Circlet Likes Technorotica

How wonderful - check out this very flattering review of my technophilia-laced collection Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo by Gayle C. Straun at the Circlet Press site:

Technorotica is a compendium of two previous M. Christian books, Better than the Real Thing and Rude Mechanicals, accompanied by an excerpt from Painted Doll (previously reviewed here) closing out the volume. Two of the stories previously appeared in Circlet Press’s The Bachelor Machine (reviewed here), while two others appeared in the Circlet anthologies Selling Venus and Up for Grabs 2. 

Some readers may initially feel that Technorotica constitutes one of those “best of” albums whose contents fail to gel into a thematic whole, perhaps appreciated more for its individual parts, especially since some stories explore such science fiction conceits as cybernetics and collective consciousness, while others plod the more real-world territory of matchmaking over the modem or even having sex with a blow-up toy ball. But therein lies the rub (pun intended), for by including such an array of stories, M. Christian reminds us that our sexuality is already augmented with things “unnatural;” that human beings, social creatures that we are, already get off using a variety of apparatus developed by our society–or, to put it another way, handcuffs and riding crops don’t occur in nature, y’all. The title character in “Billie” reaches the heights of bliss riding her Harley Davidson, while Pell in “Speaking Parts” is driven to distraction by the bionic eye of her lover-to-be Arc, a “masterpiece watch set in a crystal sphere, the iris a mandala of glowing gold.” Failed lawyer Stanley in “KSRN” dreams his dreams of wealth and power, of women like commodities, owned: “Their skin became polished, imported. Their bodies took on the lines of fine European manufacturers… Their breasts gleamed chrome, the highlights of their curves reflecting into the night, into his eyes–airflow eroticism, calling to him.” Meanwhile, the prostitute Fields in “State” acts the part of an android for high dollar customers who would probably be repelled to learn of her true humanity. 

Just as we homo sapiens have tweaked our consciousnesses with a variety of substances since the earliest days of our species, so, too, have we augmented our sexuality. As Lenore Tiefer titled her groundbreaking book, Sex Is Not a Natural Act, and it never has been. If there is a common theme tying together these stories, tying together the simple and sweet tale of a couple’s first use of a vibrator with that of a person who hires out her body by a form of remote control, then that’s it. Sex is not a natural act, and it never has been. 

The artist Mark Rothko famously quipped, “Certain people always say we should go back to nature. I notice they never say we should go forward to nature.” And that is where M. Christian takes us in this collection–forward to nature. Forward–to discover our natures.

Circlet Likes Technorotica

How wonderful - check out this very flattering review of my technophilia-laced collection Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo by Gayle C. Straun at the Circlet Press site:

Technorotica is a compendium of two previous M. Christian books, Better than the Real Thing and Rude Mechanicals, accompanied by an excerpt from Painted Doll (previously reviewed here) closing out the volume. Two of the stories previously appeared in Circlet Press’s The Bachelor Machine (reviewed here), while two others appeared in the Circlet anthologies Selling Venus and Up for Grabs 2. 

Some readers may initially feel that Technorotica constitutes one of those “best of” albums whose contents fail to gel into a thematic whole, perhaps appreciated more for its individual parts, especially since some stories explore such science fiction conceits as cybernetics and collective consciousness, while others plod the more real-world territory of matchmaking over the modem or even having sex with a blow-up toy ball. But therein lies the rub (pun intended), for by including such an array of stories, M. Christian reminds us that our sexuality is already augmented with things “unnatural;” that human beings, social creatures that we are, already get off using a variety of apparatus developed by our society–or, to put it another way, handcuffs and riding crops don’t occur in nature, y’all. The title character in “Billie” reaches the heights of bliss riding her Harley Davidson, while Pell in “Speaking Parts” is driven to distraction by the bionic eye of her lover-to-be Arc, a “masterpiece watch set in a crystal sphere, the iris a mandala of glowing gold.” Failed lawyer Stanley in “KSRN” dreams his dreams of wealth and power, of women like commodities, owned: “Their skin became polished, imported. Their bodies took on the lines of fine European manufacturers… Their breasts gleamed chrome, the highlights of their curves reflecting into the night, into his eyes–airflow eroticism, calling to him.” Meanwhile, the prostitute Fields in “State” acts the part of an android for high dollar customers who would probably be repelled to learn of her true humanity. 

Just as we homo sapiens have tweaked our consciousnesses with a variety of substances since the earliest days of our species, so, too, have we augmented our sexuality. As Lenore Tiefer titled her groundbreaking book, Sex Is Not a Natural Act, and it never has been. If there is a common theme tying together these stories, tying together the simple and sweet tale of a couple’s first use of a vibrator with that of a person who hires out her body by a form of remote control, then that’s it. Sex is not a natural act, and it never has been. 

The artist Mark Rothko famously quipped, “Certain people always say we should go back to nature. I notice they never say we should go forward to nature.” And that is where M. Christian takes us in this collection–forward to nature. Forward–to discover our natures.

"Speaking Parts" Excerpt From Technorotica and Rude Mechanicals

Here's a teasing taste from my ebook, Rude Mechanicals, and from the dead-trees book Technorotica (which is Rude Mechanicals plus Better Than The Real Thing): a bit from the novella "Speaking Parts."

Pell remembered seeing Arc’s eye—it was the first thing she’d noticed.

Tourmaline and onyx. Silver and gold. A masterpiece watch set in a crystal sphere, the iris a mandala of glowing gold. Her blinks were a camera shutter’s, as imagined by the archetypal Victorian engineer but built by surgical perfection not found anywhere in Pell’s knowledge. The woman’s left eye was jeweled and precise, clicking softly as the woman looked around the gallery, as if the engineers who’d removed her original wet, gray-lensed ball had orchestrated a kind of music to go with their marvelous creation: a background tempo of perfect watch movements to accompany whatever she saw through their marvelous and finely crafted sight. Click, click, click.

An eye like that should have been in a museum, not mounted in a socket of simple human skin and bone, Pell had thought. It should have been in some other gallery, some better gallery, allowed only to look out at, to see other magnificent creations of skilled hands. Jare’s splashes of reds and blues, his shallow paintings were an insult to the real artistry of the woman’s eye.

That’s what Pell thought, at first, seeing Arc – but only seeing Arc’s perfect, mechanical eye.

Pell didn’t like to remember first seeing her that way – through the technology in her face. But it felt, to her, like it had its own kind of ironic perfection to deny it. So Pell lived with the biting truth that she didn’t, at first, see Arc – for her eye.

But later, right after she got momentarily lost in the beauty of Arc’s implant, the woman looked at Pell with her real eye, the gray, penetrating right one – and Pell forgot about the tourmaline, onyx, silver and gold machine.

She had finally seen Arc, herself – the woman, and not the simple, mechanical part. Next to her, the eye was cheap junk: a collection of metal, old rocks, and wires.

#

 

She wasn’t Arc at first. She began as just the woman with the perfectly created eye. Then she was the beautiful woman. Then she was the woman where she didn’t belong. Seeing her eye, then seeing her, Pell lastly saw her as oil, the kind of oil you’d see pooling in the street, that had somehow managed to make its way into a glass of wine. Agreed, it was cheap red wine – something out of a box and not even a bottle, but, still – she was oil. She didn’t belong and that was obvious, despite the cheapness of the gallery. She could tell, cataloging her bashed and scuffed boots, noting her threadbare jeans, her torn T-shirt, that amid clean jeans and washed (and too black) turtlenecks, she was a discordant tone among the harmonious poseurs in Jare’s tiny South of Market studio.

The woman was aware of her discrepancy. She wandered the tiny gallery with a very large plastic tumbler of vin very ordinare, stopping only once in a while to look at one of Jare’s paintings.

Holding her wine tight enough to gently fracture the cheap plastic with cloudy stress lines, Pell watched her, stared at the tall – all legs and angles, broad and strong – woman with the artificial eye. She tried not to watch her too closely or too intently, sure that if she let slip her fascination she’d scare her off – or worse, bring on an indifferent examination of Pell. Through a sad ballet of a slightly curved lip and a stare that was nothing more than a glance of the eyes, the woman would see Pell but wouldn’t – and that would be an icy needle in Pell’s heart.

