If you're looking for Yo Ho Ho inspiration I highly recommend the LibriVox reading of Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood. Just click here and be prepared for wonderful presentation of a classic pirate story. Now go shiver your or timbers or something ...
... and the WOWs keep coming! The great Angela Caperton just sent me this very sweet review of my collection Coming Together Presents M. Christian (a special project where the proceeds are being donated to Planned Parenthood). Thanks so much, Angela!I have a confession: I am the world’s slowest reader. I know readers who can plow through several hundred pages in a couple days. Talk to me in a month or more.
But there is a reason for my plodding pace. I don’t read. I digest.
Thoroughly.
I hang on word choice, structure, lyrical sentences. Plot and character are sacred to me, and if a story doesn’t convert me immediately, it had better redeem itself quickly.
M. Christian’s erotica is a sumptuous feast I will gladly enjoy again.
In Coming Together Presents: M. Christian, I found stories – some previously published, others new to print – that kept me filled, kept me coming back for more – and kept me guessing!
M. Christian doesn’t shy from sensitive subjects in his stories, and in this collection dives headlong into issues of body image, selfishness, couples on the edge, one great story of a raunchy breakup that was totally hot, and does all this while taking us to the past, living in the now, and hurtling us beyond the stars – and constantly wrapping the stories in the tendrils of relationship and sex.
Several of the selections have stayed with me. In “Missing Alice” I was completely drawn into the description of Alice’s vivacious personality, her freedom of style, and the void her absence causes the narrator. I especially loved M. Christian’s authentic portrayal of how we change, how relationships evolve, and how a wild child might one day be the couch potato you can’t live without.
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Wow ... and I mean WOW: check out this wonderful review of my science fiction/fantasy and horror collection Love Without Gun Control (from the always-great Renaissance/PageTurner Books) by Lisabet Sarai:I know M.Christian primarily as an author of erotica—an astonishingly versatile writer who swings from gay to lesbian, from contemporary to science fiction, from cyberpunk to humor, without missing a beat. Anyone who's not familiar with his energy and creativity in the erotic realm should get a copy of Coming Together Presents M. Christian (and support Planned Parenthood at the same time). Until he sent me a copy of his new collection Love Without Gun Control, I didn't fully appreciate the darker side of his imagination.
The title story of this collection paints a hilarious but nevertheless chilling picture of a society in which everyone carries and uses deadly weapons—all the time. He cleverly spins out the implications of such a scenario, in particular the difficulties it poses for lovers.
Equally funny, grotesque and scary is “Buried & Dead”, a tale of political ambition amid the zombie apocalypse, overflowing with rotting flesh and dangling entrails. “Constantine in Love”, the impeccably satirical final tale in the collection, will also make you laugh, though not without a grimace, as the unflappable Constantine Foote, polymath, wine connoisseur, seducer and con artist, desperately chases the woman of his dreams.
These are the lighter tales. Most of the other stories in Love Without Gun Control will leave you queasy, terrified, or both. “Needle Taste” portrays a bleak future in which a vicious serial killer has the mass appeal of a rock star. “Hush Hush” unfolds like a nightmare in the narrow alleys of Beijing, as an adventurer watches one person after another being robbed of speech. In “Wanderlust”, a man cursed by a jealous goddess is forced to live out his days driving his Mustang from one lonely gas station to the next. “Shallow Fathoms” is pure horror, fueled by the repulsive fascination of madness. “Nothing So Dangerous” builds an intricately detailed dystopia of universal surveillance and arbitrary detention, in which trust is the most perilous thing of all.
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Sadly, Floating World is now but a memory ... but WHAT a memory: I had a total, complete, and utter blast. Major kudos to the great folks who put on such a magnificent event (I'm especially looking at YOU, Corey). 
Check it out: my new post at the fantastic WriteSex site just went up. Here's a tease (for the rest you'll have to go to the site):I can't begin to tell you how thrilled I am to have been invited to the Floating World Convention! For all you attendees here's the final list of what I'll be teaching/attending and when:
(Fri 9:00 – 10:30pm)
(Sat 1:30-3:00pm)
It’s a little strange that I bought myself a copy of Best S & M III: Still More Stories of Still More Extreme Sex (published by Logical Lust, 2010), and that is because of its title. “Best” is fine, and “III” sounds good, but to be honest, S & M (sadism & masochism) really isn’t my thing. I have no objections to it, on either side, it just doesn’t hold any strong personal interest.
Just to be sure, I checked a dictionary. This definition is for the term sadomasochism, but you could divide it easily enough: The combination of sadism and masochism, in particular the deriving of pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from inflicting or submitting to physical or emotional abuse. Well, there you go. “Abuse” does not sound appealing to me.
So why buy a whole anthology of it? Well… it was a loaf I bought for one slice. For about a year, I’ve been following the blog of a writer called Oatmeal Girl. Her blog is largely personal reflections, with some poetry and a little fiction. And I just love her writing (even though, yes, she does write a lot about sadism, and masochism… but in a way I like, somehow….). She’d never published offline before, though. So when I saw an announcement on her blog that she had a story coming out in print, I wanted it!
