Wednesday, July 31, 2013

I See Into The Future!


... or, at least, I wrote about what I saw as the next logical step in personal computers.  In Painted Doll, which I did a few years back - and is now available from Sizzler Editions - I wrote about an alternative culture in New Zealand that used an elegant head-mounted display:

(here's a bit about that, from a letter Flower wrote to her lover about this group - called the Noos - and their tech):
After dinner – did I mention the glasses?  Shit, forgot about them.  Easy to do, I guess.  They're a huge part of the world here, so big you don't even notice them.  Gave me my pair after the first week.  They called them iglasses, a joke they say no one under forty understands.  Which I'm not, so I didn't.  Anyway, they're mnemonic plastic.  They look cheap but they aren't.  Big guy named Star, like a golden bear with a huge bristly beard, told me they'd cost something like 5 million new yen if they sold them, which they don't.  He also told me they are a "mesh networked, micro thermopile powered, molecular computer system with a virtual retinal display" which I don't understand.  But they work, I know that.  You put them on and you can see and hear all this stuff that is and isn't there.  Like you can look at the ground and see where the irrigation pipes are, and then reach out and touch a little icon and then see instructions on how to fix them.  Or look at someone and see their name, what they are good at, what they don't like – stuff like that.  Sometimes it's like cartoons, little symbols and stuff floating around, other times it's like a ghost world that you can but then can't see.  I'm writing with them, too.  They showed me how to get them to show me a keyboard, and then I just touch where the letters are.  Kinda cool, but also kinda creepy.
They use the glasses to talk to one another.  They shoot videos with them, make cartoons, write poems, do all kinds of things, and send them to each other.  They may look like primitive, but they're really wizards with this kind of stuff.  It makes me sad to think how I know that, but I do.  
And now - guess what? - we not only have Project Glass from Google but now rumors that Apple may be getting into the game.


Welcome to the world of tomorrow, people: we're not writing it - we're living it

Rude Mechanicals


Monday, July 29, 2013

Painted Doll - An Excerpt



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



... 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.

Friday, July 26, 2013

What Folks Are Saying About Painted Doll

Here are some very nice (and very flattering) blurbs I've got for my erotic SF novel, Painted Doll:


M.Christian's claimed BDSM science fiction cyberpunk novel is back in print - a tale of futuristic sexual submission and domination! One of the pleasures of a dystopic future is the erotists, professionals who paint their clients' bared skin with neurochemicals that induce all forms of sensation - even pain. Erotists offer landscapes of ecstasy, sexual extremes, joy, and delight. Few citizens can afford the skills of the talented Domino. Fewer still know her identity is but a mask. Beneath the facade, Claire hides from a vicious crime lord who would not only kill her but her childhood lover. But the mask of Domino is beginning to crack... Strange sexual pairings and strange sexual practices highlight this futuristic noir tale, set in a wildly imaginative erotic future, exploring who we are and the sexual awakenings that occur when we become someone else.
When I pick up a book by M.Christian, I know that I'll be surprised and delighted. Whether he's targeting horror, thriller, scifi or erotica genres, or some creative mixture, he never fails to deliver an original perspective.
- Lisabet Sarai, author of Incognito and Fire 
And now for something completely different...do you read erotica? The Painted Doll, by M. Christian, will give you that jolt you're searching for. The Painted Doll is about a dominatrix, but hold on! This is no ordinary "Yes Mistress, may I have another" story. The Painted Doll is set in a world unlike any you've seen. A bizarre look into a future world of sexuality and identity as we follow a dominatrix on the run. Leave it to Mr. Christian to give us a well crafted, erotic love story that you'll be slow to forget.
- Jolie du Pre, author of erotica and erotic romance. 
The Painted Doll hides a kaleidoscope world behind her mask. As she removes it a splintered existence unfolds, darkly erotic, cruel and tarnished, the pearl at its centre an intense love story. Erotic, familiar yet alien, harshly compelling and eerily haunting - few writers can convey the myriad spectrum of the sensory world like M. Christian.
- Saskia Walker has had erotic fiction published in over fifty anthologies and is the author of several novellas and novels 
M.Christian is one hell of a writer. He paints his universes and characters in full, living color, thrills the reader with non-stop action. A no-holds-barred storyteller, he embraces his reader at the start and doesn't let go until long after the end.
- Mari Adkins, Apex Publications contributing editor 
M.Christian is the chameleon of modern erotica. One day punk, another romantic; one day straight, another totally perverse and polyamorous. But always sexy and and gripping.
- Maxim Jakubowksi is the editor of the Mammoth Book of Erotica series 
With his amazing versatility and silky smooth prose, M. Christian helped forge the erotica revolution of the 1990s and he’s still going strong!
- Donna George Storey, author of Amorous Woman 
A non-stop ride of precise prose and unexpected imagery. Painted Doll is another M. Christian gem; a seamless blend of the erotic with the darkly fantastic. Unpredictable, engaging, and an often startling read.
- Marilyn Jaye Lewis, author of Freak Parade 
No matter how long I've been at the erotica game, M. Christian continues to surprise me. With Painted Doll, he again proves that his imagination knows no bounds. The first pages sucked me into the story, and I couldn't stop reading. Who was this woman? Who was she...really? Provocative and unique, Painted Doll is M. Christian at his finest.
- Gwen Masters, author of One Breath at a Time

