The Velderet: A Cybersex S/M Serial [Paperback]

Cecilia Tan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2001

Roommates Kobi and Merin have a problem. They live in a carefree, utopian society where oppression and inequality have been eradicated, everyone has a say in the government, and everyone has plenty of food, clothing and sex. The problem? Kobi and Merin harbor secret taboo desires, fantasizing about slavery and sexual domination. Through their computer networks they seek out others who share their desires. But when their society opens diplomacy and trade with a war-like, domineering culture, suppressed desires burst forth. Is it the end of the world as they know it? Originally serialized in TASTE OF LATEX Magazine, Cecilia Tan's "The Velderet," presents an erotic world like no other.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Tan, a widely published sf-erotica short-story writer, now attempts to meld the genres in a novel. Although the results are mixed, the potential of her genre blending is, to say the least, stirring. Roommates Kobi (male) and Merin (female) live in a world too utopian to be utopia. Free from all inequality, they share a strange desire: to be sexual slaves. Their fellow Bellonians discourage any iniquity, so Kobi and Merin explore their fantasies secretly in cyberspace at the state-sanctioned sex house at which Kobi works, the Velderet. When the Bellonians inaugurate diplomatic relations with the powerful, belligerent Kylarans, their entire existence soon rests on Kobi's willingness to be enslaved. Tan does well at wedding futuristic fantasy and sex, but sf buffs will have to suspend disbelief repeatedly to keep from poking holes in the sometimes-thin plot. Still, Tan's interesting exercise in alchemy manages to provoke the mind nearly as much as the body. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 196 pages
• Publisher: Circlet Press (August 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885865279
• ISBN-13: 978-1885865274
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,841,502 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

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deliciously Sexy Sci-Fi, July 18, 2001

By 

Miss Gold (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Velderet: A Cybersex S/M Serial (Paperback)

I have read many Ms. Tan's short stories and was looking forward to this, her first novel. She did not disappoint. For those familiar with Cecilia Tan's work, this will be a change in that it is straight third person narrative. The absence of a particular voice however, only helps us to follow our two main characters, roommates Merin and Kobi, as they seek to explore their desires for sexual servitude in a utopian society where inequality is forbidden.

The sex is wonderful and hot and, of course, integral to the plot. I especially enjoyed the playful elements in Merin and Kobi's experimentation with each other as they try to fulfill vague fantasies without any cultural guidelines. They are the ultimate BDSM newbies.

As a science fiction story it works well. There are no clumsy explanations of customs and technologies; everything is tightly written and assumes and intelligent reader. There is a plot other than sex (a trade agreement with another planet) but the two subjects, that of an erotic novel and the sci-fi save the world story, mesh together seamlessly.

I would recommend this book as a wonderful introduction to the Circlet Press list. They mainly publish anthologies, but I hope that this novel is the start of a new trend.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a sexy book!, July 9, 2001

By 

Magdalene Meretrix (Idaho) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Velderet: A Cybersex S/M Serial (Paperback)

The Velderet is a story about two characters, Kobi and Merin, who live in a world where acts of dominance and submission are not only subversive, they are illegal. Kobi works at The Velderet, a government-subsidized sex house where citizens can fulfill their monthly pleasure quotas through cybersex as well as flesh-and-blood liaisons. When Kobi and Merin realize that they both share a desire to submit to others, they turn to the Velderet as a way to cautiously find others who share their outlawed proclivities.

Not only is Cecilia Tan's book wonderful as a work of erotica -- there is sex in every chapter and it's hot, arousing sex that varies so much I ended up turning page after page, eager to see what the characters would try next -- it's also a great science fiction story with believable alien worlds and advanced technology as well as the traditional tendency towards social commentary in a fictional form. Despite the theme of BDSM being outlawed in Kobi and Merin's world, The Velderet never felt preachy or moralizing to me. The characters felt real and the plot was believable. Even the sex scenes were an integral part of the plot rather than side-explorations parallel to the plot. All in all, this book is tight and well put together.

This is the first piece of Cecilia Tan's writing that I have read and I am eager to seek out more of her work now. I give this book two thumbs up though it's hard to hold the book open with your thumb extended and Tan's book is so hot it takes both hands to read it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good tale, August 5, 2005

By 

Laurie Pollack "Laurie" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Velderet: A Cybersex S/M Serial (Paperback)

A well written and enjoyable tale which highlights very well the fact that extremes of anything are dangerous: even extremes of equality, and that therefore has implications for our society and the restrictions we place upon how we act and think.

My only criticism is that I felt that the real story was with the couple and their awakenings, rather than with the aliens, and I didn't have much interest in the latter, they seemed to be a little too cliche, and also too much of a deux ex machina.

I found myself wishing that the author had skipped the whole thing about the aliens, and just followed the partners, and others they met, as they created an underground culture and attempted to liberate both each other and their their society.