Customer Reviews

Erotic Fantastic: The Best of Circlet Press 1992-2002

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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.

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.