-violent and rather bizarre, it is somewhat reminiscent of a D. Harlan Wilson story. A sort of modern-day Western romance, the story really does defy labeling as it shows the effects of one snake-oil doctor’s ‘love potion’, applied erroneously, and the destruction that can come from thwarted desire. A fun, rollicking ride with a very unique flavor.

The second story, ‘Needle Taste’, is a unique concept with an ambiguous ending. The story itself is a totally different beast from the previous tale, but the wistful tone holds up the strange story well enough until the end, when it feels a little... abrupt. If there’s a weak one in the bunch, it’s this one, simply on a relative scale. It is in no way a bad one, it just doesn’t have quite the force of the others.
...seeking a forever-quiet man in the whole buzzing, humming, singing, cackling city.
‘Hush Hush’ is my favorite story in the collection. The language is absolutely beautiful: weird, eery and slippery. The tale is half mystery, half internal journey. Whether he solves the mystery or not is really unimportant. What he learns along the way is not. This was a lovely to read for the language as for the story.

‘The Rich Man’s Ghost’ is probably my least favorite of the stories. It lacks the smoothness of voice, the weird beauty of most of the other pieces. The story is a little less Weird, too, and maybe that colors my opinion.

‘Wanderlust’ is one of the stories that I’m not really sure, at first, how I feel about it. On the one hand, the reader is kept in the dark until the very end of the story. I simply didn’t have a clue what was going on. On the other hand, the writing is very rich, so it isn’t necessarily a bad thing to enjoy the ride. A man who inspires absolute  ecstasy from everyone he meets comes across a bit thin at first, but their reactions if he stays around for longer than a few minutes are... interesting.

‘Orphan’ is chilling and haunting. A young man running from something, to something, carrying a horrible secret. There were a couple of places that could have used a clarity edit or that read a little  contrived, but overall, definitely a memorable piece worth reading again.

Really, though, I’d be hard-pressed to say that any story in this collection is best skipped over or read in a hurry. There’s just enough  variation in the stories to keep them unique, and enough cohesion to develop a voice that just draws me in more deeply, the farther I read. (The first story is an odd difference to the rest of them, but no less enjoyable.) The cover-art remains a sticking point, as it has no apparent connection to the content, and prose like this needs something lovely to wrap it up, and what it has is not something I would be wild about displaying on a shelf.

Read this one slowly, because each story is best savored and mulled over. And I’ll be keeping an eye out for more of M. Christian’s stories.