Imagination Is Intelligence With An Erection

BDSM Reviews Like Fingers Breadth

2012-02-03T11:25:00.000-08:00

This is ... well, wow: a nice review of Fingers Breadth by the great folks at BDSM Reviews!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 paddles

This book is not usually the sort thing I’d read. The description is gay/horror; the cover is a hand with part of a digit missing, so normally I’d probably give it a miss. I’m so glad I didn’t. The book blurb from Amazon says you have never read a book like fingers breadth, which is the most accurate description of this book I’ve seen. I started reading with trepidation. I’m not into horror and I have a knack for turning the written word into a vibrant image in my mind. My hesitation came from what I might end up visualizing, as I read about the attacks on gay men, who are drugged, and have their finger (or part of it) cut off. I didn’t need to worry, as it turned out having a finger cut off isn’t the most horrifying part of the storyline.

There were many things I loved about this book. The author spares us gruesome details in relation to the attacks, and in some instances the act itself is done in a caring manner. He doesn’t limit his storytelling to a few main characters who tell the story and its impact on those around them. This is a book about a community that’s being terrorized, so there is a community of characters depicted throughout the book. Like many of us who are avid readers, I can usually get to a point in a story where I can predict the ending. Not so with Fingers Breadth. The book turned into something I never expected, a psychological mind twist, an immersion into the human condition and how people react to trauma, whether they are the victim of it or merely a spectator from a community perspective. The truly horrifying aspect of the book was the community response to what was taking place. Totally believable reactions of hatred, fear, violence, and the need to be part of what was going on by copying actions, or self inflicting injuries. The heinous act of mutilation becomes secondary, almost an afterthought, to the popular perceptions missing part of a digit evokes.

[MORE]

Yet More Philosophy

2012-02-03T10:19:00.000-08:00

More Philosophy

2012-02-01T16:01:00.000-08:00

Buy My Books Buy My Books Buy My Books Buy My Books

2012-01-31T12:13:00.000-08:00

Ernest Hogan On Being A Black Marks Judge

2012-01-29T15:07:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is beyond cool: you know, right, I'm helping my great pal Marilyn Jaye Lewis with the Black Marks Contest for unpublished science fiction? Well, our guest judge for this time is one of my all-time favorite writers: Ernest Hogan ... who just posted to his site about how jazzed he is to be involved. Thanks, Ernest!

A black robe, powdered wig, and gavel may be in order – I'm going to be a judge . . . of the first Black Marks Literary Award that is. It'll be for a perviously unpublished science fiction novel. There will be a cash prize of $500, plus the option of publication.

So, if you have a virgin science fiction novel manuscript kicking around that you think is a winner, check out the guidelines, and read them carefully, because they warn:
Any guidelines that aren't expressly followed are grounds for automatic disqualification.

What will I be looking for in picking the winner? What I usually look for in the genre – I hope to get my mind blown. Give me daring feats of the imagination!

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How To Wonderfully WriteSex (15)

2012-01-29T10:26:00.001-08:00

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):

Only in erotica can the line “Come, Fido!” be problematic. Unlike some of the other Four Deadly Sins of erotica writing, bestiality is very hard to justify: with few exceptions, it’s not something that can be mistaken for something else, or lie in wait for anyone innocently trying to write about sex. This is unlike, for instance, discussing a first time sexual experience and have it accused of being pro- pedophilia. Bestiality is sex with anything living that’s not human: if it’s not living, then it’s a machine, and if it was once living, then it’s necrophilia.

A story that features—positively or negatively—anything to do with sex with animals is tough if not impossible to sell, though some people have accomplished it. However, there are some odd angles to the bestiality that a lot of people haven’t considered—both positive and negative.

On the negative side, I know a friend who had an erotic science fiction story soundly slammed by one editor because it featured sex with something non-human, technically bestiality—despite the fact that there is a long tradition of erotic science fiction, most recently culminating in the wonderful writing and publishing of Cecilia Tan and her Circlet Press (both very highly recommended). Erotic fantasy stories, too, sometimes get the “we don’t want bestiality” rejection, though myth and legend are packed with sexy demons, mermaids, ghosts, etc. This doesn’t even get into the more classical sexy beasts such as Leda and her famous swan, or Zeus and other randy gods and demi-gods in their various animal forms.

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Yet More Philosophy

2012-01-25T11:39:00.000-08:00

Yet More Philosophy

2012-01-24T15:56:00.000-08:00

Out Now: My Love Of All That Is Bizarre: The Erotic Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes Edited By M. Christian

2012-01-23T09:54:00.001-08:00

Now here's something very, very special: a collection of wonderful erotica - by some very special writers - about everyone's favorite genius detective, Sherlock Holmes: My Love Of All That Is Bizarre: The Erotic Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes - Edited By M. Christian

For all that we know about Sherlock Holmes there is much that is a complete and total mystery about him - and, as he would say himself, a that is a puzzle that should be addressed. Is it any wonder that so many of us have scratched our much-smaller craniums and pondered his relationships, trying to use his own maxim of "when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" to peer down deep into those mysteries? This timely collection focuses on his unmentioned private life. In short, the great detective's amorous inclinations, the part of life Victorians were so silent on, but so profligate in its practice. And the authors don't stop there - you will also find stories about the sexual side of other key characters who make up the canon: Irene Adler, Mrs. Hudson, Dr. Watson, and even that most infamous of villains, Professor Moriarty. Included are many of today's most popular authors including Michael Kurland (American Book Award and the Edgar Award finalist), Angela Caperton (Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica), M. Christian (Lambda Award finalist), and such other distinguished practitioners of the short story and novelette as Cesar Sanchez Zapata, Kate Lear, Wade Heaton, Dorla Moorehouse, Ivo Benengeli, Billierosie, Zachary Jean, PM White, Violet Vernet. As Holmes himself said: "The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!"

So True

2012-01-23T08:42:00.000-08:00

Announcing The Black Marks Literary Award!

2012-01-17T11:40:00.000-08:00

M. Christian and Marilyn Jaye Lewis are both thrilled to announce that for the inaugural year of the Black Marks Literary Award for best unpublished science fiction novel, the cash award will be $500.

The winning prize also includes the option of electronic publication with a long-standing eBook publisher with outstanding international distribution. If you do not wish to be published upon winning the prize, it is entirely up to you. Winners are free to shop their winning manuscript to any publisher they want to; you do not forfeit the cash prize if you do not choose publication with us.

The prize will also include possible Print-on-Demand trade paper publication with the same publisher. (The POD option is largely based on initial electronic sales figures, among other financial considerations.)

Submissions for the contest opens February 1st!

Our Mission

To publicly honor outstanding genre fiction writing, thus assisting writers and readers to find each other in these changing technological times.

About Us

The Black Marks Literary Award was founded by two award-winning genre fiction authors, Marilyn Jaye Lewis and M. Christian, each with three decades of professional experience in the fields of writing, editing, publishing, media, and multimedia. Both are longtime advocates of giving back to the writing community as well as being fervent supporters of new voices entering the field.

They are joined by Ernest Hogan as the first guest judge for the The Black Marks Literary Award:

Ernest Hogan is known for is his usual science fiction. Hisnovels, Cortez on Jupiter, High Aztech, and Smoking Mirror Blues have a cultfollowing. His short fiction has appeared in Amazing Stories, Analog, ScienceFiction Age, Flurb, and may other periodicals and anthologies. He enjoys daringfeats of the imagination.

Submission Guidelines

Please read carefully. Any guidelines that aren’t expressly followed are grounds for automatic disqualification.

We are currently accepting only Science Fiction.
Submissions must be previously unpublished. “Previously published” includes electronic publishing, serialization of any kind online or in print, and self-publishing, including more than 10,000 words on an author’s own web site.
Submissions must be completed novel-length works. Word count of the completed novel must be between 55,000 and 150,000 words.
Submissions must include a cover sheet with your name, your complete contact information, the title of your story and the word count of the completed novel.
On NO OTHER PAGES can your name and contact information appear. After the cover page, only your title should be posted in the top left-hand corner of each page.
Electronically submit, as an RTF doc attached to an email, 10 complete, consecutive pages from your novel, beginning on page one and ending on page ten. (Do not submit ten consecutive pages taken from anywhere else in the manuscript except from the beginning of the manuscript.)
Submit a complete synopsis of no more than 5 pages for the novel. (Do not put your name or contact information on the synopsis, only list the title of your novel. If your synopsis runs more than 1 page, be sure to include the title of your novel on the top left-hand corner of each page.)
5 finalists will be selected based on the first 10 pages and the synopsis of the submission.
The 5 finalists selected will be asked to submit the complete novel immediately via electronic submission as an RTF doc attached to an email.
1 winner will be selected from the 5 finalists. The winning manuscript will be determined through a point system that will be followed by each of the judges.
The winner will win

a cash award (amount determined at the start of each new contest)
receive a frame-able certificate
and an offer of publication as an eBook (and possibly as a print-on demand title) through Renaissance EBooks. Publication upon winning the award is not mandatory.

Email all contest submissions as an RTF doc attached to an email:

submit@blackmarksliteraryaward.com

We will email you to let you know your submission was received. If you do not receive the confirmation email within 5 days, please contact us at info@blackmarksliteraryaward.comas it likely means we did not receive your submission.

More Philosophy

2012-01-16T10:11:00.000-08:00

(giggle)

2012-01-14T09:59:00.000-08:00

Testify!

2012-01-12T10:30:00.000-08:00

Zee Likes Fingers Breadth

2012-01-11T14:13:00.000-08:00

This is simply beyond wonderful: check out this very touching review of Fingers Breadth by Zee of Firepages. Swoon!

Someone is abducting young gay men in San Francisco, drugging them and cutting off the tip of their pinky. The entire city if on edge, especially after dark. The gay community fear for themselves, as they know that anyone could be next. Even though the police are looking for the Cutter, no one really knows who this person is nor the motivation of cutting a finger. Suspicion divides the community. There are people who have only nine-and-a-half fingers, and those who have ten fingers. The niners suspect the Cutter may have ten fingers and those who walk around with ten fingers hope they are not next.

M. Christian has to be the most amazing writer I've ever read. He is a master manipulator with his words. You read his stories and begin to feel exactly what he wants you to feel - arousal, desire, anger, fear, hope. Readers find themselves surprised to feel this way, yet it is M. Christian's way of pulling dormant and primal emotions out of you. And the crazy part is that you don't mind embracing these perverse feelings as you are that pulled into the story. Not only does M. Christian push his characters in his stories to their limits, but he also pushes his readers minds to meet him in these faraway places.

I loved how M. Christian addressed multiple facets of storytelling, like horror, thriller, and societal issues. The way the community split between those with 9.5 and 10 fingers was genius, and the horrible experience that the victims go through is downright chilling. Finger's Breadth has a way of getting under your skin and sending chills to your bones in both a terrifying and arousing kind of way. Finger's Breadth is not a story; it is an experience I highly recommend.

More Philosophy

2012-01-10T11:44:00.000-08:00

Philosophy

2012-01-09T12:15:00.000-08:00

Lisabet Sarai Likes Fingers Breadth

2012-01-08T10:13:00.000-08:00

The wonderfulness (is that a word?) just keeps coming: check out this very nice review of my new gay erotic/thriller/horror/sf novel, Fingers Breadth by the respected (and very talented) Lisabet Sarai!

Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad. - Diogenes

A lunatic is loose in San Francisco, seducing gay men, drugging them, then slicing off the tip of one of their fingers at the first joint. At first, terror grips the city. Bars and clubs catering to the gay community close; no one dares venture out at night, for fear of encountering the Cutter. A chance hook-up with an attractive stranger could make you the next victim

As time goes on, though, and more men join the ranks of those with nine-and-half-fingers, the mood shifts. Fear morphs into a sort of desperate heat. New venues open, more vibrant and raw than ever. Men with all their fingers intact become objects of suspicion – perhaps they are the one responsible for the plague of mutilation. The gay community develops new rituals to deal with the horror. But who is the Cutter, and why does he pursue his macabre crusade?

