Customer Reviews

Wenches, Witches and Strumpets (Nexus)

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I will admit that I'm fairly new to this whole Erotica genre of books and I've been buying stuff at random. So far what I've read wasn't giving me hope for this genre, but then I came across Aishling Morgan. From a literary perspective this is precisely the kind of author I am looking for! I've noticed I tend to read these kinds of books because I actually enjoy the stories and sometimes not for the reason they are intended. Why do I do this? Mostly because I like the perspectives on the subject, because it is usually considered quite taboo in my society. I think it's a dose of real concepts into fictional worlds. I like reading about these additives in my literature. Like in other series I read, such as Dragonlance, for example, you won't find any sadistic characters modeled after a De Sade style tale! Nor should there be, mind you, this would ruin my experience in that world. So I come to this genre to get a dose of that "other" element that is usually hidden in the mainstream avenues of any fictional world (not just a Fantasy setting). That would put a black mark on what Dragonlance is to me. However, I acknowledge that there technically should be characters that adhere to the most depraved concepts within even that kind of a fantasy world. I guess my mind is depraved enough where I very much get intellectual enjoyment out of reading stories on this level.

That being said, Aishling Morgan provided the exact kind of quality I would expect from literature! He even exceeded in many facets that caught me off guard and made the adventures all the more enjoyable for me. "Wenches, Witches and Strumpets" is basically a collection of short stories. Naturally some are better than others, but all of them are at least very well written. I noticed I tended to prefer the longer stories because Aishling was able to flesh out the characters a lot better in my opinion. Topics of this nature, I always like to get into a characters head to see what they are thinking and possibly what drives them, not just lewd scenes for the sake of it. Aishling, for the most part, gives that to the readers.

One really superb thing about most of the stories in this book is they have awesome endings. Despite the fact that a lot of these stories have fairly practiced and sometimes cliché elements, I could not actually predict most of the endings! This, to me, shows how adept of a writer Morgan is. I've come in contact with enough writing in my day to be able to judge fairly well where a story may end, but I couldn't on most of Morgan's tales. He just had surprise endings that made me laugh in hysterics or were shocking (but also funny at the same time!). He adds in a serious degree of humor and one short story "A Lady in Church" seems to be based on the concept of a naughty joke and it's just fleshed out.

Some of these tales were just downright creative as anything else I've come across. "Virtual Tramps" really caught me off guard because it was very science fiction-esque. And it kind of combined the concept of Star Trek: The Next Generation's holodeck into the story, but I don't know if that's what influenced the idea because they both came out in 1988! On of the other strong stories was "Virago". This has nothing to do with the erotic content because doing that stuff in practice doesn't even interest me, the story was just so superbly written! I really got into the characters and wanted to see what would happen to them. Basically the story takes place in the future and the human species has lost some height. A professor is giving some college students a lesson on history and touring a museum and she goes into a section with an electronic nanny (robot), but it malfunctions and they are trapped with the robot! Needless to say the sequence of events after that are highly absurd, which is what made it hilarious and fun to read. It also created enough intrigue for me to want to know how they might escape or if they would!

I know this will sound strange, but one of the worst stories in this collection was the first one "Mistress Perfection." Honestly the tale was fairly dry in concept, but from that one story I could tell I was dealing with a writer of a very different caliber and knew it was very well written. This may be due to the fact that the characters in this short story just didn't grab my attention to find out what would befall them. The worst story on here is by far "Princess". This one really didn't work for me at all. Frankly this is due to the short length of the story. The characters just appear and do random stuff, but they have absolutely no depth. I know only the bare basics of the characters involved, but that's it. Personally I want more out of a story. The other tale that befell this same problem was "Tigress". "Tigress" was interesting because it used anthropomorphic characters, like Tigers with humanoid characteristics, etc. I thought this was a very interesting tale and really should have gone onto something bigger.

One thing that is incredibly interesting about Aishling Morgan's writing is that he doesn't always adhere to that concept of beautiful people. Instead he even uses characters that are downright repulsive in his tales. I think this adds a heavy degree of realism when you think about it from a literary perspective. In the story "Cows" he uses some people that are very overweight, and while this is not something I'm attracted to, I found myself enjoying the tale because it ended up being a mystery at the same time. This duality is really what makes his stories interesting, I think. I was surprised I enjoyed the stories despite these factors being used and the tale "Virago" where they used ugly homeless men. Never would I have thought I'd find merit in the use of such characters in a novel of this genre. That just goes to show you what a testament this writing is! Now I should point out that this novel isn't for the faint of heart. There is spanking, diaper/child role-play, there is even a degree of toilet humiliation concepts. Also the story "Cows" they actually have women being milked, which I will admit, not everyone is going to be very interested in reading about. There are a lot of humiliation scenes catered to, but this is alongside fairly interesting stories. Just thought I would at least warn people what to expect because it really is a variety that stretches from fairly normal scenes to the downright bizarre.

Honestly, I'm saving the absolute best for last! The story "Succubus" is my absolute favorite. Favorite! It feels extremely influenced by Dante Alighieri's "Inferno" and being a pretty big fan of that whole idea and the Divine Comedy in general, I really got into "Succubus". It's basically about a guy who is sent to Hell to live out his days in his kind of torment. However, before he goes into his sentence he is taken on a tour of the different punishments by a very alluring succubus. I have to say seeing Dante's work used in this light was pretty exhilarating. It's just a shame it was a short story and I was disappointed it ended. However, in the essay at the end he mentioned he was going to write a full novel based in that world. Needless to say I can't wait to get my hands on that one.

I would have enjoyed this book without the essay at the end, but Morgan decided to write an essay about fantasy fiction and why he does what he does. Frankly this gives me absolutely newfound respect. I would have just been happy with the stories, but it was taken to a whole new level and intellectualized perfectly! Morgan goes into detail about the worlds he created, which I found fascinating. He also discuses, at length, about how he writes for his interests and why you don't see certain things in his books or why you do. I found this great! You can tell he writes about what interests him and that's probably why the stories are so well thought out. They're not written with blind intent, they have a purpose. I hope after this that I have done Aishling Morgan's writing justice in this review and I hope he will be pleased to see a reviewer that gets it. At least I hope I get it from his perspective at the very least. I like to think I comprehended his motivations and got the point of his stories.

I really enjoyed this book. It is a book that contains many well written short stories. I may be 17, but i have read a few erotic novels and this one is in my collection. The detail of these stories is enough to give you a wonderful picture in the minds eye, a basis to the characters which lets you live their life. This book could be many people's favorite. It is wonderful. In short stories that this book contains, they almost compare to Anne Rice's Beauty Series. Quite wonderful if i do say so. Happy reading.