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Orphans From Love Without Gun Control

I always liked this story - so I thought I'd share it with you. "Orphans" first appeared in Talebones Magazine and now, of course, is in my science fiction/fantasy/horror collection, Love Without Gun Control ... out in 'e' and paperback from the great Renaissance E Books.

 
 Orphans

Outside of Atlanta, after standing under the flickering fluorescent lights of a sprawling truck stop for almost an hour, he was picked up by a heavy faced man driving a ratting sixteen wheeler.  Red hair an angry mop on his head, brushy beard all wild and unkempt, the driver said “Glad for the company” before they’d even pulled out onto the dark highway.
#

     In a little town somewhere just beyond the Louisiana border, he was picked up by a middle-aged woman in a green station wagon, who seemed to delight in creating herself as the perfect housewife:  housecoat, hair in curlers, kid’s seat in the back.  She spent the first few miles prattling nervously, obviously just wanting companionship but frightened with herself for choosing the young hitchhiker to try and sate it.  He listened, hypnotized by the landscape blurring by.  Finally she asked, “Been on the road long?”
     “Not long,” he said, wishing again that it had been someone else who’d picked him up, “just getting out.  Meeting people.”
     “That’s good,” she said, innocently.  “Nothin’ worse than being alone.”
     To that he just nodded, still staring out the window.

#

     He’d never heard of a nut log, and would be damned if he was going to try some.  But the salesman, Lou Phillips, was so insistent that -- before he was even aware of it -- he had some on the end of his fork.
     “Now me, son,” Lou said, smiling broad and bright, “I ain’t a flincher.  You take that shit there on the end of your fork.  What’s the worse that could happen?  It taste like crap -- but that ain’t gonna kill you, is it?  But maybe it’s gonna be the best damned shit you ever tasted.  Ain’t gonna know till it’s in your mouth, right?”
     He didn’t answer, and instead stared at the tip of his fork, at the brown sticky mass.  Before he was aware of it he was categorizing diseases, vectors and transmission rates.  Closing his eyes, he breathed in, out, in and again, then put it into his mouth.  The sweetness was almost alarming, and without conscious control he opened his eyes -- and stared into Lou’s sparking brown eyes.  “See, that ain’t so bad!  Fuck it, son -- life’s too short to be scared.”
     A cup of coffee later, Lou confessed that he was a widower.  His wife of twenty-six years having passed away that spring.  “Some kind of virus got her.  By the time she went to the damn doc it was she was thin as a rail.  Didn’t last more than a month.”
     Sipping hot, bitter -- with a touch of slightly turned cream, he hung his head down, mumbling, “Sorry” like it was his fault.
     “I mean we all got to go, right?  When it’s our turn.  But what pisses me off is the shit those damned doctors put ya through.  Pretend that they know it all when they don’t know shit.  Tell ya what, kid, if I ever get something I’m just gonna drive out to the desert somewhere and just lay out there in the sun.  Damn sight better chance then letting them touch ya.”
     It seemed such a positive act that he smiled, despite himself -- masking it by sipping the foul coffee again and saying “Sometimes it isn’t that they don’t know -- it’s that it’s just not worth knowing.”