Pell had already taken too many risks that night. She already felt like she’d stepped off the edge and had yet to hit the hard reality of the ground. Traps and tigers, beasts and pitfalls for the unwary loomed all around Pell. She moved through her days with a careful caution, delicately testing the ice in front of her, wary of almost-invisible, murky lines of fault. She knew they were there, she’d felt the sudden falling of knowing she’d stepped too far, moved too quickly, over something that had proven, by intent or accident, not to be there. Pell didn’t push on the surface, didn’t put all her weight, or herself, on anything.

But then everything changed. She’d seen Arc and her eye.

The plastic cup chimed once, then collapsed in on itself. Turning first into a squashed oval, the glass cracked, splintered, then folded, the white seams of stress turning into sharp fissures of breakage. The red, freed of its cheap plastic prison, tumbled, cascaded out and down onto her.

Pell had worn something she knew wouldn’t fit with the rest of the crowd. The official color of San Francisco, she knew, would fill the place with charcoal and soot, midnight and ebony. White, she’d decided, would pull some of their eyes to her, make her stand out – absence of color being alone in a room full of people dressed in all colors, combined.

"Looks good on you."

The shock of the wine on her white blouse tumbled through Pell as an avalanche of warmth flowed to her face. The decision to wear white that night had come from a different part of herself, a part that had surprised her. Now she was furiously chastising that tiny voice, that fashion terrorist who had chosen the blouse over other, blacker ones.

And so Pell responded, "Not as good as you would" to the tall, leggy, broad shouldered girl with the artificial eye. Which was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the rest of her.

#

Pell’s reason for being at the gallery was Jare. Although she could never wrap her perceptions around the gaunt boy’s paintings, she still came when he asked. Jare, Pell, Fallon, Rasp and Jest. They weren’t close – but then foxhole buddies aren’t always. They weren’t in combat, but they could be. All it would take would be one computer talking to another – no stable job history, thus conscription.

All it took were two computers, passing pieces of information back and forth. Till that happened, they hid and watched the possibility of a real foxhole death in a hot, sweaty part of Central America fly by.

Foxhole buddies. It was Jare’s term – some fleck of trivia that’d hung around him. They didn’t have an official name for their tiny society of slowly (and in some cases not too slowly) starving artists, but Pell was sure that Jare would smile at his trivial term being immortalized among a band of too-mortal kids.

That was Jare. While the rest of them tried to focus on pulling their paintings (Pell, Jare, and Rasp), music (Jest), and sculpture (Fallon) as high as they could, there was something else about Jare – something, like his paintings, that refused to be understood. His techniques were simple enough, broad strokes of brilliant color on soot-black canvas, but his reasons were more convoluted.

Or maybe, Pell had thought earlier that evening (before turning a white blouse red and seeing the woman with the artificial eye for the first time) both man and his work were simple: broad, bold statements designed to do nothing but catch attention. He was like his paintings, a grab for any kind of attention – an explanation too simple to be easily seen.

In the tiny bathroom, Pell tried to get the wine out of her blouse. Contradictory old wives’ tails: first she tried cold, then hot water. The sink ran pink and so, soon, did her blouse.

The woman with the eye stood outside the door, a surprisingly subtle smile on her large mouth. Every once and a while she’d say something, as if throwing a bantering line to the shy girl inside to keep her from drowning in embarrassment.

"Who’s he foolin? I can do better crap than this with a brush up my ass.”

"You should see this chick’s dress. Looks like her momma’s – and momma didn’t know how to dress, either.”

"Too many earrings, faggot. What year do you think this is?

"Hey, girl. Get out here with that shirt. It’s better looking than this fucking stuff on the walls."

Cold water on her hands, wine spiraling down the sink. Distantly, Pell was aware that her nipples were hard and tight – and not from the chill water. Down deep and inside, she was wet. It was a basic kind of primal moisture, one that comes even in the burning heat of humiliation. Finally, the blouse was less red than before. Planning to run to where she’d dropped her old leather coat to hide the stigmata of her clumsiness, her excitement in two hard brown points, she opened the door.

The tall woman smiled down at her, hot and strong. In one quick sweep of her eyes, Pell drank her tall length, strong shoulders, columnar legs. She was trapped, held fast between the hot eyes she knew must have been staring at her, pinning her straight to her embarrassment, and the presence of the woman.

Her eye, the eye, clicked a quick chime of precision – as if expanding its limits to encompass the totality of Pell. Pell did not mind her intense examination. It added, with a rush of feelings, to the quaking in her belly, the weakness in her knees.

"Gotta splash. Wait right here,” Arc said.

Of course she waited.

After a few hammering heartbeats, the door opened and she came out – butchly tucking her T-shirt back into her jeans – and Pell was again at the focus of her meticulously designed sight.

"You live anywhere close? I’m tired of this shit. You?"

"Down the block. Just on the corner," Pell said, trying hard not to smile too much.

The woman downed the small sample of red in her glass and, looking for a place to put it down, and not finding any, just dropped it with a sharp plastic clatter on the floor. "Show me. It can’t be worse than here. Too many fucking artists."

Circlet Likes Technorotica

How wonderful - check out this very flattering review of my technophilia-laced collection Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo by Gayle C. Straun at the Circlet Press site:

Technorotica is a compendium of two previous M. Christian books, Better than the Real Thing and Rude Mechanicals, accompanied by an excerpt from Painted Doll (previously reviewed here) closing out the volume. Two of the stories previously appeared in Circlet Press’s The Bachelor Machine (reviewed here), while two others appeared in the Circlet anthologies Selling Venus and Up for Grabs 2. 

Some readers may initially feel that Technorotica constitutes one of those “best of” albums whose contents fail to gel into a thematic whole, perhaps appreciated more for its individual parts, especially since some stories explore such science fiction conceits as cybernetics and collective consciousness, while others plod the more real-world territory of matchmaking over the modem or even having sex with a blow-up toy ball. But therein lies the rub (pun intended), for by including such an array of stories, M. Christian reminds us that our sexuality is already augmented with things “unnatural;” that human beings, social creatures that we are, already get off using a variety of apparatus developed by our society–or, to put it another way, handcuffs and riding crops don’t occur in nature, y’all. The title character in “Billie” reaches the heights of bliss riding her Harley Davidson, while Pell in “Speaking Parts” is driven to distraction by the bionic eye of her lover-to-be Arc, a “masterpiece watch set in a crystal sphere, the iris a mandala of glowing gold.” Failed lawyer Stanley in “KSRN” dreams his dreams of wealth and power, of women like commodities, owned: “Their skin became polished, imported. Their bodies took on the lines of fine European manufacturers… Their breasts gleamed chrome, the highlights of their curves reflecting into the night, into his eyes–airflow eroticism, calling to him.” Meanwhile, the prostitute Fields in “State” acts the part of an android for high dollar customers who would probably be repelled to learn of her true humanity. 

Just as we homo sapiens have tweaked our consciousnesses with a variety of substances since the earliest days of our species, so, too, have we augmented our sexuality. As Lenore Tiefer titled her groundbreaking book, Sex Is Not a Natural Act, and it never has been. If there is a common theme tying together these stories, tying together the simple and sweet tale of a couple’s first use of a vibrator with that of a person who hires out her body by a form of remote control, then that’s it. Sex is not a natural act, and it never has been. 

The artist Mark Rothko famously quipped, “Certain people always say we should go back to nature. I notice they never say we should go forward to nature.” And that is where M. Christian takes us in this collection–forward to nature. Forward–to discover our natures.

"Speaking Parts" Excerpt From Technorotica and Rude Mechanicals

Here's a teasing taste from my ebook, Rude Mechanicals, and from the dead-trees book Technorotica (which is Rude Mechanicals: Technorotica plus Better Than The Real Thing: Technorotica): a bit from the novella "Speaking Parts."

Pell remembered seeing Arc’s eye—it was the first thing she’d noticed.

Tourmaline and onyx. Silver and gold. A masterpiece watch set in a crystal sphere, the iris a mandala of glowing gold. Her blinks were a camera shutter’s, as imagined by the archetypal Victorian engineer but built by surgical perfection not found anywhere in Pell’s knowledge. The woman’s left eye was jeweled and precise, clicking softly as the woman looked around the gallery, as if the engineers who’d removed her original wet, gray-lensed ball had orchestrated a kind of music to go with their marvelous creation: a background tempo of perfect watch movements to accompany whatever she saw through their marvelous and finely crafted sight. Click, click, click.