In Finger's Breadth, M. Christian has created a creepy and compelling narrative that, like so much of his work, defies categorization. The book offers elements of horror, erotica, science fiction and social commentary. Christian's San Francisco is recognizable but weirdly skewed from the real city. Its dark streets are haunted by free-lance cops and merciless predators, newly-outed kids fresh from the boonies and jaded veterans of a thousand blow jobs.

There's no single hero. The novel proceeds as a series of vignettes, views of the world through the eyes of various men affected by the explosion of violence. Snippets from newspapers and radio programs move the plot forward. Each character holds a piece of the truth without necessarily being aware of that fact. By the end, the reader has a pretty clear idea of what's going on, but Christian never actually comes right out and explains.
M. Christian understands the dynamics of fear as well as the fascination of extremes. He transcribes chilling Internet chat sessions, between a man who might or might not be the Cutter, and a man who longs to be.

TRANCHERMAN191: I'll only ask one more time. Why do you hope it's me?
CONRADICAL02: i don't know!
TRANCHERMAN191: You do know. You just won't say it.
CONRADICAL02: i want more. i want something different. Is that why you do it?
TRANCHERMAN191: Answer my question or stop bothering me.
CONRADICAL02: i want something different. i want 2 do what you do.
TRANCHERMAN191: Because?
CONRADICAL02: i want it to mean something. Sex, i mean. Or something like that. It doesnt do anything. Its fun. But it doesnt last. It's what everyone else does. Its not special. i like it, but i mean, its like what everyone else does. Is that what you mean?
TRANCHERMAN191: Go on.
CONRADICAL02: i dont know. Fuck. Its not enough. ive done it all kinds of ways but its not...it doesn't stay. Thats not right. Fuck, i dont know. i want to feel more. i want to be more. i dont want just tricks. i want risky. i want to do more than fuck and suck. i want to feel real big real powerful. Nasty. i want to be different like you.
TRANCHERMAN191: You don't know anything about me.

Finger's Breadth is simultaneously terrifying and arousing. M. Christian has tapped into the subterranean founts of desire, where the primal urges - lust, anger, fear, hunger - flow together. At the same time, the book dwells on more existential issue - the need for meaning and recognition, the urge to belong to a tribe. Like his previous work, the controversial novel Me 2, this book considers how far one might go today in order to fit in.
If you're looking for an easy, sunny, sexy book with a happy ending, don't pick upFinger's Breadth. If, on the other hand, you want a scary but enlightening ride through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, I highly recommend this book.

Billierosie Likes Fingers Breadth

2012-01-05T12:09:00.000-08:00

I may have (ahem) said it a bit too much but ... well, it can't be said enough: I really do have some fantastic friends - and one of the very best I have is Billierosie. Just look at this sweet review she just posted on amazon for Fingers Breadth. Thanks so much, sweetie!

From the Prelude onwards, we’re carried along on a roller coaster, with this fasted paced novel, fresh from the keyboard of M.Christian. “Finger’s Breadth”starts with the cops, as they interview the latest character to be mutilated after a sleazy night, out on the San Francisco streets. Typically, the interviewee can tell them nothing; he doesn’t remember, or doesn’t want to.

“He cut part of your fucking finger off,” says the exasperated cop.

“Yeah, but it could have been worse.” is the philosophical response.

One thing you can rely on M.Christian for, is a damn good story And “Finger’s Breadth is no exception; I think it’s his best one yet. As always, I get the feeling that he’s dancing ahead of me; laughing, teasing. Never taunting; M.Christian is a writer who respects his reader. He just has fun along with us, weaving his superbly crafted tale.

I mean, who’d have thought that you could write a story about Gay men waking up in the morning, minus part of a finger? It’s surreal; a crazy notion. “right hand little finger amputated at the first joint…” Yes it’s a ridiculous idea -- and yet -- it works.

This is a visual novel, in the tradition of the best Film Noir. Dark, still and silent. Characters moving into shot, then out of shot. Yet, as I said earlier, fast paced too, as one character, then another, tells their part of the story. A jigsaw put painstakingly together and it’s only on the final pages that the reader sees the complete whole.

It’s erotic; a comment on desire. A comment on our crazed need to have the ultimate fashion statement.

This book is totally weird and unsettling. And the reader just accepts what is going on, with all its weirdness. The reader is complicit. But more than anything, it’s a great story, a great read. Takes me back to long ago, when I first discovered what a joy reading could be. It’s as simple as that; being intrigued, being told a good story.

Elisa Likes Fingers Breadth

2012-01-04T10:22:00.000-08:00

This is too cool! The wonderful Elisa Rolle just posted this nice review of my gay thriller/erotica novel Fingers Breadth on her site. Thanks so much, Elisa!

M. Christian started with a mystery and ended with a psychological thriller. There is a mad man out there picking gay men, drugging them and cutting their pinkie finger. Nothing else. It doesn’t seem a great crime, but it’s still a crime, and the police had to investigate. Problem is that the only main trait of all victims is to be gay, aside from that they are black and white, young and old, poor and rich. People is scared, private clubs close down every day and in the meantime, day after day, a new victim joins the club… since now, being a victim of the Cutter is trendy, if you are not one, then probably you have something wrong. Now it’s not only the police that is searching for the Cutter, they are the same victims who WANT to be found. In a kind of ironic twist, the villain becomes the hero, and the reader starts to understand that everyone can be the villain, as everyone could have been the victim.

There are various life intertwining their destinies, Fanning, the freelance cop who wants to find the Cutter, but maybe he is not searching for justice; Varney, the first victim, a newspaper reporter who is now following the case and who apparently is the only one who can see that being a victim is not a great thing; Taylor, the only victim who escaped with all his intact fingers, but who is not more scared than before; Trancherman0191, who trolls the gay chats in search of “victims”… but in the end, all of them can be a victim and all of them can be the Cutter, and truth be told, you will realize it’s no more important to know who is the Cutter, because he realized what seemed impossible to achieve, he levelled all men to the same point, he allowed the shy to be bold, the bold to be scared, the victim to be aggressor and the aggressor to be victim. Removing that "finger's breadth" that separate men from madness, he also removed the reason why they were different.

Not all the men in this story will find their balance, but I think some of them did. I have high hope for Varney and Taylor, that they will be able to understand what is really important in life and that maybe they will give a chance to love, a chance that till now they were too scared to see.

Me And Von Gutenberg Magazine

2012-01-03T11:28:00.000-08:00

Groovy! Check this out: I have an article in the current issue of Von Gutenberg Magazine. Big thanks to my pal, Ralph Greco Jr., for making it happen ... hugs, Ralphie!

So kids, let’s talk about issue #6.

We’re going to be running lots of Facebook alerts, tweeting and twatting, shooting out emails to our friends, designers, the models, writers, and just about everybody else about the fact that our issue #6 is out and about. In time I will try to amass a list of where you might be able to pick-up the magazine in your area. Really, we are so very proud of this issue, from front cover to last, and we want you to see it!

One of our features this time is a great big piece by M. Christian (and we all know Christian has a great big piece, this is why he is so popular with the ladies!) you just have to read his historical overview on comics and pulps and how and steamy they all got way back in the day. His Breast Plates To Bondage: An Informal Look At Sex In Comic Books and Pulp Magazines is a wonderful 4-page spread you have to read to believe. Yes, Von Gutenberg is about all those delicious models dressed in dripping hot latex, and God knows we got them this time around, but if I do say so myself, the text we have in the magazine this time around, M. Christian’s piece one of the shining examples, is exemplary.

So check out our brand spanking new (and I know how much so many of you out there love to be spanked) issue #6 athttp://vongutenbergcouture.com/and check our all things M. Christian at his site http://frequentlyfelt.blogspot.com.

Impact Play: Beyond Floggers And Canes - at The Looking Glass

2011-12-29T12:28:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to toot my (ahem) 'horn' about my upcoming Looking Glass class:

Impact Play: Beyond Floggers And Canes!
Sunday, Jan 8: 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Cost: $20.00 per person, $35.00 per couple; $25.00 per person, $40.00 per couple at the door.

Join this workshop to receive (ahem) 'hands-on' instruction in a wide and sometimes-strange variety of different impact toys. We'll explore techniques using hands, hairbrushes, paddles, crops, wooden spoons, batons, quirts, and more! While often the physics of these toys are sometimes closely related, to use each one effectively takes particular skill and techniques that are not immediately apparent. Participants will learn not only how to inflict the most pleasure as well as pain but also how to use each item without hurting the wield-er as well as the wield-ee.

Amen, Stephen!

2011-12-24T10:51:00.001-08:00

Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography - Language from Matthew Rogers on Vimeo.

Or They're Just Breathing Hard

2011-12-21T10:05:00.000-08:00

That's Me -

2011-12-20T11:05:00.000-08:00

Sex In San Francisco - Now In Dead Trees!

2011-12-18T10:12:00.000-08:00

Here's great news for all you folks that like to read your erotica on (gasp) paper: the Sex In San Francisco anthology I edited for the great folks at Renaissance E Books/Sizzler Editions is now out in a non-ebook edition. You can, of course, order it on amazon.

What it is about San Francisco that seems to promise, and even promote, sex: sex hot and heavy, sex tender and loving, sex straight and gay, sex kinky and vanilla, in fact, just about every type of sex that can be imagined? Why is San Francisco considered such an attraction for lovers of all kinds and such a hotbed of steamy eroticism? Why is this city, instead of so many others, called — with lusty admiration as well as scathing jealousy — the Id of America, Sodom by the Sea, Bagdad by the Bay, and Sin Francisco? Some of the best writers of erotica in the nation seek answers to that question in Sex In San Francisco. These writers show why San Francisco is so damned sexy, and through their stories they show you the erotic heart of the city and its residents. Donna George Storey, PM White, Renatto Garcia, Adele Levin, Shanna Germain, Craig J. Sorensen, Theda Hudson, Jude Mason, Neve Black, Mykola Dementiuk, Jeremy Edwards, and Anna Reed with Lily Penza have created wonderful erotic tales, each of which takes a unique approach to probing what makes San Francisco such a sexy place to be in and to dream about. Each author uses her or his own amazing literary – and yes, erotic – vision to share with us a very personal interpretation of what constitutes sex in the city of the Golden Gate. These authors may be looking at the same city and viewing the same buildings and landscape, but for each of them San Francisco is, like sex, a very personal, and unique, thing

REVIEWS:

"Sex in San Francisco. Sex in that wonderful city is told from every angle possible -- M. Christian, the editor of this unique anthology isn’t kidding when he says that San Francisco is the sexiest city on earth. The stories are sexy and very, very hot. The only choice I have is whether to read the stories hard and fast, or try and linger and read them slow. In the end hard and fast won. I can linger next time, and there will be a next time, because these compelling tales are already drawing me back. Donna George Storey, writes of a sexy Hallowe’en in the Castro. It’s all going so well, then oopsie -- and it’s a pretty big oopsie. An oopsie that brings a tantalising jolt to married life. I hope that Sandra never throws away THAT dress. "Renatto Garcia’s metaphors simmer like hot soup on a winter’s night. “San Fran was laid out like a welcoming prostitute.” It’s a coming home story told through an irrepressible sensuality. It’s a love/hate relationship with the city and with Blair’s own past. In “Job” Adele Levin, goes back to the summer of love. We all remember that summer, even those of us who weren’t in San Francisco. It seem like the world was filled with endless possibilities; we didn’t do anything about the possibilities, just watched them drift by through a haze of hashish. And of course it’s about sex, and told in such a naïve innocent voice, reminding us that once upon a time we had a share in that innocent bliss. Who’d have thought that just one city could inspire so many tales. San Francisco is personified through the stories in this remarkable anthology, showing herself to be truly the “sexiest city on earth." And there’s many more stories, than the few I’ve mentioned here. Tales by Shanna Germain, Neve Black, Craig J. Sorenson and the wonderful M.Christian himself." - Billierosie, author of Fetish Worship