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I'm extremely flattered, moved, thrilled, excited, pleased, and ... well, happy to have been invited by the great folks at the Floating World Convention ("one of the biggest alt-sex educational and play events of the year: three full days of great presenters, special events, a huge playspace and an incredibly diverse community of attendees") to come to Edison, New Jersey, this August (the 20th to the 22nd) to read, hang out, and teach some very cool classes:
The extremely nice (and, yes, sweet) Sharazade and I had a great chat about what it means to be an anthology editor and other fun stuff. I've been interviewed by a few folks but this is one of my favorites: Sharazade was a delight to talk to and it was great to be able to talk about the business and the process of anthologies. As always, click here or on MORE to read the full interview.... I’ve worked as a commissioning editor, a development editor, a series editor, and a copy editor — but never as an anthology editor. So rather than just guess what one does and how he/she does it, I decided to ask a real one. I chose M. Christian, because 1) he’s edited 20 successful anthologies, and 2) I could easily find his contact information. And of course also because 3) he answered promptly and politely and agreed with enthusiasm. I’d heard from some authors he’d worked with that he was “sweet,” and I wasn’t quite sure what that meant — doesn’t his photo look devilish?? but he really is. He closes his emails with “Hugs,” and called me “Sweetie” once, which quite tickled me coming from a man who’s just finished editing Best S/M Erotica Vol 3: Still More Extreme Stories of Still More Extreme Sex (which I’m reviewing here in my next post within the next week).
Here, then, is that interview, with information of interest to both the reader and the writer of quality erotica.
1. How does an edited volume come to be? That is, does a publisher choose a topic and solicit an editor, or does an editor dream up a project and approach a publisher?
Actually, it’s done both ways. Most of the time an editor will put together a brief (one page or so) proposal about the anthology — what it’s about, who might be invited, how it could be marketed, etc. – and then send it around to various publishers, hoping to find a home for it. Sometimes, though, a publisher will reach out to an editor they might know as a writer or who may have done other anthologies with them to do a project. That’s happened to me a few times, and it’s a wonderful compliment.
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Yes, indeedy, I do have some amazing friend and, believe me, I am very grateful for all of them. And one of them, Kit O'Connell, just posted this wonderful teaser for the brand new re-issue of my science fiction erotica collection, The Bachelor Machine, which was just put out my another amazing friend, Cecilia Tan, at Circlet Books. I’m a longtime fan of author and editor M. Christian, perhaps most especially his short story collection The Bachelor Machine. I first read and reviewed it back in 2004 when it was in print from Green Candy Press. Not only is the book back in print as an e-book from Circlet Press, it now features my brand new foreward:
M. Christian is a writer who doesn’t let the reader off easy. I don’t mean that his books aren’t easy to read (he has a fine way with words and a unique, recognizable voice). The thing about his stories is that even at their filthiest, they also make you think.
You can take a peek at the rest of my introduction, which will hopefully convince you to buy the book. Your money will be going to support not just a hungry author but an almost 20-year old small press dedicated solely to the publication of erotic genre fiction.
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." - Abraham LincolnHere's a few choice bit from Vaughn Walker's ruling:
"Proposition 8 places the force of law behind stigmas against gays and lesbians."
"The sexual orientation of an individual does not determine whether that individual can be a good parent."
"The exclusion (of same-sex couples from marriage) exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having different roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed."
"Domestic partnerships exist solely to differentiate same-sex unions from marriage."
"Proposition 8 harms the state's interest in equality."
"The evidence at trial regarding the campaign to pass Proposition 8 uncloaks the most likely explanation for its passage: a desire to advance the belief that opposite-sex couples are morally superior to same-sex couples."
"Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians."
It might sound sappy but it really does mean a lot to me that people read, and enjoy, my work - and it means even more when someone actually wants to hear what I think about writing, life, or whatever. So it was a real treat when the great Deborah Riley-Magnus, of Whispers Of The Muse, not only did an interview with me but also featured a sample story from my collection of science fiction, fantasy and horror stories - Love Without Gun Control - on her great site. Here's a teaser. For the rest just go to Whispers Of The Muse. Muse: First of all, Whispers of the Muse welcomes you to the site. Tell us a little about yourself. What part of the world do you live in? Tell us about your background?
M Christian: My dear, I live in my own little fantasy world: elves, fairies, vampires ... compassionate conservatives....In all seriousness I’ve lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1988, having moved up here from LA, where I was born. Between here and there I’ve lived in Europe for a year and seen just about every state in the union, as well – as have most of us I believe – as having had a wide variety of jobs. Right now I drive a truck for an organic mushroom farm. Thrilling, I know, but I do it for the fresh air and exercise more than the staggeringly huge paycheck.
Writing-wise, ever since I was a wee little one I’ve always been very imaginative, but it wasn’t until high school that I heard I could use my imagination to make a living by maybe, perhaps, being a writer.
For the next ten years I tried my best to do just that ... and failed each and every time, though I did periodically come close. But then in 1993, on pretty much a larf, I took a class in erotica writing and handed the teacher my very first try at smut. Shock! Amazement! She not only bought the story for a magazine she was editing but it was then reprinted in Best American Erotica 1994. The rest, as they say, is history.
Muse: Who are your favorite authors?
M Christian: I like to say that I like what I like, in that while I certainly have some faves I think good writing is good writing, no matter where it might pop up: TV shows, comic books, romance, Westerns, shopping lists – whatever. Right now my tastes are all over the place: I’m a huge fan of Alexander Jablokov, Adam Warren, Grant Morrison, Hilary J. Bader, Eiji Otsuka, Alfie Bester, and ... a lot more I know I’m forgetting. I zealously resist really popular authors because, one, they usually are pretty damned awful but, two, as a fringe writer I feel the least I can do is support other writers who have avoided, or been denied, the spotlight.
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