Erotic Fantastic: The Best of Circlet Press 1992-2002 [Paperback]

Cecilia Tan (Editor), Catherine Asaro (Collaborator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2003

In the first ten years of its existence, Circlet Press published over thirty anthologies and several single-author works, all the time pushing at the boundaries of sf/f and Erotica and fusing the two together. This is a collection of the very best and brightest of this unique publisher and unique genre, with twenty-five stories picked from the hundreds Circlet has put into print. Includes Francesca Lia Block, Catherine Asaro, M. Christian, Thomas S. Roche, Laura Antoniou, and many many more.

This is an updated edition for Kindle, fixing previous formatting failures.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: Circlet Press (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885865449
• ISBN-13: 978-1885865441
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,000,555 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I write about my passions, which include baseball, erotica, gourmet food, martial arts, and travel. I write fantasy, science fiction, erotic fiction, paranormal romance, and anything else that stimulates my imagination.

In the erotica field, I've been published everywhere from Ms. magazine to Penthouse, and I'm in many, many anthologies and the Best American Erotica series. Susie Bright called me "simply one of the most important writers, editors, and innovators in contemporary American erotic literature." Erotic books I've authored include Black Feathers, White Flames, The Velderet, Mind Games, The Hot Streak, and The Siren and the Sword (Magic University, Book One). I've also edited many anthologies including Women of the Bite, Cowboy Lover, Sex In The System, Wicked Pleasures, SM Visions, for many different publishers, and many many books and ebooks for the independent publishing house I founded, Circlet Press. Those include Best Fantastic Erotica, Erotic Fantastic, Like an Animal, Like Crimson Droplets, and many others, both for Kindle and in paperback.

In science fiction/fantasy I have been published in Asimov's magazine, Strange Horizons, Absolute Magnitude, and many other places.

In baseball, I am the editor of the Maple Street Press YANKEES ANNUAL, author of The 50 Greatest Yankee Games, co-author of 50 Greatest Red Sox Games, the co-editor of THE FENWAY PROJECT, and co-editor of '75: The Red Sox Team That Saved Baseball. I write features for Yankees magazine and other publications. I have a web site of baseball essays, called Why I Like Baseball, at http://whyilikebaseball.com.

You can find out way more about me and my obsessions at www.ceciliatan.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the better among mixed/diverse (m/m, m/f and f/f) erotic anthologies in the market, July 29, 2009

By 

Brooklyner (NYC) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Erotic Fantastic: The Best of Circlet Press 1992-2002 (Paperback)

It's hard to find a good erotic anthology with "mixed" couples: in this book, there are m/f (hetero), m/m (gay), f/f(lesbian) and just plain unclear-gender-bending stories. In total, 23 stories here, for about 340 pages of text. The book also includes a good mix-in of quite well-written BDSM stories, that also come in different "flavors". In short, this is truly good and on average quite well-written "pansexual" erotica, aimed at open-minded readers who do not care about particular "gender", and care more about passion and erotic elements. If you typically prefer only one type of "flavor", then I'd advise looking elsewhere. Also, a number of stories may be too "weird" (it's "erotic fantastic", so fantasy or sci-fi is often an element..) or disturbing to some readers. This book is so diverse, all stories with some sort of plot or message, I'd not classify it a "porn", even of a soft variety (after all, I initially borrowed it from a public library... I liked it enough I purchased my own copy).

I personally prefer to read BDSM m/m stories most, and my favorite in this book is a short story by Lauren P. Burka (The Specialist). I liked this author that much (as well as a few other authors from this book, such as Raven Kaldera) that I searched for any other published work by them. "The Specialist" is a very well-written sci-fi, with exciting, realistic and very memorable BDSM scenes. Of course, the anthology also includes some stories that I didn't like, but pretty much any anthology would. But the stories I was either OK about or liked outweigh those I skipped.

A few stories are indeed somewhat disturbing, and as the previous review noted, "For the Mortals Among Us" is among them. But a good thing about an anthology is that any given story is quite short, and this particular story took only about 15-20 pages (which I just skipped).
All in all, it's a good purchase if you like anthologies with short stories featuring diverse erotica, in all flavors, especially with most of them having fantasy or sci-fi settings.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Uneven and Lengthy, October 11, 2008

By 

Paul G. Bens, Jr. "Author of Kelland" (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Erotic Fantastic: The Best of Circlet Press 1992-2002 (Paperback)

Like all anthologies, "Erotic Fantastic: The Best of Circlet Press 1992 - 2002" has its share of excellent stories. Unfortunately, like many anthologies, it has more than its share of mediocre to downright awful tales, although to be fair, I should say that the mediocre far outweigh the horrible. On the one hand, you have the shining moments of brilliance in pieces like "Shayna Maidel," "Anthem," "Burning Bridges," "Temporary Insanity" and "The Jail of His Mind and the Songs Within," countered with the laughable "Wilderland," the practically unintelligible "State," and the utterly frustrating "Like a Reflection in a Mirror with No Glass."

The stories are varied, from straight-out pornography to interesting social commentary, resulting in an uneven tone that hardly feels erotic, and the one very sour note that I can voice about this collection is the inclusion of "For the Mortals Among Us," which uses under age sex unnecessarily and presents a lesbian character in possibly the least positive light I have seen since fiction of the 40s and 50. It feels exploitative from beginning to end.

At 344 pages, this anthology is a hefty read with mixed sexualities represented, but given that the tone and success of the stories varies so widely, it drags terribly. More often than not, I found my self counting pages, trying to determine how many more there were before I reached the end of a particular story (and, ultimately, the end of the anthology). Overall, the collection's high points are wonderful, but what impressed me most about Erotic Fantastic is that more than half the stories could have (and should have) been edited out. In short, like some of the more mediocre and weaker stories within its pages, Erotic Fantastic, the collection, could have done with some judicious editing. Then it might truly have been fantastic rather than simply unending.

Originally reviewed for Uniquely Pleasurable.