"The stories in this collection hold nothing back as they explore erotic possibilities in a suggestive setting--the San Francisco of the Castro and other infamous areas. But you won’t find many Mission-ary practitioners here; these tales go all over the local and libidinal street map. This book is so hot you’ll need asbestos gloves to read it." - Rusty Cuffs, author of Wrapped Too Tight and A Little Restraint, Please

"One of my favorite erotic writers, M. Christian, takes a break from writing and acts as editor of this anthology about sex in San Francisco. It is certainly one of the things that the city is most famous for and some of the best have come together to give us some very hot stories of Sodom by the Sea. We see why San Francisco is so sexy and we go to the heart of the city with such writers as Donna George Storey, PM White, Renatto Garcia, Adele Levin, Shanna Germain, Craig J. Sorensen, Theda Hudson, Jude Mason, Neve Black, Mykola Dementiuk, Jeremy Edwards, Anna Reed and Lily Penza. The stories are personal, interesting and above all else, very erotic. Christian has done an excellent job with the selections and you really feel the heat of the city." -Amos Lassen

"In Sex in San Francisco, M Christian has brought together some of the biggest names in erotica to share sexy tales about the uniquely steamy, sometimes kinky, and always smoking hot City by The Bay. Featuring stories by Donna George Storey, Shanna Germain, Craig J. Sorensen and, of course, M. Christian himself, Sex in San Francisco is sure to satisfy. Word of warning – if you start reading this sizzling collection in the morning, you just might find yourself taking it to bed." - Zander Vyne, award winning author of WEATHER GIRL & Other Kinky Stories

I (Heart) Books

2011-12-14T11:36:00.000-08:00

15th Century BOOK OF HOURS - Heart-Shaped When Opened

The little book of hours of Amiens Nicolas Blairie, carefully written on a thin Ruling rose, but modestly decorated with some original illuminations in ink (folio 29), has the curious shape of an almond when it is closed. When it opens, the two halves of the almond bloom to fit the contours of a heart, concrete evocation of the heart of the person praying the prayer that opens.

Alan Moore’s Keyboard

2011-12-12T16:07:00.000-08:00

For Sale On eBay

Out Now: Pirate Booty - Erotic Tales Of Buccaneers And Captives

2011-12-10T12:10:00.001-08:00

"YO HO HO!" How here's a real treasure for fans of the debauched and kinky adventures of pirates - a brand-new anthology of some sea (and even space)-fairing privateers and scallywags edited by ... well, me: Pirate Booty - Erotic Tales Of Buccaneers And Captives.

Sizzling tales of pirates and captives. Here's your chance to swing by or force others to swing by all-kinds of yardarms in this outrageous collection of erotic tales by Zander Vyne, Jude Mason, Theda Hudson, Catherine Lundoff, Billierosie, PM White, Joe Vadalma, Wade Heaton, Jay Lawrence And Harry Neptune, RV Raiment, Karen Taylor, and Blake C. Aarens - many of them our top authors - and edited by M.Christian. Full of the unrestrained, twisted passions and lusts that make pirates so hot! Populated by historical, contemporary and space-faring privateers ... plus a good dash of BDSM to spice up the brew. Pick up this anthology and you will not be disappointed.

The Harsh Realities Of Writing Smut

2011-12-09T13:48:00.001-08:00

I really do have some wonderful friends - just check out my dear pal billierosie, who posted my little piece on the perils of erotica writing (from How To Write And Sell Erotica) on her blog. Thanks so much, billierosie!

Before I say anything here's a hearty and heart-felt THANKS to Billierosie for her love and support --- and for her wanting to share this little piece I wrote about the reality of being a smut writer. Little, alas, has changed from when I wrote this -- and when it was published in “How to write and sell Erotica:” sex and sex writing is still something that seems to bring out a lot of strange things for far too many people and, until we evolve as a species, everyone who wants to say anything about eroticism needs to have a very firm grasp of what that means.

"The shock of September 11 is subsiding. Each day adds distance. Distance diminishes fear. Cautiously our lives are returning to normal. But "normal" will never be the same again. We have seen the enemy and the enemy is among us .... the publishers, producers, peddlers and purveyors of pornography."

It didn't take me long to find that quote, just a few minutes of searching. It came from an LDS Web site, Meridian Magazine, but I could have picked fifty others. Maybe it's because of the election, or because of a few horror stories that have recently come my way, but I think it's time to have a chat about what it can mean to ... well, do what we do.
We write pornography. Say it with me: por-nog-ra-phy. Not 'erotica' -- a word too many writers use to distance themselves, or even elevate themselves, from the down and dirty stuff on most adult bookstore shelves -- but smut, filth ... and so forth.

I've mentioned before how it's dangerous to draw a line in the sand, putting fellow writers on the side of 'smut' and others in 'erotica.' The Supreme Court couldn't decide where to scrawl that mark -- what chance do we have?

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Yes They Do

2011-12-08T09:32:00.000-08:00

Out Now: Pirate Booty - Erotic Tales Of Buccaneers And Captives Edited By M.Christian

2011-12-01T09:48:00.001-08:00

"YO HO HO!" How here's a real treasure for fans of the debauched and kinky adventures of pirates - a brand-new anthology of some sea (and even space)-fairing privateers and scallywags edited by myself: Pirate Booty - Erotic Tales Of Buccaneers And Captives. Not only is this new anthology a delightfully kinky read but it also features many of my pals and fellow erotic authors!

Sizzling tales of pirates and captives. Here's your chance to swing by or force others to swing by all-kinds of yardarms in this outrageous collection of erotic tales by Zander Vyne, Jude Mason, Theda Hudson, Catherine Lundoff, Billierosie, PM White, Joe Vadalma, Wade Heaton, Jay Lawrence And Harry Neptune, RV Raiment, Karen Taylor, and Blake C. Aarens - many of them our top authors - and edited by M.Christian. Full of the unrestrained, twisted passions and lusts that make pirates so hot! Populated by historical, contemporary and space-faring privateers ... plus a good dash of BDSM to spice up the brew. Pick up this anthology and you will not be disappointed.

Awwwww...

2011-11-28T11:16:00.001-08:00

This is so sweet! My great, great, great pal, billierosie, just posted another of her wonderful articles - this time on fem/dom - and featured excerpts from some fantastic authors ... including little ol' me.

Here's a taste:

Yes, it’s amusing -- it’s meant to be. But for some men and women, it’s a very real scenario. FEM/dom. In a world where traditionally women have had to fight every step of the way, for any sort of real recognition, the right to inherit, the right to vote, the right to have equal pay, even the right to take the initiative in terms of birth control; in the world of the FEM/dom the female dominates the male.

For some it’s a scenario acted out playfully every few days/weeks/months.; for others, it can be a complete choice of lifestyle. The male is told by the female when he can stand, sit, eat, sleep or speak. She gives orders and he obeys, absolutely. She may control his orgasms. Sex happens when she initiates it; when she gives her permission. And heaven help him if he orgasms before she does!

Here are some extracts of FEM/dom Erotica, from some of the finest writers, penning some of the best of the genre around today.

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How To Wonderfully WriteSex (14)

2011-11-27T13:13:00.001-08:00

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):

Once in awhile someone will ask me “What, if anything, is verboten in today’s permissive, literate erotica?” The answer is that pretty much anything is fair game, but there are what are called the four deadly sins: four subjects that a lot of publishers and editors won’t (or can’t) touch. These by no means are set in stone, but they definitely limit where you can send a story that uses any of them. So here, in a special series, are theses sins, and what—if anything—a writer can do with them.

Of all the four deadly sins, the one that most-often cramps the style of many erotica writers (i.e. “pornographers”) has to be the use of characters that are below the legal age of consent. The difficulties are multi-fold: every state and/or country has different definitions of both what consent is and the age that anyone can give it; very few people have actually lost their virginity when legally able to give consent (and having everyone in a story or book being twenty-one when they first have sex is just silly); and there’s the scary potential that if you use a lot of characters below twenty-one you can look like a damned pedophile—and even get prosecuted as one.

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Wisdom

2011-11-25T10:45:00.000-08:00

Connect The Dots

2011-11-21T17:32:00.000-08:00

Out Now: BodyWork - Gay Erotica

2011-11-21T13:33:00.001-08:00

Wonderful! I'm proud to announce a brand new collection of my gay smut, from the always-wonderful Renaissance EBooks/Sizzler Editions: BodyWork - Gay Erotica!

There is simply no one better at writing hotter-than-hot gay erotica than the Lambda Literary Award Finalist M.Christian, and with this -- his newest collection -- you'll see why! From cowboys looking for some same-sex love on the range to jocks working out in unique ways this book is guaranteed to reach out and give your gay desire a good tug! Check out this brand new book my an acknowledged master of genre and see why everyone says he's an wonderful erotic writer.

M.Christian is a literary stylist of the highest caliber: smart, funny, frightening, sexy -- there's nothing he can't write about ... and brilliantly.- Tristan Taormino

M.Christian is one sick fuck – the reason I still read erotica- Shar Rednour

Reading these tales is like climbing on for a sexual magic carpet ride through different times and places, diverse bodies, and infinite possibilities.- Carol Queen

Rarely is raunch paired with such style and wit, M.Christian’s stries offer the sizzle of stroke-book sex combined with the dark lyricism of the perverse.- Lucy Taylor

M.Christian’s fiction has a sexy logic all its own. He’s inventive and he’s irreverent. His language can seduce, surprise, and body-slam you.- Cecilia Tan

Literary Devices

2011-11-20T16:54:00.000-08:00

20th of November is International Transgender Day of Remembrance

2011-11-20T15:55:00.000-08:00

20th of November is International Transgender Day of Remembrance

International Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day to remember those who have lost their lives through transphobia. In the first nine months of 2011 there were 116 reported killings of trans people around the world. In Scotland, research shows that 62 percent of transgender people have faced transphobic harassment from strangers and that trans people are 7.7 times more likely to commit suicide than the rest of the population due to the prejudice they experience.

Call For Submissions: Daddy's Little Girl - Ageplay Erotica

2011-11-15T15:41:00.001-08:00

Call for Submissions

Daddy's Little Girl:

Ageplay Erotica

Edited By Ralph Greco, Jr. and M.Christian

An anthology of storiesexploring the erotic allure of older male, younger female ageplay (constructedas "Daddy" and "Little Girl" or "Daughter", to bepublished by Sizzler Editions (http://SizzlerEditions.com).

Ageplay is whereone or more participants in erotic play pretend to be younger than they are inreality. For aficionados, ageplayis a way of exploring new and sometimes very powerful, dimensions of BDSM. If you are unclear what ageplay is, please click here.

Daddy'sLittle Girl: Ageplay Eroticawill be focused solely on male dominant/female submissive erotica – where themale, or person enacting the male role, take the role of Daddy or Father, andthe female, or person enacting the female role, takes the position of a littlegirl or daughter.

However, authorsare encouraged to take unique approaches to what female ageplay can be. Forinstance, at presentations on the subject, we have seen such roles enacted bystraight men and women, gay men, lesbians, bisexuals,and transgender people.

Stories may feature humor, horror, romance, or mystery but allsubmissions must be explicitly erotic. Stories featuring rape, underage characters, homophobia, bestiality or'violence porn' will not be considered.

Both previously publishedand original works will be considered.

Story length: 3,500to 10,000 words

Deadline forSubmissions: February 1, 2012

Rights: FirstNorth American Anthology Rights

Payment: Forstories under 5000 words, $25, paid on publication; for stories longer than5000 words, $35, paid on publication.

