Off Limits: Tales of Alien Sex

The Reality Trip by Robert Silverberg  ★★★★☆

“She is a cosmic nuisance, but I fear I’m getting to like her.” 

Part meaningful story of loneliness, part SNL skit, I burst out laughing at least twice.  

Maybe I’m an asshole and I should have seen the despair in more even terms but deep levels of crazy amuse me.  

It’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days with crab aliens.  How could I not laugh?

Sextraterrestrials by Joe Haldeman and Jane Yolen ★★★★☆ 

A two author poetry challenge of alien sex; people this was fun!

The Future of Birds by Mike O’Driscoll ★★★★☆ 

I almost gave up on this strange and unpleasant story told from the point of view of a drag queen sex worker in Brazil.  But at its core it asks an interesting question:

If there was a new bombshell STD that targeted only women, in the way HIV was perceived to target gay men, what would happen?

O’Driscoll believes it would not get a tenth of the funding of HIV and that men would just turn to drag queens or other gender reassigned versions of women.  

He thinks they would let us die.

It was ugly... but frightfully believable.

His Angel by Roberta Lannes ★★★★☆ 

“Females required a firm hand, he thought.” 

Just keep telling yourself that douche bag.  The ending and the authors notes bumped this story of a madman who gets his comeuppance up to four stars.

Aye, and Gomorrah by Samuel R. Delany ★★★★☆ 

Ooh another story rich with ideas.  

In the future, long term space explorers will be gender neutral and neutered.  Considering the limited resources, claustrophobic environment, and radiation exposure I can see why this would be preferable.  

Voluntarily of course, not drafted.

Speaking of which... did anyone else indulge themselves 20+ years ago and read Cry to Heaven?  It is the story of an eighteenth century castrati told in lush prose.  The spacers/frelks made me think of the castrati: renowned, glorified, adored, misunderstood and shunned.

Read it for yourself:

http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/aye-and-gomorrah/

The House of Mourning by Brian Stableford ★★★★☆ 

That was the best one thus far.  STDs of the future as a wasting disease going hand and hand with good ol’ hypocrisy and intolerance.

Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland by Gwyneth Jones ★★★★☆ 

Red Sonja was one of my favorite childhood films.  There was a good decade where I would have given almost anything to be six-foot redheaded tigress.  

The story is about using fantasy therapy to help understand, come to terms with, relationships.  

“I want you to walk away from therapy with lowered expectations: I guess that would be a success.” 

But, like the protagonist, I think it would be hard to go back from virtual sex as virtually gifted characters.  However, as the shrink pointed out exhaustively, reality intrudes if more than one of you is ‘real.’

The Tattooist by Susan Wade ★★★☆☆ 

Well, you don’t hear that everyday.  Tattooist get some strange requests but Claren decides this client isn’t a pervert, he’s someone who needs her help.

Over the next twelve weeks their close relationship changes her desires.

The Lucifer of Blue by Sherry Coldsmith ★★★☆☆ 

Unpleasant, but fair, story of an English prostitute in Franco Spain during WWII.

 

Queen of the Apocalypse by Scott Bradfield ★★★☆☆ 

This was a bumpy exploration of a woman trying to understand herself and what it means to be a woman.  It didn’t feel like fantasy or science fiction, more like chick lit.

Oral by Richard Christian Matheson ★★★☆☆ 

Anyone else remember The World is Not Enough? Renard, the baddie, is slowly loosing all of his sensations to the bullet lodged in his brain.  Elektra uses the memories of their previous lovemaking to give him pleasure.  

This was less successful.  What germaphobe lays on a motel bed? 

Grand Prix by Simon Ings ★★★☆☆ 

I can’t decide if this was humorous, possibly insulting, and/or completely strange.  A race car driver of the future must jack into his car through a port on his taint.  It’s a profoundly emasculating image that he was forced into by his boss, a woman.

I immediately thought of the South Park episode The Entity where energy efficient Segways must be driven in a certain way. 

Captain China by Bruce McAllister ★★★☆☆ 

“That is how I live - like an animal, on my hands and my knees in a little room full of the sounds each night that animals make.” 

Even with its alien hero ending, this story of a child sex worker was damn bleak.  Sigh.  How could it be otherwise?

Background:  The Dream by Lisa Tuttle ★★★☆☆ 

A girl goes from having phallic dreams to having an actual phallus. 

The Dream-Catcher by Joyce Carol Oates ★★★☆☆

I don’t have much to say about this nightmare of maternal instinct slamming into beastiality and violence.  

Fetish by Martha Soukup ★★☆☆☆ 

I’ve heard of womencutting their hair after breakups (🙋🏻‍♀️) but Susan decides to add hair.  While it is true that if you are after different fish you should try different bait, all Susan got was a one night stand.  Girl, you could have got that without even washing your hair.

Dolly Sodom by John Kaiine ★★☆☆☆ 

“He tumbles, headlong, reaching out, deaf to the rattle of coin and his own screaming.” 

Short about a desperate needy man who chases a coin operated sex doll down the stairs.

He falls.

That’s it.

Urus Triad, Later by Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg ★☆☆☆☆ 

Goldilocks raped by three bears.  That was all I got from that messy soup of words.

Eaten by Neil Gaiman ★☆☆☆☆ 

File this under Crap Written in College While High.

In the Month of Athyr by Elizabeth Hand DNF

“Because of recent advances in bioengineering, the Ascendants believed that women, long known to be psychologically mutable and physically unstable, might also soon be unnecessary.” 

This was another gender bending kill-all-the-women story.  I read half and decided I didn’t need this shit in my life.

Overall I completed 19/20 stories that averaged out to three stars.  But this has been my least favorite Datlow anthology, the stories did not live up to the title. Two stars.