Customer Reviews

Speaking Parts: Provocative Lesbian Erotica

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Can a man write good dyke erotica -- YES! What makes this book so great isn't that it's a guy writing girl erotica, but that the stories themselves are so wonderfully written: sexy, wild, clever, and just plain fun. Put politics aside and enjoy a really good read.

Setting aside all the silly politics of orientation and gender bias, how do the stories read? Quite well, for the most part. Some are quite gentle, tinged with an atmosphere of bittersweet romance. The stories A Light Minute and New York, N.Y. by Way of Taos, N.M being good examples. Others are firmly placed in the technoir/cyberpunk genre I know that the author loves dearly. The edge of your seat grabber Hot Definiton being a particular outstanding choice read in that department. Those wanting more sex focused stories and not hungering for real stories with just a basis in sex or sexuality had better look elsewhere. When picking this anthology up, the reader should really put down all the phony preconceptions about what a writer should or should not be and just concentrate on the important part of reading, which is and always will be the story - not s/he who tells it. Recommended.

I was really surprised by how good this collection is: smart, wild, and always sexy. There's a lot of erotica being written out there and the best of it comes from M. Christian. Highly recommended!

Speaking Parts is a book of lesbian erotica, which isn't exactly hard to find these days. Lesbian erotica, like all other genres, ranges from unbearably good to unspeakably bad, and three guesses which side the bulk of the published lands. What's unusual here is that all these stories were written by a man, and what's really unusual is that they're great. If you've bought an erotic anthology in the last five years you've read something by M. Christian, and chances are you remembered it, late at night, long afterwards. His [stuff] is eminently readable, lends itself well to being read aloud to a loved one or one you'd like to love, and has the effect on me of making me want to rush back and rewrite everything I've ever written. Porn writers note - this is how it's done.

There are a few good pieces in this collection, but the majority are par or below. Overall it just doesn't live up to the "provocative lesbian erotica" promise. If nothing else, the typos alone ruin the mood for the reader. I recommend "Best Lesbian Erotica 2000/2001" instead (which does include "Dress Pinks," one of Christian's better pieces).

I was amazed to discover that M. Christian is a man. He writes the most beautiful lesbian erotica I've ever read. I was reluctant at first to check this book out, but friends who know his work convinced me I should see for myself. I'm so glad I did -- now I may even read his other books. The book contains stories that are well-written, interesting, steamy, and with a unique sensibility I thought only a woman could muster.

The concept of "genderbending" has been applied lately to erotic lit, and this book shows some of the troubling aspects of that. Of course men have been writing women's stories and vice versa for ages in straight lit and other genres. But when it comes to sexuality, at least modern erotic literature that has some class to it, there is a need for truth and authentic emotion. If there's some reason that a straight man should be lauded for writing lesbian erotica, it is not obvious from this book. Avoid, there's so much better lesbian erotica available from people who understand it from the inside.

The author's gender becomes completely irrelevant when one reads this book. As a fan of this genre, I read a lot of stories but I can always trust that M. Christian will tell a great story that just happens to have sex threaded through it. He isn't interested in gender-bending or experimenting with sexuality -- he is just a consummate story teller with a penchant for sexual subjects and taboos.

I've read most of M. Christian's work -- even the gay male stuff -- and love all of it. Most porn is pretty one-dimensional and completely lacking in any kind of substantive story. Where M. Christian excels is in weaving sex into an already well-crafted story, so that your mind AND your body gets involved. Good stuff.

... That's because it isn't "erotica" like you've probably come to know it. Not everybody in this book has orgasms and thinks only about sex. I love these stories! They're warm, they're sexy, and they only get close enough to raunchy to be titillating. ... After reading about half this book, though, I forgot the writer wasn't a woman. The stories themselves take center stage and the writer never gets in the way. My commute has become much shorter since I started reading these stories on the bus...!