Emailsubmissions should be sent to: zobop@aol.com (rtf format only, be sure toinclude contact information on all attachments)

Questions?Contact M. Christian (zobop@aol.com) or Ralph Greco, Jr.(ralphgjr@earthlink.net)

On Oh Get A Grip

2011-11-14T10:37:00.001-08:00

This is very nice: the great folks at Oh Get A Grip - and I'm looking at you, Lisabet - asked me to write a little bit about writing, traveling, and my story "Wanderlust" from Love Without Gun Control - and, natch, I did just that:

Thanks again to the always-wonderful Lisabet Sarai for giving me another chance to reach out to the readers at the Grip.

This time Lisabet asked me to take a trip, so to speak. It's always odd, when you're a writer, to have a friend look at what you've written and point out ... well, 'things' that you weren't really aware of. For example, I recently learned that I like to start stories at dusk or dawn. That threw me for a loop, as I really had no clue I was doing that. Naturally when I write now I make a point of doing exactly the opposite...

But one thing I was both aware of and not really aware of is my love of traveling. I say aware and not aware because I know I write a lot about it – maybe too much, actually – but not aware because it wasn't until recently that I spent a bit of time roaming my own mind to find out why.

[MORE]

I've Had Dreams Like This

2011-11-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

Yet More Philosophy

2011-11-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

Occupy!

2011-10-30T18:07:00.001-07:00

Beyond Romance And I

2011-10-24T12:07:00.000-07:00

Very nice! The one-and-only Lisabet Sarai asked me to guest blog on her fun Beyond Romance site ... and the result is a little piece I wrote about being a straight guy who writes queer fiction: Funny But You Don't Look It...

Plus another excerpt from my new novel, Fingers Breadth. Enjoy!

Before I say anything I want to toss out a hearty and well-deserved thank you to Lisabet Sarai to giving me this very nice opportunity to ... well, chat about whatever I'm going to chat about.

To be honest I'm at a bit of a loss about what that might be. I mean – hell – I'm a writer, right? So this kind of thing should, at least, be second nature. To be honest, though, I've never liked talking about myself. Part of it is privacy, sure, but a lot of it is that I've always wanted my work to stand on its own: that people should (hopefully) buy my stuff because they like it – and not just because they like me.
But Lisabet asked me a question that's been making me scratch my head – always a good thing. But first a tiny bit of background: while I write in a lot of genres – non-fiction, mysteries, romance, horror, science fiction, and a lot of smut – I also have written more than a few books and stories out there with gay or lesbian characters.

But here's the kicker: I'm straight.

Part of why all this happened is because of simple logistics. As any serious writer can tell you, you cannot really plan for a career in this business: you take what comes your way and, if you're lucky, that can lead to work and, even luckier, even more work. In my case I had a lot of great experiences selling stories and editing anthologies for various gay and lesbian publishers ... which, in turn, got me a few in-roads when it came time to write novels. Gay or lesbian novels, naturally.

One thing I have to mention before I go any further is that I never, ever lied about who and what I am when I worked with these publishers. Sure, I don't like to talk that much about myself (so you won't find me on Facebook or Twitter, by the way) but I was always clear with them about my sexual 'reality.'

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I Agree With You, Alan

2011-10-23T19:08:00.000-07:00

"A sex scene is a way of getting over very important character information, just as much as a fight scene it, and the reader really shouldn’t be looking at it as, ‘Oh, this is purely thrown in for titillation.” - Alan Moore

We Are The 99%

2011-10-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

Know The 1%

2011-10-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

Authors Promoting Authors And Me

2011-10-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

Very cool! Check out this interview I did for the great Authors Promoting Authors site ... and thanks, Sascha, for the opportunity!

I took a few minutes to speak to a cohort in crime, M. Christian to pick his brain about erotica, writing and the business in general. Hopefully the answers he provided will add value to your writing and push you into erotica if you've leaned that way but were uncertain.

He took a few minutes to answer some questions.

1. You've been around erotica for a long while. What has changed from your perspective?

Has it really been THAT long ... sheesh, I guess it has: my first story was in FutureSex (1993), which was then picked up for Best American Erotica 1994 ... and it all just sort of took off from there.

As for what's changed ... well, the biggest thing, naturally, has to be the ebook revolution. Back in the bad old days it used to take pornographers far too long to haul sexually explicit materials up four and flights of stairs – but now everything is internet this and digital that. But, I tell ya, it really is for the better: ebooks are simply better for everyone, everywhere. For readers they are cheaper and don't take any room (and no shipping costs); for publishers that are easier and (again) cheaper; and for writers they mean we all can work without having to constantly worry about needing to sell, sell, to make up our advances – AND we can do all kinds of new books because publishers can take risks they couldn't before because doing so was just too expensive.

2. How does one achieve the title Acknowledged Master of Erotica?

To be honest you make it up. Alas, the headache of the new world of publishing is that it has become harder to get yourself noticed, what with all these new publishing venues. So sometimes a writer has to do whatever it takes to get them to rise above the rest. That's not to say that writers should ever lie to get themselves heard – that's never a good idea – or become an arrogant so-and-so – which is a worse idea – but that just staying and writing in your garret doesn't work anymore (sigh).

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"Technophile" From The Bachelor Machine

2011-10-11T16:42:00.000-07:00

Continuing my excerpt-fest, here's a juicy little queer cyberpunk number from my collection, The Bachelor Machine (out now in a new edition by Circlet Books).

Technophile

I almostlost my virginity at fifteen, but his batteries ran low.

He'dshowed me the unit, zipped open tight jeans and flashed out the Long Thrust.State, top-of-the-line, implant augmentation. He'd had himself castrated forthe best science had to offer. I wanted it. The instant I saw it, the polished,burnishing, gleam of it. I wanted it bad. Now. Hard. Fast.

My squatwas old-wired 220 so its juice-pack couldn't take the flow. In playback,wet-memory, I see him – planes of his face dead in the cheap florescents, as hehunts in his bag for the adapter he didn't bring.

In theend, we lit expensive candles and he put his mouth on my cock.

Hismouth was shocking wet, not like my dry hand or the spit sometimes to make iteasier. It was too slippery, and too hot. I was blazing with shame and selfpity, eyes fake closed and instead watching his head dip down. First a quickspray of over-the-counter anti-viral fog, then it was a wet test embrace on my cock, gentle kisses, then awet socket over my cock.

Brent,friend of my dealer. I'd been taking longer to slip the black market yen, andtaking the tiny plastic bags, just to watch him stand and pose: first timespotting was like that first time there in my squat. Thick leathers hiding oldcop impact vest, skin-jeans slit to show off log legs, too-tight tee ("YANKEEIMPERIALIST VICTIM") paint on a stone-mason chest, face cragged andstreet-scarred but with museum planes. Eyes then on the street as they were inmy recall of the squat – hidden and refrigerator cool behind convex mirrors ofmandatory shades. He may have been handsome, might have made girls wet, boyshard – but I'd heard, and then he'd heard that I'd heard and there in thatalley he zipped and flipped it out. Fuck, I wanted it in me right there.

I wassmiling when he lifted from my hardening cock. Smiling back at his smilingface, at my smiling face reflected in his shades. We smiled at each otherreflected over and over as he gently stroked my cock, kissing it, and sucking amouthful of the ridged head (Momma thought cutting sanitary).

Thesquat was cold and my futon too fucking hard on my back. My jeans were bunchedaround my legs and my back was crooked funny against my pack. So I put my handon his head and pushed myself down. So mature for that first time, socontrolled from the burning pity and disappointment of that unit, dead andpowerless between his legs.

Slopeddown onto the futon, I let him suck my cock. The kisses got harder, his tonguebegan to play with the tip, that little hot hold in the end that sometimes feltlike prickles and sometimes like warm steel. I was hard from his mouth there,from his hand gently holding and stroking, from his breath stirring the coolskin from my shaved balls and belly. I was deep inside, eyes really closed,letting his hands and mouth work me up and higher and harder.

My ballsbegin to swell and heat. Something in me wanted, and because, I guess, I letmyself put a hand on the crotch of his hot jeans. He closed them on my fingers,trapping them in a denim vice as he made negative moans around my hard cock.

I lethim suck more, letting myself burn deep and pissed and disappointed. I felt histeeth slide every inch across the skin of my shaft. I couldn't decide if it wason purpose or accident. And when I thought about it, anticipating it, or tryingto block the hardness of his teeth it just added something to it. I was harderand harder.

I wantedsomething again, I could have what I really wanted but this would do – and fromthe heat of him on my cock I pushed a sweet little virginal "please"out. I opened my eyes and saw that I had slid myself down to his jeans. I couldsmell it, that sweet sting-smell of brand-new plastic and his sweat through thethin denim of his jeans. No negative this time. No refusal for the poor virginboy. The sucking never stopped the teeth didn't glide (so I guessed he must bepretty fucking good at this), but the hands came out and slipped the jeansdown.

Made inthe best labs in Shadow Tokyo. Fucking pure lines – a curving, shining downwardturning tusk of high-impact plastic nested into a shield of gleaming blackchrome. I traced the inert row of decorative indicators that ran along the sideof the shaft (as he sucked the head of my cock, just the head, stoking me wetand thumbing like a metronome beating against my balls and stomach), feelingtheir dimples, and wanting them to light. I kissed the dead head of his unit,tasting a lingering of lube from the last time he'd fucked with it (boy, girl,fist, unknown).

He wassucking so hard now – the coolness was gone, and all I could feel was his hotmouth sucking and licking and sometimes (there, there) the hard glide of thosespecial teeth in that trained mouth. His fist was still pumping, and my stomachached the good hurt of a rough jerk-off.

The headof his unit was a different plastic, something so close to skin I could seewith half an eye the unit just a steep pole, an extension of his cock. The headwas anatomically correct and lifelike.

I stokedit, wishing so hard that it was juiced up and likewise. I wanted it so bad.Wanted it in my own mouth, wanted to really taste that old lube down deep in mythroat. Didn't know how to do it, natch – but knew I could I wanted it so bad.Laying there on the hard futon, smelling of years of mildew, I wanted my virginass to take this sweet machine. Iwanted it. I could feel it – so hard and buzzing softly with all thosemarvelous features. Closing my eyes, I could feel it, a great background to hissucking sucking of me. Yeah, I felt it, laying there. Could imagine so perfect,crisp and clear as I raised my ass up to meet it. I closed my eyes and dreamedit – that first great touch of it against my asshole as I opened for it,swallowed it and felt the spasmic vibrators, the asymmetric rhythms, the neuralstims all start to work on the inside of my asshole. I imagined him taking medeep and hard, only letting the Long Thrust (the Extension Delux Model with theDynamic Action Features, coupled with the hottest Joy Buzzer software) do someof the fucking. My ass, I thought, would go all jelly, my cock would be, andwas, steel. I could feel him slide it into me and out and in and somethingpowerful would start in my ass and it would travel up my spine and out throughmy cock via my brain – just like they said in their ads on the net –

Fuck,fuck, fuck ... I wanted it in my ass and I wanted it in my mouth – but theshaft stayed down, the head stayed slightly cold – like a hot-dog from a brokenand cold vending machine.

Too latefor the reality, I was lost in my fondling, his sucking, the beautiful cocknessof the Long Thrust. I felt myself start, felt the rocket start to climb fromballs to tip. I could feel the come start to shake and close my eyes. But Ikept them open and stared: a Long Thrust Delux there, in the crotch of hishairy thighs. This was one – right in front of me. This was one.

Come jettedfrom the head of my cock, into his sprayed, disinfected mouth. The come was ashard and hurt as much as my fucking cock. My legs danced. He put his hand on mycold chest as he pumped, sucked and jumped his fist along my shaft. I came andcoated his mouth with my stickiness.