#

     Another big truck -- this time cleaner, almost polished.  Like a fighter plane, sporting a elegant pin-up on the driver’s side door.  Haulin’ Ass, scrolled under a cheesecake girl with golden blond hair.  The driver was gaunt, a narrow sketch of a man.  Peppered hair and the ghostly scar of a hair lip.
     They didn’t speak for many miles, then the driver said, unexpectedly, “What cha’ runnin’ from, man?”
     His first reaction was so say, “nothing” but the word didn’t come.  Was he running?  When he thought about it, watching the double-yellow vanish under the windshield, the direction wasn’t right.  “Not from, towards.”
     “What cha’ goin’ to, then?”
     He didn’t know.  He did know, though, that he couldn’t stay in Atlanta.  It was such a lonely place ... no, not right.  It was where he discovered loneliness. A dusty little room and files -- at first just one or two then more.  Some of them had faces, pictures charting their progress -- images to match the declining graphs.  Aside from the wasting, he’d seen something else in those faces, the sunken eyes, the fallen features -- loneliness.  In their worlds they’d been too few, not enough to matter ... to save.
     He’d managed a rough smile, trying to put a comedic face over tragedy.  “Just makin’ friends,” he said.

#

     Texas was hot, ghostly heat hovering above the roadway.  Sky too blue, too pure to be stared at for long.  Sitting in a McDonald’s, slowly sipping a shake to avoid going out into the hot, dry, he struck up a brief conversation with a young couple.  Too pressed, too clean.  A few miles beyond, the air conditioner in their older car cranked up to full, they started to talk about Jesus.
     He responded noncommittally, but soon their tone started to irritate him.  Looking out at the hot land, he could too easily see the ghostly hopelessness, the abandonment he’d first seen in Atlanta overlaid on every face they passed.  Maybe the harried father in the RV -- stricken with something that struck one on ten thousand.  Maybe that old woman, all blue hair and cautious hand on the wheel -- catching something that would waste her, slowly, horribly but only affected one in a hundred thousand.
     He listened, for a moment, about what they were saying -- instantly realizing that they were following a well-hewn grove.  Something like Parkinson’s, a horrible inlaw to the more popular disease: a gradual wasting of the mind -- something affecting one in a million.  He could too easily see them, parroting their beliefs till they had no more will, no more strength left to even move their lips.
     At the next town he asked to be left off, dismissing their offer of finding him a shelter, a meal, but he did take the money they offered, more than anything to get them to leave.

#

     Too many miles.  Still in Texas but the weather had changed -- high, turbulent clouds casting deep shadows onto the flat land.  Too many miles.  Maybe that was it.  A pressure.  They all saw him the way they wanted to, a young man traveling.  A bum, a threat, a homeless person, an object of pity, something to hate and blame.  The pick-up truck full of teenagers, throwing a half-empty can of beer as they passed, the too-helpful families that desperately wanted his absolution.
     So he told some of it to the bald man, the man in the jeans and stained tee-shirt.  He knew he’d been picked up for rough trade, but didn’t care.  He avoided his inquiring eyes and, at first, answered with only a few words, but as they drove and the driver’s interest became more and more obvious he found himself talking more, stringing together fact and fiction.
     To “-- where are you headed?” he said, “Los Angeles, my mom’s in the hospital.  Something wrong with her liver.”
     To “-- that sounds pretty serious.  What does her doctor say?”  he said, “They know what it is, some kind of hepatitis variant.  Rare, though, like one in a hundred thousand get it.”
     To “-- at least they know what it is.  They got all kinds of drugs and shit nowadays” he said, pausing “They know what it is, but not enough people get it.  So they don’t make a cure, not cost effective.  They call them ‘orphan diseases’ -- too rare to bother curing.  She’s going to die.”
     They rode in uncomfortable silence till the next town.  This time he was asked to leave -- and he did, stepping out into the darkness of a cloud’s shadow.  It had been the shortest trip he’d been on, but he felt lighter, less burdened.  That it had only been part of the truth didn’t matter; he’d spoken enough of it to get someone to understand, if maybe just a little.