An eye like that should have been in a museum, not mounted in a socket of simple human skin and bone, Pell had thought. It should have been in some other gallery, some better gallery, allowed only to look out at, to see other magnificent creations of skilled hands. Jare’s splashes of reds and blues, his shallow paintings were an insult to the real artistry of the woman’s eye.

That’s what Pell thought, at first, seeing Arc – but only seeing Arc’s perfect, mechanical eye.

Pell didn’t like to remember first seeing her that way – through the technology in her face. But it felt, to her, like it had its own kind of ironic perfection to deny it. So Pell lived with the biting truth that she didn’t, at first, see Arc – for her eye.

But later, right after she got momentarily lost in the beauty of Arc’s implant, the woman looked at Pell with her real eye, the gray, penetrating right one – and Pell forgot about the tourmaline, onyx, silver and gold machine.

She had finally seen Arc, herself – the woman, and not the simple, mechanical part. Next to her, the eye was cheap junk: a collection of metal, old rocks, and wires.

* * * *

She wasn’t Arc at first. She began as just the woman with the perfectly created eye. Then she was the beautiful woman. Then she was the woman where she didn’t belong. Seeing her eye, then seeing her, Pell lastly saw her as oil, the kind of oil you’d see pooling in the street, that had somehow managed to make its way into a glass of wine. Agreed, it was cheap red wine – something out of a box and not even a bottle, but, still – she was oil. She didn’t belong and that was obvious, despite the cheapness of the gallery. She could tell, cataloging her bashed and scuffed boots, noting her threadbare jeans, her torn T-shirt, that amid clean jeans and washed (and too black) turtlenecks, she was a discordant tone among the harmonious poseurs in Jare’s tiny South of Market studio.

The woman was aware of her discrepancy. She wandered the tiny gallery with a very large plastic tumbler of vin very ordinare, stopping only once in a while to look at one of Jare’s paintings.

Holding her wine tight enough to gently fracture the cheap plastic with cloudy stress lines, Pell watched her, stared at the tall – all legs and angles, broad and strong – woman with the artificial eye. She tried not to watch her too closely or too intently, sure that if she let slip her fascination she’d scare her off – or worse, bring on an indifferent examination of Pell. Through a sad ballet of a slightly curved lip and a stare that was nothing more than a glance of the eyes, the woman would see Pell but wouldn’t – and that would be an icy needle in Pell’s heart.

Pell had already taken too many risks that night. She already felt like she’d stepped off the edge and had yet to hit the hard reality of the ground. Traps and tigers, beasts and pitfalls for the unwary loomed all around Pell. She moved through her days with a careful caution, delicately testing the ice in front of her, wary of almost-invisible, murky lines of fault. She knew they were there, she’d felt the sudden falling of knowing she’d stepped too far, moved too quickly, over something that had proven, by intent or accident, not to be there. Pell didn’t push on the surface, didn’t put all her weight, or herself, on anything.

But then everything changed. She’d seen Arc and her eye.

The plastic cup chimed once, then collapsed in on itself. Turning first into a squashed oval, the glass cracked, splintered, then folded, the white seams of stress turning into sharp fissures of breakage. The red, freed of its cheap plastic prison, tumbled, cascaded out and down onto her.

Pell had worn something she knew wouldn’t fit with the rest of the crowd. The official color of San Francisco, she knew, would fill the place with charcoal and soot, midnight and ebony. White, she’d decided, would pull some of their eyes to her, make her stand out – absence of color being alone in a room full of people dressed in all colors, combined.

"Looks good on you."

The shock of the wine on her white blouse tumbled through Pell as an avalanche of warmth flowed to her face. The decision to wear white that night had come from a different part of herself, a part that had surprised her. Now she was furiously chastising that tiny voice, that fashion terrorist who had chosen the blouse over other, blacker ones.

And so Pell responded, "Not as good as you would" to the tall, leggy, broad shouldered girl with the artificial eye. Which was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the rest of her.

* * * *

Pell’s reason for being at the gallery was Jare. Although she could never wrap her perceptions around the gaunt boy’s paintings, she still came when he asked. Jare, Pell, Fallon, Rasp and Jest. They weren’t close – but then foxhole buddies aren’t always. They weren’t in combat, but they could be. All it would take would be one computer talking to another – no stable job history, thus conscription.

All it took were two computers, passing pieces of information back and forth. Till that happened, they hid and watched the possibility of a real foxhole death in a hot, sweaty part of Central America fly by.

Foxhole buddies. It was Jare’s term – some fleck of trivia that’d hung around him. They didn’t have an official name for their tiny society of slowly (and in some cases not too slowly) starving artists, but Pell was sure that Jare would smile at his trivial term being immortalized among a band of too-mortal kids.

That was Jare. While the rest of them tried to focus on pulling their paintings (Pell, Jare, and Rasp), music (Jest), and sculpture (Fallon) as high as they could, there was something else about Jare – something, like his paintings, that refused to be understood. His techniques were simple enough, broad strokes of brilliant color on soot-black canvas, but his reasons were more convoluted.

Or maybe, Pell had thought earlier that evening (before turning a white blouse red and seeing the woman with the artificial eye for the first time) both man and his work were simple: broad, bold statements designed to do nothing but catch attention. He was like his paintings, a grab for any kind of attention – an explanation too simple to be easily seen.

In the tiny bathroom, Pell tried to get the wine out of her blouse. Contradictory old wives’ tails: first she tried cold, then hot water. The sink ran pink and so, soon, did her blouse.

The woman with the eye stood outside the door, a surprisingly subtle smile on her large mouth. Every once and a while she’d say something, as if throwing a bantering line to the shy girl inside to keep her from drowning in embarrassment.

"Who’s he foolin? I can do better crap than this with a brush up my ass.”

"You should see this chick’s dress. Looks like her momma’s – and momma didn’t know how to dress, either.”

"Too many earrings, faggot. What year do you think this is?

"Hey, girl. Get out here with that shirt. It’s better looking than this fucking stuff on the walls."

Cold water on her hands, wine spiraling down the sink. Distantly, Pell was aware that her nipples were hard and tight – and not from the chill water. Down deep and inside, she was wet. It was a basic kind of primal moisture, one that comes even in the burning heat of humiliation. Finally, the blouse was less red than before. Planning to run to where she’d dropped her old leather coat to hide the stigmata of her clumsiness, her excitement in two hard brown points, she opened the door.

The tall woman smiled down at her, hot and strong. In one quick sweep of her eyes, Pell drank her tall length, strong shoulders, columnar legs. She was trapped, held fast between the hot eyes she knew must have been staring at her, pinning her straight to her embarrassment, and the presence of the woman.

Her eye, the eye, clicked a quick chime of precision – as if expanding its limits to encompass the totality of Pell. Pell did not mind her intense examination. It added, with a rush of feelings, to the quaking in her belly, the weakness in her knees.

"Gotta splash. Wait right here,” Arc said.

Of course she waited.

After a few hammering heartbeats, the door opened and she came out – butchly tucking her T-shirt back into her jeans – and Pell was again at the focus of her meticulously designed sight.

"You live anywhere close? I’m tired of this shit. You?"

"Down the block. Just on the corner," Pell said, trying hard not to smile too much.The woman downed the small sample of red in her glass and, looking for a place to put it down, and not finding any, just dropped it with a sharp plastic clatter on the floor. "Show me. It can’t be worse than here. Too many fucking artists."

Lisabet Sarai Likes Technorotica

This is a very, very special treat: an extremely flattering review of Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo - a print-only special edition, made up of the Rude Mechanicals and Better Than The Real Thing ebooks, all published (by the very great Renaisssance E Books/Sizzler Editions) by the always-great Lisabet Sarai.  Thanks so much, Lisabet!

Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo by M. Christian 

Barbary Coast Editions, Renaissance E Books, 2012

One of the most enjoyable aspects of being an author is that you get to invent new worlds. Sometimes those worlds strongly resemble our so-called reality; sometimes they deviate wildly. Even the most bizarre fictional world, though, needs to feel real. The reader needs to see, smell, taste, and touch the alien environment in which she finds herself. Against all logic and common sense knowledge, she needs to believe. 