I came,all wet and sticky, and all I could think of was Long Thrust between his legs –dead, cold and inert.

"Love" From Filthy Boys

2011-10-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

Just 'cause, here's a story from my recently-released queer collection, Filthy Boys. I have a certain fondness for this story as it was written as a kind of thanks to all the gay men I've known - and who've changed my life for the better.

LOVE

"You could havestayed with me," he'd said the first time I went to Seattle to see him, butstayed in a motel. I hadn't even thoughtof it, and so the disappointment in his eyes.

I never went back. After he got promoted there wasn't any point.

You could have stayed with me evolves into a fantasy in whichthose four days play out differently: an invitation made earlier, my discomfortof staying in someone else's house miraculously absent. Fresh off the plane, strap digging intomy shoulder (I always over-pack), out of the cab and up a quick twist of marblesteps to his front door. A knock, ora buzz, and it opens.

A quick dance ofmutual embarrassment as I maneuver in with my luggage, both of us saying the stupidthings we all say when we arrive somewhere we've never been before. Him: "How was your flight?" Me:"What a great place."

Son of a decorator,I always furnish and accessorize my fantasies: I imagine his to be a simple one-bedroom. Messy, but a good mess. A mind's room, full of toppling books, squaresof bright white paper. Over the fireplace(cold, never lit) a print, something classical like a Greek torso, the fine linetopography of Michelangelo's David. A few pieces of plaster, three-dimensionalanatomical bric-a-brac on the mantel. A cheap wooden table in the window, bistro candle, and Don't Fuck With The Queen in ornate scripton a chipped coffee cup.

Dinner? No, my flight arrived late. Coffee? More comfortable and gets to the point quicker. We chat. I ask him about his life: is everything okay? He replies that he's busy, but otherwisefine. We chat some more. I say that it's a pleasure to work withhim. He replies with the same.

I compliment him,amplifying what I've already said, and he blushes. He returns it, and then some, making me smile. My eyes start to burn, my vision blurs,tears threatening. I sniffle and standup.

He does as well,and we hug. Hold there. Hold there. Hold there. Then,break – but still close together. Lipsclose together. The kiss happens. Light, just a grazing of lips. I can tell he wants more, but I'm uncomfortableand break it but not so uncomfortable that I can't kiss his cheeks. Right, then left, then right again.

But his head turnsand we're kissing, lips to lips again. Does he open his first or do I? Sometimes I imagine his, sometimes mine. But they are open and we are kissing, lips and tongue, together. Hot, wet, hard.

But not on my part. Wet, definitely – in my mind it's a goodkiss. A generous and loving kiss. Hot, absolutely, but only in a matter ofdegrees as his temperature rises and mine does in basic body response.

Not hard on my part,but I am aware of his. Between us,like a finger shoved through a hole in his pocket, something solid and muscularbelow his waist.

Does he say something? "I want you," "Please touchme," "I'm sorry," are candidates. I've tried them all out, one time or another, to add differentflavors, essences, spices to that evening. "I want you," for basic primal sex. "Please touch me," for politerequest, respect and sympathy. "I'msorry," for wanting something he knows I don't.

"It's okay,"I say to all of them, and it is. Notjust words. Understanding, sympathy,generosity. All of them, glowing inmy mind. It really is okay.

I'm a pornographer,dammit. I should be able to go on withthe next part of this story without feeling like ... I'm laughing right now, notthat you can tell. An ironic chuckle:a pornographer unable to write about sex. Not that I can't write about myself, that making who I am – really – thecenter of the action is uncomfortable, because I've certainly done that before. I've exposed myself on the page so manyother times, what makes this one so different?

Just do it. Put the words down and debate them later. After all, that's what we're here for, aren'twe? You want to hear what I dream heand I do together. You want to lookover my mental shoulder at two men in that tiny apartment in Seattle.

I'm a writer; it'swhat I do, and more importantly, what I am. So we sit on the couch, he in the corner me in the middle. His hand is on my leg. My back is tight, my thighs are corded. Doubt shades his face so I put my own handon his own, equally tight, thigh. Irepeat what I said before, meaning it: "It's okay."

We kiss again. A friend's kiss, a two people who like eachother kiss. His hands touch my chest,feeling me through the thin cloth of turtleneck. I pull the fabric out of my pants with a few quick tugs, allowingbare hands to touch bare chest. Helikes it, grinning up at me. I sendmy own grin, trying to relax.

His hand strokesme though my jeans, and eventually I do get hard. His smile becomes deeper, more sincere, lit by his excitement. It's one thing to say it, quite anotherfor your body to say it. Flesh doesn'tlie, and I might have when I gave permission. My cock getting hard, though, is obvious tissue and blood sincerity.

"That's nice,""Can I take it out?" "I hope you're all right with this." Basicprimal sex, a polite request including respect and sympathy, and the words for wantingsomething he knows I don't – any one of them, more added depth to this dream.

My cock is out andbecause he's excited or simply doesn't want the moment and my body to possibly getaway, he is sucking me. Was that sohard to say? It's just sex. Just the mechanics of arousal, the engineeringof erotica. Cock A in mouth B. I've written it hundreds of times. But there's that difference again, likeby writing it, putting it down on paper (or a computer screen) has turned diamondinto glass, mahogany into plywood.

Cheapened. That's the word. But to repeat: I am a writer. It's what I do. All the time. Even about love – especially about this kind of love.

He sucks my cock. Not like that, not that, not the way you'rethinking: not porno sucking, not erotica sucking. This is connection, he to I. The speech of sex, blowjob as vocabulary.

I stay hard. What does this mean? It puzzles me, even in the fantasy. I have no doubts about my sexuality. I am straight. I write everything else, but I am a straightboy. I like girls. Men do not turn me on.

Yet, in my mind andin that little apartment, I am hard. Not "like a rock," not "as steel," not as a "telephonepole," but hard enough as his mouth, lips, and tongue – an echoing hard, wetand hard – work on me.

The answer is clearand sharp, because if I couldn't get hard and stay hard then he'd be hurt and thescene would shadow, chill, and things would be weighted between us. That's not the point of this dream, whyI think about it.

So, onto sex. Nothing great or grand, nothing from everysection of the menu. A simple actionbetween two men who care about each other: he sucks my cock. He enjoys it and I love him enough to lethim. That's all we do, because it'senough.

He sucks me for longminutes, making sweet sounds and I feel like crying. He puts his hand down his own pants, puts a hand around his owncock. For a moment I think about askinghim if he wants help, for me to put my hand around him, help him jerk off. But I don't. Not because I don't want to, or because I'm disgusted, but becausehe seems to be enjoying himself so much, so delighted in the act of sucking me,that I don't want to break the spell, turn that couch back into a pumpkin.

He comes, a deepgroan around my cock, humming me into near-giggles. He stops sucking as he gasps and sighs with release, lookingup at me with wet-painted lips, eyes out of focus. I bend down and kiss him, not tasting anything but warm water.

I love him. I wanted to thank him. I hope, within this dream, I have. The night that didn't happen but could have.

For me, writing isjust about everything: the joy of right word following right word all the way tothe end. The ecstasy of elegant plot,the pleasure of flowing dialogue, the loveliness of perfect description. Sex is good, sex is wonderful, but storyis fireworks in my brain. The reasonI live. The greatest pleasure in mylife.

And he has givenme that, with nearly flowing letters on an agreement between his company and I,between his faith in my ability and myself. He looked at me, exposed on the page of a book, in the chapterof a novel, in the lines of a short story, and didn't laugh, didn't dismiss or reject. He read, nodded, smiled, and agreed to publish.

Sex cannot measureup to that. Bodies are bodies, buthe has given me a pleasure beyond anything I'd felt: applause, and a chance to domuch, much more with words, with stories.

He doesn't have aname, this man in my fantasy. Therehave been a lot of them over the years, and a lot more in the future, no doubt. Gay men who have touched me in ways no onehas ever touched me before, by making love with my soul through their support ofmy writing. Each time they have, thisfantasy has emerged from the back of my mind, a need to give them the gift theyhave given me: passion and kindness, support and caring, and pure affection.

I worry about this. I worry that they won't understand, takethis secret dream of mine as being patronizing, diminishing them to nothing buta being with a cock who craved more cock. I've confessed a few times, telling a select few how I feel about them, howI wish I could do for them what they have done for me, to be able to put aside myheterosexuality for just an evening, an afternoon, and share total affection together.

Luckily, or maybethere really isn't anything to worry about, the ones I've told, they smile, holdmy hand, kiss my cheek, say the right thing and to this day, even right now, makeme cry: "I wish we could too, but I understand. I love you too."

Am I bi? I know I'm physically not – I simply don'tget aroused by men – but that doesn't mean I don't adore men, or for the ones Icare about, the men who have touched my soul through their support and affectionfor my stories and writing, I wish I couldn't change. More than anything I wish I could give them what they have givenme.

With a cock or apen, with a story or hours of wonderful sex, it all comes down to one thing: love.

More From The Erotic Authors Association Conference

2011-10-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

Check this out: a little piece I wrote about the recent Erotic Authors Association Conference in Vegas - reprinted from the Sizzler Publishing Blog

Associate Sizzler Editions publisher M. Christian describes what happened when some members of the Sizzler Editions editorial staff attented the Erotic Authors Association’s first-ever conference:

(M. Christian)While Las Vegas is called "Sin City," over the weekend of September 9th it more like heaven for writers – and readers – of erotic fiction as the location for the first ever Erotic Authors Association’s Conference.
Organized by Kathleen Bradean, Jolie du Pré, and D.L. King (also a Sizzler author: The Art Of Melinoe), the event featured classes like: But is it a Story? By Remittance Girl; Sexy, Sexy Grammar By Jean Roberta & Sharazade; Writing Killer Blurbs By Lorna Hinson; and much more -- plus panels on Erotic Romance, Your Sex Life as Story Fodder, Social Media & Promotion, plus many others.

(Sascha Illyvich)Erotica authors, and fans, from all over the world attended the inaugural event, including many Sizzler Editions' authors like Margie Church (author of The 18th Floor), Laura Antoniou (Musclebound and Shop Stud), Blake C. Aarens (Wetting The Appetite), Charlotte Gatto, and many others.

(Wade Heaton)
The Sizzler Editions staff was then and then some! Wade Heaton, Senior Editor of our own PageTurner and Futurespart Imprint and author of The Sexy Syrixians; Sascha Illyvich, own Senior Editor of Erotic Romances and author of Siddella's Surrender (plus many others); artist Sami Hursey, the Morgaine Series, and M. Christian, Associate Publisher and author of How To Write And Sell Erotica, were there to talk to fans and share their own experiences as erotica writers and editors. Only our beloved (hated) Publisher Jean Marie Stine was in absentia (off at her son Mark Demian's wedding,

(Margie Church.)Sizzler Editions also made a sexy-splash with readers and writers alike with an open-mic reading for authors to read from their Sizzler-published works: Wade, Sascha, Blake C. Aarens, Margie Church, and Sharazade wowing the crowd with their scintillating work. M. Christian, as well, was on quite a few panels and even taught his famous (or is that infamous?) class on erotica writing.
(Sami Hursey sketching
idea for new cover.)Sizzler's own media wizard, Bill Mills, was also in attendance and recorded the reading in audio and video so that – very soon – fans of these Sizzler authors can get a rare treat to see them read their work.

We at Sizzler hope that everyone else had a great a time as we all did at the The Erotic Authors Association’s Inaugural Conference and we all look forward to having an even great time next year!
(Photos and image capture: Bill Mills)

How To Wonderfully WriteSex (13)

2011-09-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

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):

“The assassin readied himself, beginning first by picking up his trusty revolver and carefully threading a silencer onto the barrel.”