#

     A long time and New Mexico.  He felt the fever start as he walked down dusty streets, passing stores selling fake Indian art, plastic tomahawks.  In a narrow alley, an old man with heavy features slept out the hot afternoon, a bronze-colored bottle by his hand.
     He went into a dark bar and sat in the corner, feeling his core temperature rise, his skin shimmy with cold shakes.  Taking deep breaths, he sipped a warm beer.
     He remembered its pathology, its transmission rates, preferred vectors.  He thought he’d have more time, and silently felt a heavy sadness at not being able to see the Pacific.  It hadn’t been a real goal, but had begun to be a kind of benchmark, a saccharin epitaph.
     He’d met some good people as he’d traveled from Atlanta, and felt sorry for them.  But he also remembered those faces on all those files.  It wasn’t virulent, but it did spread.  Airborne was tough, but it could manage.
     Too few to care about.  Not enough to bother curing.  It had almost been gone, at least to the Center for Disease Control.  Exiled to its refrigerator, the vault.  A rarity that claimed maybe a hundred, maybe two each year, almost just a memory.  So rare that they’d passed judgment on it:  extinction.  It had been his job to destroy the samples, to consign the virus to a few sad cases scattered around the world.   
     The faces on those folders.  Too few to care about.  As the shivers began in earnest, he tried to think about them, to hold each and every one of them in his mind.  Coldly told their wasn’t enough of them to bother, to care about, to cure.
     Sipping his beer, feeling his strength drain, he hoped that now -- after all those miles he’d managed, those rides, those hands he’d shaken -- they wouldn’t be so alone.

Rude Mechanicals


Monday, July 15, 2013

Introduction to Love Without Gun Control

Here's a bit of fun: the introduction to my collection of (non-smutty) science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories: Love Without Gun Control (out now in both 'e' and ond-fashioned paper from Renaissance E Books.





Congratulations on your purchase of the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine. Utilizing the finest in Hack Technology, we at Write Way guarantee that if correctly used and maintained the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine can give you years of successfully written introductions.

After removing the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine from its ecologically protective shipping container, place it in a convenient location where it will be away from direct sunlight, moisture, dirt or dust, or undue criticism. Next, attach the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine’s Driving Force inlet jack to the nearest source of creative energy. We are Write Way recommend a standard Emotionally Vacant Upbringing (EVU), or Societally Isolated Childhood (SIC) coupled with the optional Write Way Rare Parental Approval (RPA) module for efficient creative drive. Warning: Insufficient creative energy can result in repetitive, arrogant results (see Appendix A: MeMeMe Syndrome) or false modesty (Appendix B: Blush Syndrome).


After attaching your Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine to an available Driving Force, open the Inspiration Input panel located on the lower right section of the machine. Using a small, sharp instrument (such as your penis), activate/deactivate the appropriate DIPshit to assign the desired introduction inspiration input. Warning: Failure to activate the correct combination can result in various undesirable results, leading to arrest and criminal prosecution and/or Literary Awards.


Next remove the deebing support ring (located under the forelock wheel assembly) and carefully stipple the mantune cage until the blue light rotates into the green. With the loose pin in your left hand, then proceed to osculate the frandip to achieve maximum caustic relux feedback. If the frandip doesn’t achieve enough caustic relux feedback, consult the enclosed Troubleshooting Guide or kick the mantune cage wearing a size twelve steel-toed boot, aiming specifically for the wizzing input slot.
After the caustic relux feedback has been achieved, it is time to select the Editorial Interface Mask (EIM). Please note that three pre- set Editorial Interface Masks have been preloaded into the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine, specifically the Father Figure (FF), the Tyrannical Ogre (TO), and the Uninspired Hack (UH). If you are interested in other Editorial Interface Masks, the Automatic Introduction Writing Machine Upgrade contains ten others as well as additional viewpoint features such as Alcoholic Blurring (AB) and World-weary Cynicism (WC).