Pulling this off is tough, especially in genres like paranormal and science fiction, where the story by definition is set somewhere other than the world as we know it. M. Christian is a master of this trick, as he demonstrates in Technorotica, his new collection of stories concerning the erotic connections between humans and machines. 

I'll admit up front that I've long been a fan of M.Christian's work (I even edited one of his books, ComingTogether Presents M. Christian) and that I'm deeply in awe of his imagination. Despite what might be considered a positive bias, I still feel totally comfortable and justified in asserting: this is a fantastic book, in both the literal and figurative sense. 

The stories in this collection could loosely be called science fiction erotica, but they vary a great deal in focus and tone. Several of them (“Hot Definition”, “Speaking Parts”, “Hack Work” and the excerpt from Christian's novel Painted Doll) are set in a shadowy, perilous, cyber-punk world where everything is for sale and everyone lives on the edge, staying alive through crime or luck or sometimes both. Prosthetics, holographic doppelgangers, constant electronic surveillance, mind-jacking and body snatching – fans of Gibson, Sterling and Cadigan will feel right at home. However, this author isn't primarily concerned with gadgets and technology (never mind the title of the book) but with feelings: fear, hunger, desperation, desire and love. These stories explore how humans reach out for one another, as the mechanical invades and erodes the meaning of humanity. 

“Blow Up” and “I am Jo's Vibrator” are lighter in tone. The former lets us into the mind of a man with a peculiar fetish. The latter, as suggested by the title, is narrated by a sex toy. Both will make you smile (or at least, that was my reaction) though “Blow Up”, the first tale in the book, has a subtle darkness that's a preview of the more serious stories to come. 

I've read the tale “State” in several other M. Christian collections. It remains one of my favorite erotic stories of all time. A human woman/sex worker impersonates a blue-skinned, state-of-the-art Japanese sex robot. The neat logical flip here satisfies the intellect. The woman's arousal at becoming the ultimate sex object provides satisfaction in other dimensions. 

“The Bell House Invitation” is a fabulous new take on ménage, or more accurately, polyamory. Four individuals – two men, two women – live together and share a group mind. Together they seduce another woman with the aim of convincing her to join their communal consciousness. The sex scene in this tale succeeds in exploring all the participants' experience simultaneously, pulling the reader into the mix. It's lusciously explicit without losing the sense of wonder that derives from a level of communion most of us only dream about. 

In contrast, “Billie” includes no overt sex at all yet still manages to convey an intense feeling of desire. This vignette of a butch woman speeding along the Pacific Coast Highway on her vintage 1977 Harley Davidson details a synergy between human and machine so strong it becomes erotic. 

“A Light Minute” focuses on communication over a distance, as a reclusive woman terrified of the world outside opens herself to the lover she knows only via electronic missives. 

Finally, “KSRN” is a dream-like reverie about speed and sex, chrome and compassion. If I'd been the author, I would have put this story last in the book. It leaves you feeling haunted and yet somehow complete.
Overall, my reaction to this book was “Wow”. But then, I'm seriously turned on by originality. If you share this trait with me – get yourself a copy of Technorotica.

(And by the way - the book includes a great preface and afterword, too!)

State

Here's a little cybersexy treat: a tease of my story "State" - which appears in the print-only book Technorotica, and the ebooks Better Than The Real Thing, and The Bachelor Machine

STATE 

Once part of a sprawl of temporary industrial units floated into Kyushu harbor to make a Korean-owned nanochip factory, the building was industrial architecture that had been stuck on a shelf and left to forget – or really just rust. As far Fields knew – and could see – rust still really managed the property. Rumors said that Mama had scored the old building for cheap, had found some hungry jacks to scalp juice from the main grid, and some mysterious "sources" for the rest. The girls? They came from wherever lost girls always came from: the cramps of hunger or addiction, the Devil of father. They came and Mama fed them, sprayed them when they were sick, and put that rusting roof over their heads. In return, they worked.

Friday nights weren't usually this busy. There were even rumbles from Mama's office that Fields might be called down from her box to work the cribs with the pie-faced girls. But someone asked for the special of the house and she was spared having to watch the ordinary flatscreen with the rest of the girls. She was the special, so she had awhile to get ready, and even watch the end of Don't Drop It (her favorite) on the antique Hakati tank – and yum! – relish the new host).

The antique took a long time to power-down, and she always (since Mama had sold it to her) felt that thrill-tingle of worry that some client would come in and still see the spray/wash/float of green/blue/red hanging in front of her cheap holo print of Tokyo At Night that masked the unit and would ponder a bit too long over why a Mitsui Automaton would be watching a game show.

The streets, and common knowledge, said that Autos took awhile to power up, boot up their software, get their circuits warm and ready – though never really willing: the prefect love doll. The perfect toy. The real fact was that it took Fields time to get completely into her Act.

Her friendly gray robe went first, into the hidden closet behind the false wall of phony blinking tell-tales and dummy flatsceens playing loops of technical gibberish, with the rest of her reality: hung on a hook next to her vid discs, street clothes, wigs, pills, towels, creams, sprays, and plain-faced bottles of special dye.

Very special: an incredibly durable bonding polymer that she applied each morning – but was always careful to examine every inch of herself in a roll-up plastic mirror, lathering on the thick blueness at the faintest signs of her real pinkness before the light over the door flashed green. Her hair, every brown strand, was months gone – and kept at an imperceptible level by a chilling spray of tailored enzymes. Sure, she could wear any of her wigs, and sometimes did for those who just couldn't deal with an too-inhuman Automaton, but for the most part she liked going smooth and streamlined: you paid for a machine.

The little yellow hexagon pills still had about another two hours to go – her skin texture and temperature would be just that different. Not quite human, almost machine synthetic. Anyone, of course, who knew the real Mitsui would know the reality of pink-skin and blood Fields under the blue, behind the contacts, beyond the re-engineered body. But then the Autos were very rare, their legends and rumors huge, and who would know the real thing, after all in the dim shadows of big, sprawling, bad Kyushu?

Fields's body was a gift from Mama, really an investment: those long days two years ago with the Osaka Scalpers had taken what nature had lucked her with and shaped her into an almost perfect Auto Class B – still one of Mitsui's most popular models. Strong shoulders; round face with high, almost too- wide-for-nature, cheekbones; tiny, pert, full lips; huge crystal blue eyes; high, wide and moderate tits, huge against her actually small frame, with aggressively large nipples – some of it was really hers, some was machine made for her machine act.

Her looks, real or made, would be good and profitable as long as the real unit was State-of-the-Art ... and the rumors of how good, and how hot, kept flying.

[MORE]

State

Here's a little cybersexy treat: a tease of my story "State" - which appears in the print-only book Technorotica, and the ebooks Better Than The Real Thing, and The Bachelor Machine

STATE 

Once part of a sprawl of temporary industrial units floated into Kyushu harbor to make a Korean-owned nanochip factory, the building was industrial architecture that had been stuck on a shelf and left to forget – or really just rust. As far Fields knew – and could see – rust still really managed the property. Rumors said that Mama had scored the old building for cheap, had found some hungry jacks to scalp juice from the main grid, and some mysterious "sources" for the rest. The girls? They came from wherever lost girls always came from: the cramps of hunger or addiction, the Devil of father. They came and Mama fed them, sprayed them when they were sick, and put that rusting roof over their heads. In return, they worked.

Friday nights weren't usually this busy. There were even rumbles from Mama's office that Fields might be called down from her box to work the cribs with the pie-faced girls. But someone asked for the special of the house and she was spared having to watch the ordinary flatscreen with the rest of the girls. She was the special, so she had awhile to get ready, and even watch the end of Don't Drop It (her favorite) on the antique Hakati tank – and yum! – relish the new host).

The antique took a long time to power-down, and she always (since Mama had sold it to her) felt that thrill-tingle of worry that some client would come in and still see the spray/wash/float of green/blue/red hanging in front of her cheap holo print of Tokyo At Night that masked the unit and would ponder a bit too long over why a Mitsui Automaton would be watching a game show.

The streets, and common knowledge, said that Autos took awhile to power up, boot up their software, get their circuits warm and ready – though never really willing: the prefect love doll. The perfect toy. The real fact was that it took Fields time to get completely into her Act.