That reads right enough, doesn’t it? You look at it and it sings true. But it’s not. Not because the assassin is a product of my imagination but because, except for one very rare instance, silencers cannot be fitted onto revolvers. So every time you see Mannix or Barnaby Jones facing off against some crook with a little tube on the end of their revolver, keep in mind that it has no bearing on reality.

What does this have to go with smut writing? Well, sometimes erotica writers—both old hands and new blood—make the same kind of mistakes: not so much a revolver with a silencer, but definitely the anatomical or psychological equivalent.

People ask me sometimes what kind of research I do to write erotica. The broad answer is that I seriously don’t do that much true research, but I do observe and try and understand human behavior— no matter the interest or orientation—and add that to what I write. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t some (ahem) fieldwork involved.

[MORE]

I Am The 99%

2011-09-29T11:07:00.000-07:00

I just wish I could be there to add by body, as well as my voice, to this movement!

Excerpt: Fingers Breadth

2011-09-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce that the very-cool Gay/Lesbian Fiction Excerpts blog has just posted the first chapter from my new gay thriller/erotic novel, Fingers Breadth. Here's a taste - for the rest just click here.

Looking from the window of the coffee shop. Watching from the windshield of a parked car. Staring from the glass of a very rare unbroken bus kiosk. Glaring from the side of a passing bus.

A brief summer rain had painted the city that night in reflections. Fanning saw himself everywhere, and everywhere he saw himself his expression said the same thing—Why haven’t you caught him yet?

In his ear, a Bluetooth bud whispered the Officer Wertz inquiry’s soundtrack; in his pocket, the video was playing on his phone. He didn’t need to hear or see it. No one would, but if asked he could probably rattle off every verb, every noun, every linguistic bit from when Knorr started it to when he stopped it. Knorr was good at what he did, just like the lab mice who studied crime scenes and picked up tiny bits of DNA with their finely honed tweezers.

Welcome to the decentralized world of the new San Francisco Police Department, where your specialty was all you did and generality was extinct.

Fanning was a freelancer but was supposed to be good at what he did, too. Sneering at himself reflected in the coffee shop window, he gripped the phone in his pocket. If he’d been stronger, or the plastic less durable, it would have cracked.

Glowering for an instant at his reflection in the windshield of the parked car, he pulled the phone out and flipped through a few key digital pages. As with the inquiry, he didn’t need to look at it again, but he did anyway. Better than sharing the street with his scowling mirror images.

It hadn’t changed—Wertz’s home address and where he worked were still the same. The first was across town, in the Mission. The second was just down the street, at a Gap Store.

Ten a.m. to six p.m. His shift hadn’t changed, either. But it was 6:17, and there was no sign of Wertz.

Fanning paced the wet sidewalk, searching up and down the street but mostly the blue-and-white bright- ness of the Gap store. In his ears, Wertz’s voice clicked into silence; then, as it was set on “loop,” it began again.

Just like the others. Same MO, same kind of pick-up place, same amount of Eurodin in Wertz’s system, the lab mice doing their usual fine and precise work, and the same mutilation—right hand little finger amputated at the first joint.

Again, his phone threatened to break in his hand, but again, he wasn’t strong or determined enough to do it. The beat cops who’d found Wertz sound asleep on the J Church train; the lab mice who’d analyzed the drug in his system; Knorr, who’d asked his carefully prepared and expert questions...

But then there was Fanning, who was supposed to assemble piece after piece after piece after piece until they made a picture of someone’s face.

Cutter’s face.

Looking up from where he’d been looking down, he saw a silhouette come between the blue-and-white of the Gap store. A dark shape that was about the right height, about the right build, about the right age, to be whom he was looking for. Fanning carefully released his tight grip on his phone and stepped back into a nearby alley, one carefully chosen for its heavy solitude.

Heavy solitude was just what Fanning wanted.

[MORE]

Excerpt: Better Than the Real Thing

2011-09-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

Now here's a treat: the great folks at 4-Letter Words not just feature a lot of my books but also just posted a sweet excerpt from my new collection, Better Than the Real Thing. Check out the story, "A Light Minute" over there ... but in the meantime here's a tease:

How are you today? was all the message said. It was their ritual, a tight tradition between them. Sasha was an night timer, a sunset-to-dawn kind of girl. Before she crawled into her “warm flannel cave and drew sleep up over her eyes” (she’d written) she always left that message for Alyx to find in her own preferred morning.

Happy, Alyx sent back with a flutter of keystrokes, love you. Another ritual, much more recent. Alyx felt it, though, with a tug of hesitation, a grip in her chest of uncertainty. It might well have been totally true, that Sasha was the love of her life – but they’d never met.

So much was known – despite all that was unknown (the sound of her voice, the way she smiled) – that Alyx was very certain about the feelings she had for the tiny, dark-haired girl with the sweet little bulb of a nose, deeply tanned cheeks and vibrant brown eyes (I’m a Mediterranean princess who likes the night): a color print of her framed neat over her machine’s monitor. Even without hearing her voice or really seeing her face (beyond the picture she’d transmitted) she knew that Sasha somehow fitted perfectly into her life. Their conversations, though time-delayed, hummed and clicked with a familiarity that belied their three month relationship.

At first Alyx was hesitant about venturing into the electronic unknown. The world was still much too loud, hard, and brilliant for her back then to learn the unfathomable language of baud, server, gateway, and the like. Jo had left her – taken her pictures, blankets, clothes, books, and herself and left Alyx nothing but her little Santa Cruz bungalow. That, and a series of pains when Alyx did anything – anything at all. Till, that is, her brother smashed open her front door, emitting a torrent of painful light and crashing street noise and slammed down a small box next to her antique computer. In a sympathetic whisper that sounded like a torrent of dishware pouring down a tin-shod mountainside, he had said, “If you won’t go out, maybe at least you’ll meet someone else.”

[MORE]

Out Now: Finger's Breadth By M.Christian

2011-09-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

Zumaya Books and M.Christian are pleased to announce the publication of a brand new gay erotic horror/thriller by M.Christian:

Look at your hand: four fingers and a thumb, right? But what if you woke one morning and rather than four fingers and a thumb you are ... short? How would you feel? What would you do? What would you become?

The city is terrified: a mysterious figure is haunting the streets of near-future San Francisco, drugging and amputating the fingertips of queer men. But what's worse … this terror or that it can, so easily, turn any of us into something even more horrific?

Erotic. Nightmarish. Fascinating. Disturbing. Intriguing. Haunting. You have never read a book like Finger's Breadth.

You will never look your fingers - or the people all around you - the same way again.

Here’s what some people are saying about Finger's Breadth:

Finger's Breadth may well rank as one of the most psychologically astute erotic novels since Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, and it deserves to be just as widely read.

- JKB, from the Circlet Press site

Finger's Breadth is a real wild ride, the sort of novel you turn to when the apocalyptic mayhem out your window gets dull, and you lust for something to remind you of what it's like to live life at full-throttle. M.Christian sends the reader hurtling like a hockey puck through a world of crime, out-of-control passions, mutilation, and madness. Terms like noir and hardboiled don't quite fit - this is more like ultraviolet, the invisible light that makes the scorpions glow in the dark.

- Ernest Hogan, author of Cortez On Jupiter and High Aztech

It is not that hard to come up with an idea that can be turned into a horror story and that is why horror has been part of the folklore of America and why these stories are so popular on camp-outs as we sit around a campfire. To successfully do this, we need a combination of characters and plot but more important than all else is a novel way to relate the story. For me that is the definition of M.Christian. This book is unlike anything I have read before and I suspect that it will stay with me for quite a while.

- Amos Lassen, reviewer

Finger's Breadth creates a vivid portrait of a community torn apart by suspicion, where the thrills of hot, anonymous sex go hand in mutilated hand with the chill of fear, and no one is entirely what they seem. M.Christian skilfully mixes a dark, potent cocktail of lust, longing, paranoia and an overwhelming need for acceptance...

- Liz Coldwell, author of Take Your Slave To Work

To be effective, the act of literary intercourse between horror and erotica should be deeply unsettling. It should leave the reader feeling uncomfortable, overwhelmed by equal parts dread and anticipation. M.Christian understands this better than most, weaving a tale that permits the reader but a finger’s breadth of space between fear and arousal. His deft control of the story makes us feel the blade, but it's his subtle manipulation of our emotions that makes us want the cut.

- Sally Sapphire, Bellasbookslut

M.Christian has seen the future -- and it is hardboiled! If you love crime stories -- gay or otherwise -- and you love science fiction, you will love Finger's Breadth. No other storyteller nails it quite like M.Christian does. This is a real page turner.

-- Marilyn Jaye Lewis, author of Freak Parade

M.Christian is a force to be reckoned with. Just when you think you understand the path that his narrative and characters are taking, Christian throws a monkey wrench, or a limb, or a head into the works and you have to get your bearings and start all over again. No matter which book of his you pick up, prepare for an intoxicatedly weird ride.

-Ily Goyanes, author and filmmaker

Strange and sexy, Finger's Breadth is a seductively suspenseful read.

- Paula Guran, Darkecho

Finger's Breadth is as dark and rich and well-blended as good bourbon. Sexy, suspenseful, and believable in the details and elements of its world. Great stuff!

- Angela Caperton, author of Darkness And Delight

Finger's Breadth is mesmeric storytelling, riveting in execution and appalling in implication. M.Christian’s tale of erotic terror in a near-future San Francisco is imagined so skillfully that it grabs the reader with its easy familiarity, then refuses to let go as it careens to its shocking yet completely believable conclusion. Evoking such Grand Masters as Armistead Maupin, Thomas Harris and Rod Serling while remaining strikingly original, Finger's Breadth is Christian at the height of his considerable powers. Like Charon the ferryman, the author takes the reader down the dark rivers of human sexuality and shows us things that would normally never see the light of day. Ultimately the most compelling aspect of this fiction is how fascinatingly and terrifyingly plausible it is. Finger's Breadth should come with a warning label: Read this before clubbing.

- Christopher Pierce, author of Rogue Slave, Rogue Hunted, and Kidnapped By A Sex Maniac

Zumaya Books

Paperback: $15.99

ebook: $6.99

ISBN-10: 1934841463

ISBN-13: 978-1934841464

About M.Christian:

M.Christian is - among many things - an acknowledged master of erotica with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many, many other anthologies, magazines, and Web sites.

He is the editor of 25 anthologies including the Best S/M Erotica series, The Burning Pen, Guilty Pleasures, The Mammoth Book of Future Cops and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi) and Confessions, Garden of Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant) as well as many others.

He is the author of the collections Dirty Words, Speaking Parts, The Bachelor Machine, Licks & Promises, Filthy, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, Coming Together Presents M.Christian, Pornotopia, and How To Write And Sell Erotica; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Brushes, and Painted Doll. His Web site is www.mchristian.com.

Interested in reviewing Finger's Breadth? Write M.Christian at zobop@aol.com for a copy

How Right!

2011-09-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

Great time!

2011-09-13T13:58:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to toss out a happy, hearty thanks to all the people I met at the very-fun Sex In Sin City: The Erotic Authors Association’s Inaugural Conference in Vegas last month. I'll probably be posting more about it but in the meantime hope everyone I met had a good time as well!

Update On Yo Ho Ho - Pirate Erotica

2011-08-31T14:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I've got some good news and no-so good news about all you great folks who submitted stories to the anthology I'm editing, Yo Ho Ho - Pirate Erotica: the good news is that I've made my selection (congrats!) but the bad news is that some people didn't make the cut (bummer).

So, if you haven't heard from me today about your submission PLEASE drop me a line as I may not have gotten your submission ...

Next up is My Love Of All That Is Bizarre: The Erotic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Stay tuned!