To fully utilize the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine’s Deadline Matching Feature (DMF) it’s important to configure the Irresponsibility and Compulsiveness scale, located on the back of the machine, next to the Frustrated Author Input (FAI) and the Destructive Relationship Exhaust Fan (DREF). Turning the pip knob to the left will increase the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine’s dependability in meeting responsibilities (real or imaginary), though it will also affect the Spontaneity Output Mechanism possibly resulting in a creative, if predictable, column. Reversing the pip knob will diminish predictability but can also result in what is commonly referred to as Deadline Lapse Syndrome, which has been proven to be a leading cause of Writer Termination (WT). Correct balancing of these two forces is integral to the correct operation of the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine.


While we at Write Way understand that even after utilizing the excellent technology embodied in our Automatic Introduction Writing Machine there are other, unknown factors that can affect Creative Output (CO) and Monetary Input (MI), we must still insist that payment for the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine be received within one month of delivery (depending on location and volatility of local delivery personnel). Failure to expedite payment will result in financial and physical penalties, possibly including fines, levies, liens, testicular removal, spinal rearrangement, dental extraction, and colonic impaction.


You are now almost ready to use your Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine to produce admirable and possibly noticable introductions. Before continuing, however, it is important to observe the three-stage Safety Feature Checklist (SFC):


• To ensure proper lubrication of the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine’s internal assembly, a fifth of cheap bourbon must be fed into the Inhibition GearBox (IGB) on a daily basis. If suitably cheap bourbon is not available, a bottle of cough syrup or rubbing alcohol can be used.

• If overheating occurs, the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine must be automatically switched into standby mode by turning the fiddle switch to the Moderate setting. This will cause the machine to “wheel-spin” until it cools satisfactorily. Failure to place the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine into this mode if overheated can cause the sensitive gibber line to vaporize, resulting at a ten x thousand foot-pound force explosion. This, naturally, voids the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine’s warranty, as well as any operator within three hundred feet of the device.


• Before final activation of the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine, the operator must completely fill out the attached Waiver of Responsibility (WoR), absolving Write Way of any damages – real, emotional, or imaginary – that the operator may experience during the operation of the machine. Failure to do so will result in the gibber line to vaporize, resulting at a ten x thousand foot- pound force explosion.


If you have followed these instructions carefully, you are now ready to use the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine and produce profitable and possibly entertaining columns for years to come. If however the machine fails to operate, place it back in its ecologically protective shipping container and return it to an authorized service center or convenient landfill.


If you are in need of an introduction in the meantime, we suggest that you simply retype this manual – god knows, manuals are just like introductions: no one reads them anyway.

Rude Mechanicals


Replacement by michaellam

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Rainbow Reviews Likes Painted Doll!



Rainbow Reviews:
The first thing that stuck me about Painted Doll was the very mannered, structured and layered language; clause upon clause of dense evocative phrasing which could serve to push readers away, but instead drew me deeper into Domino's world. The effect is a little like standing on a beach with the waves of a rising tide lapping at your toes until you're standing calf deep without really having made the decision to get wet. 
The chaotic, dystopic future in which Painted Doll is set is expertly sketched amongst this layered detail. It is sufficiently fully realized to be concrete and real; sufficiently impressionistic to leave me with intriguing questions. I suspect the Ecole Polytechnique's creature may not be an obvious choice for a sequel, but the glimpses we're given into his/its mind really grabbed me. 
This rich, layered language also heightens the erotic scenes in the novel - both the artificial professional sessions, where Domino wields distilled emotions without so much as touching one finger to her male clients, and in the more innocent and earthy remembered sex she shared with her female lover, Flower. 
As a fan of the epistolary novel, it was an unexpected joy to find this vein of letter-based story telling running through this cyberpunk thriller. Although we never meet Flower directly, her character and her voice shines through. We only get to see the first flush of their love affair through the cracks in the masks of Domino's new life, but I could still see why they would fall in love, why it was worth risking so much to be together, which means that what happens to Flower as the story comes to an end really hits home. 
This isn't an easy romance, either in its plot or the reading experience, but it is a very strong, compelling story which drew me in, and which I will remember for some time. M. Christian masterfully slides between the different parts of Domino/Claire's identity, building and revealing the world, the character, the conflict at the heart of the story, and it's a grand ride.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Rude Mechanicals


Alpha the Mechanical Man with Zorine’s nudies, San Diego Exposition, 1930. (Via.