Her friendly gray robe went first, into the hidden closet behind the false wall of phony blinking tell-tales and dummy flatsceens playing loops of technical gibberish, with the rest of her reality: hung on a hook next to her vid discs, street clothes, wigs, pills, towels, creams, sprays, and plain-faced bottles of special dye.

Very special: an incredibly durable bonding polymer that she applied each morning – but was always careful to examine every inch of herself in a roll-up plastic mirror, lathering on the thick blueness at the faintest signs of her real pinkness before the light over the door flashed green. Her hair, every brown strand, was months gone – and kept at an imperceptible level by a chilling spray of tailored enzymes. Sure, she could wear any of her wigs, and sometimes did for those who just couldn't deal with an too-inhuman Automaton, but for the most part she liked going smooth and streamlined: you paid for a machine.

The little yellow hexagon pills still had about another two hours to go – her skin texture and temperature would be just that different. Not quite human, almost machine synthetic. Anyone, of course, who knew the real Mitsui would know the reality of pink-skin and blood Fields under the blue, behind the contacts, beyond the re-engineered body. But then the Autos were very rare, their legends and rumors huge, and who would know the real thing, after all in the dim shadows of big, sprawling, bad Kyushu?

Fields's body was a gift from Mama, really an investment: those long days two years ago with the Osaka Scalpers had taken what nature had lucked her with and shaped her into an almost perfect Auto Class B – still one of Mitsui's most popular models. Strong shoulders; round face with high, almost too- wide-for-nature, cheekbones; tiny, pert, full lips; huge crystal blue eyes; high, wide and moderate tits, huge against her actually small frame, with aggressively large nipples – some of it was really hers, some was machine made for her machine act.

Her looks, real or made, would be good and profitable as long as the real unit was State-of-the-Art ... and the rumors of how good, and how hot, kept flying.

[MORE]

Amos Lassen Likes Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo

Here's a very nice treat: a fantastic review of my new book Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo by the always awesome Amos Lassen!

I  think of M. Christian like I think of hummus—both are acquired tastes. However, once you get to liking either, you just can’t get enough. As prolific a writer as Christian is, I never get quite enough. He is erotic and futuristic and has a sardonic sense of humor, However, above everything else, he goes where few dasn’t. In this anthology, Christian takes a step into the future and writes about bondage, fetishes, science fiction, and sex with robots and so on. In fact, we are taught by robots how to be great lovers. I suppose you could label this man/machine erotica as Christians unites sex and technology and there is a lot of Christian trademark kink. This is most definitely not your “everyday” read. 

Eleven stories are sandwiched between the introduction, “Welcome to the World of Tomorrow” and the afterword, “Do You Know Where Your Children Will Be”? All of the stories are excellent but the one that stands out for me in “Blow Up” and that is all I am going to say. If you want to know why it is so special, you will have to get a copy of the book. Christian writes what I call literary erotica. He manages to infuse good writing with lots of sex and the result is almost a new genre. He is, however, the most difficult author to review because it is so easy to give away plots when discussing his writing. Therefore all I can say is for you to get a copy, clear an afternoon sit in the recliner with your feet up and the book open and enjoy every word. 

“M. Christian is one hell of a writer. A no-holds-barred storyteller, he embraces his reader at the start and doesn’t let go until long after the end.” -Mari Adkins. 

“M. Christian’s stories squat at the intersection of Primal Urges Avenue and Hi-Tech Parkway … feral-eyed, half-naked … Truly an author for our post-everything 21st century.” – Paul Di Filippo, author The Steampunk Trilogy.

Lisabet Sarai Likes Technorotica

This is a very, very special treat: an extremely flattering review of
Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo - a print-only special edition, made up of the Rude Mechanicals and Better Than The Real Thing ebooks, all published (by the very great Renaisssance E Books/Sizzler Editions) by the always-great Lisabet Sarai.  Thanks so much, Lisabet!

Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo by M. Christian 

Barbary Coast Editions, Renaissance E Books, 2012

One of the most enjoyable aspects of being an author is that you get to invent new worlds. Sometimes those worlds strongly resemble our so-called reality; sometimes they deviate wildly. Even the most bizarre fictional world, though, needs to feel real. The reader needs to see, smell, taste, and touch the alien environment in which she finds herself. Against all logic and common sense knowledge, she needs to believe. 

Pulling this off is tough, especially in genres like paranormal and science fiction, where the story by definition is set somewhere other than the world as we know it. M. Christian is a master of this trick, as he demonstrates in Technorotica, his new collection of stories concerning the erotic connections between humans and machines. 

I'll admit up front that I've long been a fan of M.Christian's work (I even edited one of his books, ComingTogether Presents M. Christian) and that I'm deeply in awe of his imagination. Despite what might be considered a positive bias, I still feel totally comfortable and justified in asserting: this is a fantastic book, in both the literal and figurative sense. 

The stories in this collection could loosely be called science fiction erotica, but they vary a great deal in focus and tone. Several of them (“Hot Definition”, “Speaking Parts”, “Hack Work” and the excerpt from Christian's novel Painted Doll) are set in a shadowy, perilous, cyber-punk world where everything is for sale and everyone lives on the edge, staying alive through crime or luck or sometimes both. Prosthetics, holographic doppelgangers, constant electronic surveillance, mind-jacking and body snatching – fans of Gibson, Sterling and Cadigan will feel right at home. However, this author isn't primarily concerned with gadgets and technology (never mind the title of the book) but with feelings: fear, hunger, desperation, desire and love. These stories explore how humans reach out for one another, as the mechanical invades and erodes the meaning of humanity. 

“Blow Up” and “I am Jo's Vibrator” are lighter in tone. The former lets us into the mind of a man with a peculiar fetish. The latter, as suggested by the title, is narrated by a sex toy. Both will make you smile (or at least, that was my reaction) though “Blow Up”, the first tale in the book, has a subtle darkness that's a preview of the more serious stories to come. 

I've read the tale “State” in several other M. Christian collections. It remains one of my favorite erotic stories of all time. A human woman/sex worker impersonates a blue-skinned, state-of-the-art Japanese sex robot. The neat logical flip here satisfies the intellect. The woman's arousal at becoming the ultimate sex object provides satisfaction in other dimensions. 

“The Bell House Invitation” is a fabulous new take on ménage, or more accurately, polyamory. Four individuals – two men, two women – live together and share a group mind. Together they seduce another woman with the aim of convincing her to join their communal consciousness. The sex scene in this tale succeeds in exploring all the participants' experience simultaneously, pulling the reader into the mix. It's lusciously explicit without losing the sense of wonder that derives from a level of communion most of us only dream about. 

In contrast, “Billie” includes no overt sex at all yet still manages to convey an intense feeling of desire. This vignette of a butch woman speeding along the Pacific Coast Highway on her vintage 1977 Harley Davidson details a synergy between human and machine so strong it becomes erotic. 

“A Light Minute” focuses on communication over a distance, as a reclusive woman terrified of the world outside opens herself to the lover she knows only via electronic missives. 

Finally, “KSRN” is a dream-like reverie about speed and sex, chrome and compassion. If I'd been the author, I would have put this story last in the book. It leaves you feeling haunted and yet somehow complete.
Overall, my reaction to this book was “Wow”. But then, I'm seriously turned on by originality. If you share this trait with me – get yourself a copy of Technorotica.

(And by the way - the book includes a great preface and afterword, too!)

Reminder: Technorotica - Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo - In Dead Trees!

Here's a reminder about my technosex print-only book, Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo

Here's a bit of extra-extra-extra-special news! Remember those two ebooks that the great folks at Renaissance/Sizzler recently published? The ones with techno/science fiction focuses - Better Than The Real Thing: Technorotica and Rude Mechanicals: Technorotica? 

Well, Renaissance/Eros Editions have just published a very special - print edition only - edition of both ... plus extra-added content: Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo

“Love with robots will be as normal as love with other humans, while the number of sexual acts and lovemaking positions commonly practiced between humans will be extended, as robots teach more than is in all of the world’s published sex manuals combined.” -computer pioneer David Levy, in Love and Sex With Robots. 

Bondage, science fiction, fetishism, real realities and virtual realities collide in this unique collection by one of the most popular authors of erotica … ever!  