Billierosie Likes Finger's Breadth

2011-08-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

I really do have some fantastic friends, and one of my very best is the ultra-sweet Billierosie. Just check out this review she just sent me for my new gay thriller/horror novel, Finger's Breadth:

From the Prelude onwards, we’re carried along on a roller coaster, with this fasted paced novel, fresh from the keyboard of M.Christian. “Finger’s Breadth”starts with the cops, as they interview the latest character to be mutilated after a sleazy night, out on the San Francisco streets. Typically, the interviewee can tell them nothing; he doesn’t remember, or doesn’t want to.

“He cut part of your fucking finger off,” says the exasperated cop.

“Yeah, but it could have been worse.” is the philosophical response.

One thing you can rely on M.Christian for, is a damn good story And “Finger’s Breadth is no exception; I think it’s his best one yet. As always, I get the feeling that he’s dancing ahead of me; laughing, teasing. Never taunting; M.Christian is a writer who respects his reader. He just has fun along with us, weaving his superbly crafted tale.

I mean, who’d have thought that you could write a story about Gay men waking up in the morning, minus part of a finger? It’s surreal; a crazy notion. “right hand little finger amputated at the first joint…” Yes it’s a ridiculous idea -- and yet -- it works.

This is a visual novel, in the tradition of the best Film Noir. Dark, still and silent. Characters moving into shot, then out of shot. Yet, as I said earlier, fast paced too, as one character, then another, tells their part of the story. A jigsaw put painstakingly together and it’s only on the final pages that the reader sees the complete whole.

It’s erotic; a comment on desire. A comment on our crazed need to have the ultimate fashion statement.

This book is totally weird and unsettling. And the reader just accepts what is going on, with all its weirdness. The reader is complicit. But more than anything, it’s a great story, a great read. Takes me back to long ago, when I first discovered what a joy reading could be. It’s as simple as that; being intrigued, being told a good story.

Thompson confronting the object of his contempt - an IBM Selectric (1989)

2011-08-15T21:50:00.000-07:00

"Christianity is the best way-"

2011-08-09T10:44:00.001-07:00

“Christianity is the best way to cure gayness. Just get on your knees, take a swig of wine and accept the body of a man into your mouth.”

- Stephen Colbert

How To Wonderfully WriteSex (12)

2011-08-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

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 ):

Even before writing about the sex in a sexy story you have to set the stage, decide where this hot and heavy action is going to take place. What a lot of merry pornographers don’t realize is that the where can be just as important as the what in a smutty tale. In other words, to quote a real estate maxim: Location, location … etc.

Way too many times writers will makes their story locales more exotic than the activities of their bump-and-grinding participants: steam rooms, elevators, beaches, hot tubs, hiking trails, space stations, sports cars, airplane bathrooms, phone booths, back alleys, fitting rooms, cabs, sail boats, intensive care wards, locker rooms, under bleachers, peep show booths, movie theaters, offices, libraries, barracks, under a restaurant table, packing lots, rest stops, basements, showrooms — get my drift?

I know I’ve said in the past that sexual experience doesn’t really make a better smut writer, but when it comes to choosing where your characters get to their business, it pays to know quite a bit about the setting you’re getting them into.

Just like making an anatomical or sexual boo-boo in a story, putting your characters into a place that anyone with a tad of experience knows isn’t going to be a fantastic time but rather something that will generate more pain than pleasure is a sure sign of an erotica amateur.

[MORE]

Circlet Press Likes Painted Doll

2011-08-03T12:14:00.000-07:00

While this isn't exactly a rave, I just had to share this review from the Circlet Press site about my cyberpunky erotic novel, Painted Doll, if just for the touching Woody Allen line ...

By the way, Painted Doll is going to be reprinted in a new edition from the always-fantastic Renaissance/Sizzler Books!

Disguises are as ancient as humanity. Think the biblical story of Tamar, who masks herself as a harlot so as to seduce her father-in-law, or call to mind every myth in which a god walks the earth in the guise of a mortal. Or you might recall Bertilak de Hautdesert, who appears to King Arthur and his men as the supernatural Green Knight. And is there any play of Shakespeare’s in which a character does not, at some point, don the garb of another to either comic or tragic effect?

In most of these stories, the disguise is adopted freely, but what about those cases in which an alternate personality is imposed upon someone who is fully conscious of the fact? How will she handle it, especially if her life, and the life of the one whom she loves, depends upon maintaining this ill-fitting fiction every moment of every day? These are the questions posed by M. Christian in Painted Doll: An Erotist’s Tale, an erotist being a body artist who specializes in neurochemical paints that evoke the purest emotion when applied to bare skin. The particular erotist at the center of this story is Domino—cold, calculating, and ultimately professional, the complete opposite of the shy and awkward Claire Munroe, who she once was, before her underworld boss Taka ordered her execution due to suspicion of theft. To escape his clutches, Claire became Domino, while her lover, a woman named Flower, fled to a commune in New Zealand. Though they yearn for each other every waking and dreaming moment, they must remain apart lest they attract the attention of Taka’s assassins, while Claire has to play Domino to the hilt, mixing the demureness of the geisha with the aloofness of one of the three Fates, even though every moment as Domino kills a little more of Claire, the woman who wants nothing more than to rest in her lover’s arms again and be safe.

[MORE]

Condemning the Past so as Not to Repeat It

2011-08-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

- and here's a brand new editorial piece I just did for YNOT: this time about how, even though things may look bad, being cynical in regards to sexual progress isn't a wise choice ...

YNOT – It's easy to see why optimism has fallen out of favor. The other side in the culture war has its own network: billions of dollars provided by adamantine corporations, hundreds of thousands of cloudy-eyed citizen solders willing to die — and even worse, kill — at the whim of their leaders. And the so-called friends crouching alongside us in the trenches have proved to be fair-weather at best; cowardly at worst.

Just looking at the headlines is enough to make even the most delusional of the remaining hopeful hang their heads in leaden defeat: Republican candidate Michele Bachmann (and others) solemnly signs a document pledging allegiance to a Christian fanaticism that would mean institutionalized bigotry for gays and lesbians and criminal persecution for “pornographers” (in other words, all of us). If Bachmann’s religious zealotry weren’t bad enough, there are others overtly attempting to sway the public perception that pernicious evil masquerading as “family values” somehow is mainstream.

[MORE]

Dark Roasted M.Christian

2011-07-25T14:14:00.000-07:00

Check it out: a brand new Dark Roasted Blend piece I did just went up: Exploring the Ruins of Gary, Indiana

"Professor" Harold Hill, the charming yet totally dubious traveling salesman in The Music Man, waxes poetic about this town. But the song he sings is laced with sarcasm: each note nothing but a needle-prick of scorn.

But Gary, Indiana, used to be more than just the subject of a con man's contempt. For a long time, it was a city bright with prospect, bustling with commerce, bubbling with the laughter of prosperity. Sure, even at its heights, the town was never as sleepless as New York, flavorful as San Francisco, or sultry as New Orleans. But Gary was still a place apparently built on a sturdy foundation, reinforced by the seemingly never-ending need for steel. Boring? Yes. So "Professor" Harold Hill put his tongue in his cheek and sang a song of the wonders of the place.

But Gary, back then, was still a good place, a productive place. Founded in 1906, it was a gleaming city built of, and because of, steel. Quite literally, in fact; while other cities may have been at the intersections of trails or roads, rivers and rivers, or where sea met land, Gary was built by and for U.S. Steel and even christened for that corporation's founder.

For decades, Gary was as tough and resilient as the metals it produced. It survived the Great Depression, it fought off the war years, and it forged and pressed through the 1950s. But during the 1960s, its gleaming life's blood—steel—proved to be its undoing when the industry began to wane, then almost totally collapse, due to cheaper manufacturing overseas.

Now, though, Gary, Indiana has become a visual accompaniment of Hill's song. What he sang in playful mocking has now become a sad ballad of municipal failure, a once-proud and productive American city abandoned to cracks and collapse, ruin and rust, and decay and destruction. Gary, Indiana, has become its own urban tombstone, with each house, building, and factory an epitaph practically bearing the inscription WHAT USED TO BE.

But even in collapse, ruin, and decay, there is still something oddly special, weirdly beautiful, poignantly lovely about the city of Gary, Indiana.

David Tribby, a truly remarkable artist whose medium is light and film, has pointed his skilled lenses at this city and has captured not just what this formerly great American city has become in its failure and decomposition but also the ghostly after-images of what it used to be. The images show the sadness of its fall from being full of bustling life to whispering ruins.

Here, in these astonishing images, Tribby makes us hold our breaths in reverent silence. The golden light still streaming through the windows of a church where songs used to be sung.

The windows, some broken, others intact, that used to look out on a lively coming-and-going city, that have become nothing but mirrors reflecting on what used to be.

Yet, while Tribby's photographs may seem like a tour through the depressing landscape of a world falling apart, crumbling away, fading into nothing, there is still something magical about the city he captures. The American metropolis of Gary, Indiana, is all but gone now, but in its destruction, there is also a strange kind of beauty, a haunting elegance to its failure, that Tribby has exposed through his talented eye.

Within these images, the song from The Music Man perhaps echoing in the background, is a kind of shuddering reminder of our own urban mortality. Gary, after all, is not far away, not foreign, not exotic: it is our own next-door neighbor, and our own possible future. The dark beauty of Tribby's work says to all of us that while the ruins are in their own way astonishing, they are also evidence of what could happen anywhere, even, as Hill sings, in our own home town: the "one place that can light my face."

Yes, Hill sings his song of Gary with clear sarcasm and bile, but when he sang that it was the town that "knew me when," he could very well be seeing the city as it is now: the Gary, Indiana, that Tribby has frozen in place.

It Only Hurts When I Laugh -

2011-07-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

As a few of you may remember, one of my current - and very fun - jobs right now is writing for the great folks at the adult industry site, YNOT. In addition to doing the Odd Balling column I also did the following piece on everyone's favorite conservative moron, Michele Bachmann - and why we should laugh at her but never forget that she represents something truly terrifying.

Michele Bachmann's Hatred is No Laughing Matter

Wanna hear a joke? Republican Representative and Presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann walks into a bar….

The punchline? Well, you see, that's what makes it all so funny, because she is the punchline. Almost everything that emerges from the woman’s mouth is laughable. Rimshot, guffaw-worthy, wipe-tears-from-your-eyes hilarious.

And it’s bloodcurdling that more people don’t laugh.

There's certainly a lot about Bachmann to laugh at. I could make a never-ending list, but YNOT.com’s servers — in fact, the entirety of the internet — can hold only so much claptrap. One of her recent escapades deserves to be chewed again and again, though, until people get so sick of it — so sick of her — that the populace rises up en masse and laughs her nascent presidential candidacy into a locked room.

I’m talking about The Family Leader’s “Declaration of Dependence upon MARRIAGE and FAMiLY,” which Bachmann signed recently.

Much has been said about the document, and a great deal of the rhetoric is worthy of fuming ire — from its implication that African-Americans were better off as slaves to the repellent view of homosexuality as both unhealthy and “curable.” So far, however, there has been a din of silence from far too many about the section calling for “Humane protection of women and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy — our next generation of American children — from human trafficking, sexual slavery, seduction into promiscuity, and all forms of pornography and prostitution, infanticide, abortion and other types of coercion or stolen innocence.”

[MORE]

Out Now: Better Than The Real Thing - More Technorotica

2011-07-20T11:01:00.000-07:00

It's always a real treat when I realize that, yep, we really are living in the future - and here's a perfect example of that: a wonderful new ebook by my all-time favorite publisher Renaissance/Sizzler: Better Than The Real Thing - More Technorotica. Featuring a lot of great technology and science-fiction erotic stories, the book is a kick ... if I do say so myself!

It's ust $3.99 - and it's up on the Sizzler site right now but will also be available on amazon very, very soon.

Two great things even better together: technology and sex!

Welcome to Better Than The Real Thing: More Technorotica - a pocket-sized collection of some of machine-obsessive erotica. In these gloriously digital pages you'll find everything from sexy robots to virtual reality lovers, from shameless science fiction to contemporary explorations of technological impact on our sex lives and our sexuality. And they are all event better than the real thing. Or are they? Decide for yourself.