In the enigmatic M. Christian’s kinky new collection, two great things – technology and sex – go even better together! 

Welcome to Technorotica: a giant-sized collection of human-machine erotica. You’ll find everything from sexy robots to virtual reality lovers, from shameless science fiction to contemporary explorations of technology’s impact on our sex lives and our sexuality. Headlining this stellar collection are two unforgettable novellas: In “Hot Definition,” the story of a future just around our corner, Neko experiences the ultimate domination in a way she never expected; in “Speaking Parts,” two lovers, one with a camera-shutter eye, come together in a scorching, obsessive relationship that takes them both to the limits of sexuality – and beyond. Plus ten more provocative stories of sex and technosex. 

“Blow Up” alone makes it “worth buying I highly recommend this book.” -Fire Pages. 

“M. Christian is one hell of a writer. A no-holds-barred storyteller, he embraces his reader at the start and doesn’t let go until long after the end.” -Mari Adkins. 

“M. Christian’s stories squat at the intersection of Primal Urges Avenue and Hi-Tech Parkway … feral-eyed, half-naked … Truly an author for our post-everything 21st century.” -Paul Di Filippo, author The Steampunk Trilogy 

Cover art: Jade
Book design: Frankie Hill
ISBN-1615084479
Publication date: 4/03/2012
Pages: 170
List price: $15.99

Lisabet Sarai Likes Technorotica

This is a very, very special treat: an extremely flattering review of
Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo - a print-only special edition, made up of the Rude Mechanicals and Better Than The Real Thing ebooks, all published (by the very great Renaisssance E Books/Sizzler Editions) by the always-great Lisabet Sarai.  Thanks so much, Lisabet!

Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo by M. Christian 

Barbary Coast Editions, Renaissance E Books, 2012

One of the most enjoyable aspects of being an author is that you get to invent new worlds. Sometimes those worlds strongly resemble our so-called reality; sometimes they deviate wildly. Even the most bizarre fictional world, though, needs to feel real. The reader needs to see, smell, taste, and touch the alien environment in which she finds herself. Against all logic and common sense knowledge, she needs to believe. 

Pulling this off is tough, especially in genres like paranormal and science fiction, where the story by definition is set somewhere other than the world as we know it. M. Christian is a master of this trick, as he demonstrates in Technorotica, his new collection of stories concerning the erotic connections between humans and machines. 

I'll admit up front that I've long been a fan of M.Christian's work (I even edited one of his books, ComingTogether Presents M. Christian) and that I'm deeply in awe of his imagination. Despite what might be considered a positive bias, I still feel totally comfortable and justified in asserting: this is a fantastic book, in both the literal and figurative sense. 

The stories in this collection could loosely be called science fiction erotica, but they vary a great deal in focus and tone. Several of them (“Hot Definition”, “Speaking Parts”, “Hack Work” and the excerpt from Christian's novel Painted Doll) are set in a shadowy, perilous, cyber-punk world where everything is for sale and everyone lives on the edge, staying alive through crime or luck or sometimes both. Prosthetics, holographic doppelgangers, constant electronic surveillance, mind-jacking and body snatching – fans of Gibson, Sterling and Cadigan will feel right at home. However, this author isn't primarily concerned with gadgets and technology (never mind the title of the book) but with feelings: fear, hunger, desperation, desire and love. These stories explore how humans reach out for one another, as the mechanical invades and erodes the meaning of humanity. 

“Blow Up” and “I am Jo's Vibrator” are lighter in tone. The former lets us into the mind of a man with a peculiar fetish. The latter, as suggested by the title, is narrated by a sex toy. Both will make you smile (or at least, that was my reaction) though “Blow Up”, the first tale in the book, has a subtle darkness that's a preview of the more serious stories to come. 

I've read the tale “State” in several other M. Christian collections. It remains one of my favorite erotic stories of all time. A human woman/sex worker impersonates a blue-skinned, state-of-the-art Japanese sex robot. The neat logical flip here satisfies the intellect. The woman's arousal at becoming the ultimate sex object provides satisfaction in other dimensions. 

“The Bell House Invitation” is a fabulous new take on ménage, or more accurately, polyamory. Four individuals – two men, two women – live together and share a group mind. Together they seduce another woman with the aim of convincing her to join their communal consciousness. The sex scene in this tale succeeds in exploring all the participants' experience simultaneously, pulling the reader into the mix. It's lusciously explicit without losing the sense of wonder that derives from a level of communion most of us only dream about. 

In contrast, “Billie” includes no overt sex at all yet still manages to convey an intense feeling of desire. This vignette of a butch woman speeding along the Pacific Coast Highway on her vintage 1977 Harley Davidson details a synergy between human and machine so strong it becomes erotic. 

“A Light Minute” focuses on communication over a distance, as a reclusive woman terrified of the world outside opens herself to the lover she knows only via electronic missives. 

Finally, “KSRN” is a dream-like reverie about speed and sex, chrome and compassion. If I'd been the author, I would have put this story last in the book. It leaves you feeling haunted and yet somehow complete.
Overall, my reaction to this book was “Wow”. But then, I'm seriously turned on by originality. If you share this trait with me – get yourself a copy of Technorotica.

(And by the way - the book includes a great preface and afterword, too!)

Reminder: Technorotica - Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo - In Dead Trees!

Here's a reminder about my technosex print-only book, Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo

Here's a bit of extra-extra-extra-special news! Remember those two ebooks that the great folks at Renaissance/Sizzler recently published? The ones with techno/science fiction focuses - Better Than The Real Thing: Technorotica and Rude Mechanicals: Technorotica? 

Well, Renaissance/Eros Editions have just published a very special - print edition only - edition of both ... plus extra-added content: Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo

“Love with robots will be as normal as love with other humans, while the number of sexual acts and lovemaking positions commonly practiced between humans will be extended, as robots teach more than is in all of the world’s published sex manuals combined.” -computer pioneer David Levy, in Love and Sex With Robots. 

Bondage, science fiction, fetishism, real realities and virtual realities collide in this unique collection by one of the most popular authors of erotica … ever!  

In the enigmatic M. Christian’s kinky new collection, two great things – technology and sex – go even better together! 

Welcome to Technorotica: a giant-sized collection of human-machine erotica. You’ll find everything from sexy robots to virtual reality lovers, from shameless science fiction to contemporary explorations of technology’s impact on our sex lives and our sexuality. Headlining this stellar collection are two unforgettable novellas: In “Hot Definition,” the story of a future just around our corner, Neko experiences the ultimate domination in a way she never expected; in “Speaking Parts,” two lovers, one with a camera-shutter eye, come together in a scorching, obsessive relationship that takes them both to the limits of sexuality – and beyond. Plus ten more provocative stories of sex and technosex. 

“Blow Up” alone makes it “worth buying I highly recommend this book.” -Fire Pages. 

“M. Christian is one hell of a writer. A no-holds-barred storyteller, he embraces his reader at the start and doesn’t let go until long after the end.” -Mari Adkins. 

“M. Christian’s stories squat at the intersection of Primal Urges Avenue and Hi-Tech Parkway … feral-eyed, half-naked … Truly an author for our post-everything 21st century.” -Paul Di Filippo, author The Steampunk Trilogy 

Cover art: Jade
Book design: Frankie Hill
ISBN-1615084479
Publication date: 4/03/2012
Pages: 170
List price: $15.99

Zee Likes "Beep" From Rude Mechanicals

Remember how how the great Zee wrote a nice little piece about "Blow Up" - from my fun ebook Rude Mechanicals ... and part of my print-only Technorotica?  Well here she is again with another sweet review of the story "Beep."  Thanks again, Zee!



M. Christian does it again with another fantastic short story from Rude Mechanicals. This title is worth buying for Blow Up alone, but Beep makes this even more worth the purchase!

Imagine you are a man walking through a doorway, peeling off the layers from the day, and hitting the play button on your answering machine. There is a Beep! and you hear a woman’s voice. She is calling you a slut! She accuses you of being a bad boy in need of punishment. Through a series of back-to-back messages, all preceded by a Beep!, this woman tells you in detail how she will punish you. Listening to each recorded message, you begin to sense her power, her control, and her dominatrix ways of punishment. What’s a man to do beside listen to each and every erotic message?!

I will admit that M. Christian completely surprised me with the ending (I’ll let ya’ll read about that!). I never saw it coming. I really like two things about M. Christian’s writing style.

(1) He is diverse. He can write a BDSM short like Beep, a sexually humorous piece like I Am Jo’s Vibrator, and a fetish short like Blow Up in the blink of an eye.

(2) His writing style conveys sexually explicit details, but it is never vulgar. He really knows how to keep his work tasteful.

Absolutely worth the purchase ladies! I highly recommend Rude Mechanicals.

Amos Lassen Likes Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo

Here's a very nice treat: a fantastic review of my new book Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo by the always awesome Amos Lassen!

I  think of M. Christian like I think of hummus—both are acquired tastes. However, once you get to liking either, you just can’t get enough. As prolific a writer as Christian is, I never get quite enough. He is erotic and futuristic and has a sardonic sense of humor, However, above everything else, he goes where few dasn’t. In this anthology, Christian takes a step into the future and writes about bondage, fetishes, science fiction, and sex with robots and so on. In fact, we are taught by robots how to be great lovers. I suppose you could label this man/machine erotica as Christians unites sex and technology and there is a lot of Christian trademark kink. This is most definitely not your “everyday” read. 

Eleven stories are sandwiched between the introduction, “Welcome to the World of Tomorrow” and the afterword, “Do You Know Where Your Children Will Be”? All of the stories are excellent but the one that stands out for me in “Blow Up” and that is all I am going to say. If you want to know why it is so special, you will have to get a copy of the book. Christian writes what I call literary erotica. He manages to infuse good writing with lots of sex and the result is almost a new genre. He is, however, the most difficult author to review because it is so easy to give away plots when discussing his writing. Therefore all I can say is for you to get a copy, clear an afternoon sit in the recliner with your feet up and the book open and enjoy every word. 

“M. Christian is one hell of a writer. A no-holds-barred storyteller, he embraces his reader at the start and doesn’t let go until long after the end.” -Mari Adkins. “M. Christian’s stories squat at the intersection of Primal Urges Avenue and Hi-Tech Parkway … feral-eyed, half-naked … Truly an author for our post-everything 21st century.” – Paul Di Filippo, author The Steampunk Trilogy.

State

Here's a little cybersexy treat: a tease of my story "State" - which appears in the print-only book Technorotica, and the ebooks Better Than The Real Thing, and The Bachelor Machine

STATE 

Once part of a sprawl of temporary industrial units floated into Kyushu harbor to make a Korean-owned nanochip factory, the building was industrial architecture that had been stuck on a shelf and left to forget – or really just rust. As far Fields knew – and could see – rust still really managed the property. Rumors said that Mama had scored the old building for cheap, had found some hungry jacks to scalp juice from the main grid, and some mysterious "sources" for the rest. The girls? They came from wherever lost girls always came from: the cramps of hunger or addiction, the Devil of father. They came and Mama fed them, sprayed them when they were sick, and put that rusting roof over their heads. In return, they worked.

Friday nights weren't usually this busy. There were even rumbles from Mama's office that Fields might be called down from her box to work the cribs with the pie-faced girls. But someone asked for the special of the house and she was spared having to watch the ordinary flatscreen with the rest of the girls. She was the special, so she had awhile to get ready, and even watch the end of Don't Drop It (her favorite) on the antique Hakati tank – and yum! – relish the new host).

The antique took a long time to power-down, and she always (since Mama had sold it to her) felt that thrill-tingle of worry that some client would come in and still see the spray/wash/float of green/blue/red hanging in front of her cheap holo print of Tokyo At Night that masked the unit and would ponder a bit too long over why a Mitsui Automaton would be watching a game show.

The streets, and common knowledge, said that Autos took awhile to power up, boot up their software, get their circuits warm and ready – though never really willing: the prefect love doll. The perfect toy. The real fact was that it took Fields time to get completely into her Act.

Her friendly gray robe went first, into the hidden closet behind the false wall of phony blinking tell-tales and dummy flatsceens playing loops of technical gibberish, with the rest of her reality: hung on a hook next to her vid discs, street clothes, wigs, pills, towels, creams, sprays, and plain-faced bottles of special dye.

Very special: an incredibly durable bonding polymer that she applied each morning – but was always careful to examine every inch of herself in a roll-up plastic mirror, lathering on the thick blueness at the faintest signs of her real pinkness before the light over the door flashed green. Her hair, every brown strand, was months gone – and kept at an imperceptible level by a chilling spray of tailored enzymes. Sure, she could wear any of her wigs, and sometimes did for those who just couldn't deal with an too-inhuman Automaton, but for the most part she liked going smooth and streamlined: you paid for a machine.

The little yellow hexagon pills still had about another two hours to go – her skin texture and temperature would be just that different. Not quite human, almost machine synthetic. Anyone, of course, who knew the real Mitsui would know the reality of pink-skin and blood Fields under the blue, behind the contacts, beyond the re-engineered body. But then the Autos were very rare, their legends and rumors huge, and who would know the real thing, after all in the dim shadows of big, sprawling, bad Kyushu?

Fields's body was a gift from Mama, really an investment: those long days two years ago with the Osaka Scalpers had taken what nature had lucked her with and shaped her into an almost perfect Auto Class B – still one of Mitsui's most popular models. Strong shoulders; round face with high, almost too- wide-for-nature, cheekbones; tiny, pert, full lips; huge crystal blue eyes; high, wide and moderate tits, huge against her actually small frame, with aggressively large nipples – some of it was really hers, some was machine made for her machine act.

Her looks, real or made, would be good and profitable as long as the real unit was State-of-the-Art ... and the rumors of how good, and how hot, kept flying.

[MORE]

Circlet Likes Technorotica

How wonderful - check out this very flattering review of my technophilia-laced collection Technorotica: Stories Shattering the Ultimate Taboo by Gayle C. Straun at the Circlet Press site:

Technorotica is a compendium of two previous M. Christian books, Better than the Real Thing and Rude Mechanicals, accompanied by an excerpt from Painted Doll (previously reviewed here) closing out the volume. Two of the stories previously appeared in Circlet Press’s The Bachelor Machine (reviewed here), while two others appeared in the Circlet anthologies Selling Venus and Up for Grabs 2. 

Some readers may initially feel that Technorotica constitutes one of those “best of” albums whose contents fail to gel into a thematic whole, perhaps appreciated more for its individual parts, especially since some stories explore such science fiction conceits as cybernetics and collective consciousness, while others plod the more real-world territory of matchmaking over the modem or even having sex with a blow-up toy ball. But therein lies the rub (pun intended), for by including such an array of stories, M. Christian reminds us that our sexuality is already augmented with things “unnatural;” that human beings, social creatures that we are, already get off using a variety of apparatus developed by our society–or, to put it another way, handcuffs and riding crops don’t occur in nature, y’all. The title character in “Billie” reaches the heights of bliss riding her Harley Davidson, while Pell in “Speaking Parts” is driven to distraction by the bionic eye of her lover-to-be Arc, a “masterpiece watch set in a crystal sphere, the iris a mandala of glowing gold.” Failed lawyer Stanley in “KSRN” dreams his dreams of wealth and power, of women like commodities, owned: “Their skin became polished, imported. Their bodies took on the lines of fine European manufacturers… Their breasts gleamed chrome, the highlights of their curves reflecting into the night, into his eyes–airflow eroticism, calling to him.” Meanwhile, the prostitute Fields in “State” acts the part of an android for high dollar customers who would probably be repelled to learn of her true humanity. 

Just as we homo sapiens have tweaked our consciousnesses with a variety of substances since the earliest days of our species, so, too, have we augmented our sexuality. As Lenore Tiefer titled her groundbreaking book, Sex Is Not a Natural Act, and it never has been. If there is a common theme tying together these stories, tying together the simple and sweet tale of a couple’s first use of a vibrator with that of a person who hires out her body by a form of remote control, then that’s it. Sex is not a natural act, and it never has been. 

The artist Mark Rothko famously quipped, “Certain people always say we should go back to nature. I notice they never say we should go forward to nature.” And that is where M. Christian takes us in this collection–forward to nature. Forward–to discover our natures.

"Speaking Parts" Excerpt From Technorotica and Rude Mechanicals

Here's a teasing taste from my ebook, Rude Mechanicals, and from the dead-trees book Technorotica (which is Rude Mechanicals: Technorotica plus Better Than The Real Thing: Technorotica): a bit from the novella "Speaking Parts."

Pell remembered seeing Arc’s eye—it was the first thing she’d noticed.

Tourmaline and onyx. Silver and gold. A masterpiece watch set in a crystal sphere, the iris a mandala of glowing gold. Her blinks were a camera shutter’s, as imagined by the archetypal Victorian engineer but built by surgical perfection not found anywhere in Pell’s knowledge. The woman’s left eye was jeweled and precise, clicking softly as the woman looked around the gallery, as if the engineers who’d removed her original wet, gray-lensed ball had orchestrated a kind of music to go with their marvelous creation: a background tempo of perfect watch movements to accompany whatever she saw through their marvelous and finely crafted sight. Click, click, click.

An eye like that should have been in a museum, not mounted in a socket of simple human skin and bone, Pell had thought. It should have been in some other gallery, some better gallery, allowed only to look out at, to see other magnificent creations of skilled hands. Jare’s splashes of reds and blues, his shallow paintings were an insult to the real artistry of the woman’s eye.

That’s what Pell thought, at first, seeing Arc – but only seeing Arc’s perfect, mechanical eye.

Pell didn’t like to remember first seeing her that way – through the technology in her face. But it felt, to her, like it had its own kind of ironic perfection to deny it. So Pell lived with the biting truth that she didn’t, at first, see Arc – for her eye.

But later, right after she got momentarily lost in the beauty of Arc’s implant, the woman looked at Pell with her real eye, the gray, penetrating right one – and Pell forgot about the tourmaline, onyx, silver and gold machine.

She had finally seen Arc, herself – the woman, and not the simple, mechanical part. Next to her, the eye was cheap junk: a collection of metal, old rocks, and wires.

* * * *

She wasn’t Arc at first. She began as just the woman with the perfectly created eye. Then she was the beautiful woman. Then she was the woman where she didn’t belong. Seeing her eye, then seeing her, Pell lastly saw her as oil, the kind of oil you’d see pooling in the street, that had somehow managed to make its way into a glass of wine. Agreed, it was cheap red wine – something out of a box and not even a bottle, but, still – she was oil. She didn’t belong and that was obvious, despite the cheapness of the gallery. She could tell, cataloging her bashed and scuffed boots, noting her threadbare jeans, her torn T-shirt, that amid clean jeans and washed (and too black) turtlenecks, she was a discordant tone among the harmonious poseurs in Jare’s tiny South of Market studio.

The woman was aware of her discrepancy. She wandered the tiny gallery with a very large plastic tumbler of vin very ordinare, stopping only once in a while to look at one of Jare’s paintings.

Holding her wine tight enough to gently fracture the cheap plastic with cloudy stress lines, Pell watched her, stared at the tall – all legs and angles, broad and strong – woman with the artificial eye. She tried not to watch her too closely or too intently, sure that if she let slip her fascination she’d scare her off – or worse, bring on an indifferent examination of Pell. Through a sad ballet of a slightly curved lip and a stare that was nothing more than a glance of the eyes, the woman would see Pell but wouldn’t – and that would be an icy needle in Pell’s heart.

Pell had already taken too many risks that night. She already felt like she’d stepped off the edge and had yet to hit the hard reality of the ground. Traps and tigers, beasts and pitfalls for the unwary loomed all around Pell. She moved through her days with a careful caution, delicately testing the ice in front of her, wary of almost-invisible, murky lines of fault. She knew they were there, she’d felt the sudden falling of knowing she’d stepped too far, moved too quickly, over something that had proven, by intent or accident, not to be there. Pell didn’t push on the surface, didn’t put all her weight, or herself, on anything.

But then everything changed. She’d seen Arc and her eye.

The plastic cup chimed once, then collapsed in on itself. Turning first into a squashed oval, the glass cracked, splintered, then folded, the white seams of stress turning into sharp fissures of breakage. The red, freed of its cheap plastic prison, tumbled, cascaded out and down onto her.

Pell had worn something she knew wouldn’t fit with the rest of the crowd. The official color of San Francisco, she knew, would fill the place with charcoal and soot, midnight and ebony. White, she’d decided, would pull some of their eyes to her, make her stand out – absence of color being alone in a room full of people dressed in all colors, combined.

"Looks good on you."

The shock of the wine on her white blouse tumbled through Pell as an avalanche of warmth flowed to her face. The decision to wear white that night had come from a different part of herself, a part that had surprised her. Now she was furiously chastising that tiny voice, that fashion terrorist who had chosen the blouse over other, blacker ones.

And so Pell responded, "Not as good as you would" to the tall, leggy, broad shouldered girl with the artificial eye. Which was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the rest of her.

* * * *

Pell’s reason for being at the gallery was Jare. Although she could never wrap her perceptions around the gaunt boy’s paintings, she still came when he asked. Jare, Pell, Fallon, Rasp and Jest. They weren’t close – but then foxhole buddies aren’t always. They weren’t in combat, but they could be. All it would take would be one computer talking to another – no stable job history, thus conscription.

All it took were two computers, passing pieces of information back and forth. Till that happened, they hid and watched the possibility of a real foxhole death in a hot, sweaty part of Central America fly by.

Foxhole buddies. It was Jare’s term – some fleck of trivia that’d hung around him. They didn’t have an official name for their tiny society of slowly (and in some cases not too slowly) starving artists, but Pell was sure that Jare would smile at his trivial term being immortalized among a band of too-mortal kids.

That was Jare. While the rest of them tried to focus on pulling their paintings (Pell, Jare, and Rasp), music (Jest), and sculpture (Fallon) as high as they could, there was something else about Jare – something, like his paintings, that refused to be understood. His techniques were simple enough, broad strokes of brilliant color on soot-black canvas, but his reasons were more convoluted.

Or maybe, Pell had thought earlier that evening (before turning a white blouse red and seeing the woman with the artificial eye for the first time) both man and his work were simple: broad, bold statements designed to do nothing but catch attention. He was like his paintings, a grab for any kind of attention – an explanation too simple to be easily seen.

In the tiny bathroom, Pell tried to get the wine out of her blouse. Contradictory old wives’ tails: first she tried cold, then hot water. The sink ran pink and so, soon, did her blouse.

The woman with the eye stood outside the door, a surprisingly subtle smile on her large mouth. Every once and a while she’d say something, as if throwing a bantering line to the shy girl inside to keep her from drowning in embarrassment.

"Who’s he foolin? I can do better crap than this with a brush up my ass.”

"You should see this chick’s dress. Looks like her momma’s – and momma didn’t know how to dress, either.”

"Too many earrings, faggot. What year do you think this is?

"Hey, girl. Get out here with that shirt. It’s better looking than this fucking stuff on the walls."

Cold water on her hands, wine spiraling down the sink. Distantly, Pell was aware that her nipples were hard and tight – and not from the chill water. Down deep and inside, she was wet. It was a basic kind of primal moisture, one that comes even in the burning heat of humiliation. Finally, the blouse was less red than before. Planning to run to where she’d dropped her old leather coat to hide the stigmata of her clumsiness, her excitement in two hard brown points, she opened the door.

The tall woman smiled down at her, hot and strong. In one quick sweep of her eyes, Pell drank her tall length, strong shoulders, columnar legs. She was trapped, held fast between the hot eyes she knew must have been staring at her, pinning her straight to her embarrassment, and the presence of the woman.

Her eye, the eye, clicked a quick chime of precision – as if expanding its limits to encompass the totality of Pell. Pell did not mind her intense examination. It added, with a rush of feelings, to the quaking in her belly, the weakness in her knees.

"Gotta splash. Wait right here,” Arc said.

Of course she waited.

After a few hammering heartbeats, the door opened and she came out – butchly tucking her T-shirt back into her jeans – and Pell was again at the focus of her meticulously designed sight.

"You live anywhere close? I’m tired of this shit. You?"

"Down the block. Just on the corner," Pell said, trying hard not to smile too much.

The woman downed the small sample of red in her glass and, looking for a place to put it down, and not finding any, just dropped it with a sharp plastic clatter on the floor. "Show me. It can’t be worse than here. Too many fucking artists."