Charge up your own meat-machine processor for a wild and sparking ride into new frontiers of sexuality. In "State" a prostitute who is trained to behave like an expensive robot designed for sex; in "Hackwork" a high-tech form of possession allows a woman to hire her body out for sexual pleasure to clients that will feel her every sensation remotely; and many more outrageous and kinky stories! Pick up even Better Than The Real Thing: More Technorotica and you'll have your erotic world changed in all kinds of hot and interesting ways!

"M. Christian is one hell of a writer. He paints his universes and characters in full, living color, thrills the reader with non-stop action. A no-holds-barred storyteller, he embraces his reader at the start and doesn't let go until long after the end." - Mari Adkins

Classes! Classes! Classes!

2011-07-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

Wow, this this going to be a busy week: first up I'm going to be teaching my class on polyamory for the great folks at the Citadel on Thursday, July 21st (from 8:00-10:00PM), $20:

Polyamory: How To Love Many And Well

Sure, you've heard of it – and maybe have been intrigued by it – but what is polyamory and how do you love more than one person and make it work? How can you deal with jealousy, time-management, emotional rough patches, and more to enter into multiple sexual relationships? In this class, participants will learn to separate the myths from the realities of polyamory, how to make tentative steps towards having more than one partner, and how to approach and deal with the problems of sharing yourself with others, and being involved with someone who, in turn, is involved with someone else.

Included in this class will be simple emotional exercises, truelife experiences, unique techniques and innovative approaches to understanding the joys – and the risks – of beginning, or entering into, a polyamorous relationship.

Then I'm going to be teaching another class - this one on tit torture - for the fantastic Looking Glass on Sunday, July 24th (from 2:00-4:00PM), $20.00 - $35.00:

Breast Play Intensive: Tit-Torture And Bondage

Breast play offers wonderful opportunities for intensely powerful play -- but also comes with serious, even dangerous, risks. In this breasts-on seminar, participants will learn how to treat tits, both male and female, with exactly the right measure of sensuality and intensity to play well but also safely. Clothespins, nipple clamps, pinching, suction devices, gentle impact, bondage, and more will be demonstrated as well as how to deliver effective aftercare. Additionally, participants will be given instruction in first aid, the dangers of breast play, and the limits of what boobs can take.

Check them both out if you can. Come one, come all (no guarantees)

Kit O'Connell Likes The Very Bloody Marys

2011-07-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

I really, truly, honestly have some fantastic friends - take, for example, this very touching review of my neo-noir queer vampire novel, The Very Bloody Marys, by my pal Kit O'Connell ... thanks so much, Kit!

It’s no secret that M. Christian and I are friends. I’ve introduced one of his books and we’ve guest blogged for each other too. So even if I’m not the most unbiased critic, I still like to highlight interesting books I read from time to time even if they are by friends of mine.

One of Chris’ many recurring themes are alternate visions of the police. One of the characters in his wonderfully weird novel near-future novel Finger’s Breadth is a freelance officer who receives his orders and files reports via a distributed police ap on his smartphone. “Bluebelle” in The Bachelor Machine explores a future cop’s intimate relationship with his police vehicle, and Christian even co-edited the anthology Future Cops.

The most recent book I read by him is The Very Bloody Marys. Like Finger’s Breadth, it takes place in an alternate San Francisco but creatures of the night. Our hero is Valentino, a young gay vampire so uncertain of his place in the world that he can’t even decide how to start telling his story at the beginning of the book, so he begins again 2 or 3 times. Somehow, despite his Lestat-like confidence or prowess, he’s been selected to join an undead police force charged with maintaining the secrecy of the undead and the weird. Here, Valentino laments his own impending doom after his superior officer disappears:
Two hundred years. It’d been a good run. Lots of … well, there’d been blood of course. Moons. Stars. Rain. Fog. Hiding, too: all-night movie theaters, bars, discos, stables, warehouses, churches, a few synagogues (even a mosque or two) [...] Lots of … I was going to say friends but, to be honest, the nightlife might be advantageous to boogying but doesn’t make for long-term relationships. Some back-alley assignations, sticky stuff in my mouth or pants; not blood, or at least not up until a few years ago.

Two hundred sure sounds like a lot, but … the time just seemed to have hopped, skipped and jumped by. Never skied, never sailed, never surfed, never had two guys at once [...] What surprised me the most, though, was what I wanted more: orchids, bow ties, potato salad, string, oil or watercolor, hooks and line, two of everything.
The book has a breezy, playful noir style which would make it perfect summer reading. Though it doesn’t have the usual romance (though it has a handful of interesting unrequited ones), I found it especially interesting as a queer take on the torrid vampires-and-werewolves subgenre of urban fantasy.

Circlet Likes Finger's Breadth

2011-07-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

Wow, wow, wow, wow ... if I do say so myself: check out this very touching review of my gay erotic thriller, Finger's Breadth, from the Circlet Press site.

Finger’s Breadth hinges upon a serial crime in a future just a few years from now: someone is stalking the gay community of San Francisco, drugging men one-by-one and cutting off the tips of their pinky fingers. Not quite the bloody stuff of Hollywood thrillers, but scary business nonetheless, and the book has, of course, its cop (freelance, this one) trying to track down the perpetrator, as well as its cast of scared potential victims, hooking up in bars and wondering if the glorious hunk of flesh currently occupying their fantasies is Mr. Snip-it. The book also follows Varney, a newspaper columnist who was reportedly the first victim of this unknown attacker; Taylor, a translator by profession, who had a close encounter with the serial cutter (or so he thinks) and is now shacking up with a former lover, afraid to leave the apartment; Conrad, who goes seeking for the cutter because he wants “to do more than fuck and suck… to feel really big and powerful”; and many others, some characters making only a brief appearance before they disappear again.

But the story is bigger than this crime spree, for as more and more people show up with a bit of their fingers missing, others are soon feeling left out, and some even take to cutting themselves, just to fit in—like a yakuza initiation. And many discover, whether self-inflicted or not, that the experience somehow proves validating, as if the worst that might happen to them is now behind them. In a modern society that has largely left behind rites of initiation, and among a middle-class population whose struggles may seem tiny compared to those of our forebears, how many might long for such a valedictory and validating experience? M. Christian hits upon these questions with full force, and if at times I thought he was reaching too far, exaggerating the extent to which people would embrace injury and harm, I remembered—against my will, almost—a revival I attended in Colorado Springs (very long story). One speaker was a young woman who regaled the crowd with tales of her Christ-less past of rampant drug abuse and wanton sex, yelling tearfully at the audience, “I was a whore! I was a whore before I met Jesus!” I turned to the girl with whom I had traveled to this event, only to find her gently weeping at the spectacle. Finally, she said, so longingly, “I wish I had something like that in my past. It would make my Christian witness so much stronger.”

No, M. Christian nails it right on the head, and beautifully, too, with writing poetically spare (“A scream tried to claw its way out of his throat, the sharp edges of its shame and pain like trying to throw up a breakfast of razors”) and fully realized scenes of sex that run the gamut from the desperate and uncomfortable to the absolutely celebratory, all mixing effortlessly with the horror of the broader situation. Finger’s Breadth may well rank as one of the most psychologically astute erotic novels since Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, and it deserves to be just as widely read.

Amos Lassen Likes Sex In San Francisco

2011-07-11T15:52:00.000-07:00

This is just too sweet: my dear pal Amos Lassen just posted this nice review of the anthology I edited for Sizzler books: Sex In San Francisco. Thanks, Amos!

One of my favorite erotic writers, M. Christian, takes a break from writing and acts as editor of this anthology about sex in San Francisco. It is certainly one of the things that the city is most famous for and some of the best have come together to give us some very hot stories of Sodom by the Sea. We see why San Francisco is so sexy and we go to the heart of the city with such writers as Donna George Storey, PM White, Renatto Garcia, Adele Levin, Shanna Germain, Craig J. Sorensen, Theda Hudson, Jude Mason, Neve Black, Mykola Dementiuk, Jeremy Edwards, Anna Reed and Lily Penza. The stories are personal, interesting and above all else, very erotic. Christian has done an excellent job with the selections and you really feel the heat of the city.

What I Think Of Michele Bachmann

2011-07-08T11:17:00.000-07:00

FUCK YOU

From Think Progress:

Tonight, Michele Bachmann became the first presidential candidate to sign a pledge created by THE FAMiLY LEADER, an influential social-conservative group in Iowa. By signing the pledge Bachmann “vows” to “uphold the institution of marriage as only between one man and one woman” by committing herself to 14 specifics steps. The ninth step calls for the banning of “all forms” of pornography. The pledge also states that homosexuality is both a choice and a health risk. You can read all the details of the pledge here.

Bravo!

2011-07-08T10:32:00.001-07:00

Book Wenches Likes Running Dry

2011-07-07T12:04:00.000-07:00

Now here's a real treat: a very nice review of my neo-vampire novel, Running Dry, by Book Wenches!

He might be immortal, but artist Ernst Doud detests his state of being. The method he must use to stay alive fills him with guilt and makes him more a monster than a man. Although his loneliness is crushing, Doud has found that all his attempts to transform a lover to immortality have resulted in disaster, so Doud has chosen to live solitary life. The only person he is close to is his friend Shelly, the jaded and outspoken owner of a Los Angeles art gallery.

When a man appears at Shelly’s gallery searching for Doud, Doud knows that Sergio has finally found him. Decades ago, Doud converted Sergio into a creature like himself in the hopes of having eternal love and companionship, but instead of remaining his gentle lover, Sergio became a bloodthirsty beast. And now that beast is seeking revenge against the one who made him and who subsequently tried to kill him.

Fearing for Shelly’s life now that his old lover has seen her, Doud snatches her away from her everyday world and runs. He wants to keep his friend safe from a monster who won’t think twice before draining her dry. But when Doud’s own hunger increases and his control grows thin, can he also keep her safe from himself?

#

When I opened M. Christian’s Running Dry for the first time, I expected yet another vampire story. A little extra angst, perhaps, and a GLBT twist but bloodsucking creatures of the night nevertheless – the same old same old. To my surprise and delight, I was completely wrong. This story about love, hunger, self-control, and the terrible cost of immortality is a fresh and intriguing take on the ever-popular vampire. This novel strips vampires of the pointy teeth, holy water aversion, and extreme photosensitivity that we have come to expect and instead offers readers a creature who is a hybrid of human and monster, whose sensitivity and emotions make him real but whose visceral need to kill makes him terrifying as well.

Mr. Christian has a literary and precise writing style that brings the action and the emotion into sharp focus and makes both the story and its characters feel completely real. He writes the way we might think, sometimes slightly stream of conscious but always intelligent and comfortable to read. He very expertly shows instead of tells, giving readers a chance to share in the discovery experience, drawing us in to the story until we feel almost a part of it.

Running Dry is one of those books that begins at a deceptively slow pace but then builds momentum as it goes along. Its short chapters keep the story moving forward at a fast clip, offering many tiny cliffhangers that keep us in constant suspense. I also found myself connecting with both the emotion and the horror of the story. The character Doud’s mental anguish permeates the entire narrative, coloring the simplest items in bleak tones. But even though Doud earns our sympathy, we can’t help but acknowledge the monster within him, because parts of the story are quite gruesome indeed.

I found Running Dry to be a very good read indeed and especially enjoyed its message. Carpe diem, this story tells us. Love is a rare and wonderful thing; use the time that you have in this life to find it instead of reaching for the unattainable. Because where is the joy in a life lived alone?

- Reviewed by: Bobby D Whitney

Sorry -

2011-07-06T11:18:00.000-07:00

- to have been kind of out of touch. Been a crazy week and then-some: first I was at the YNOT Summit in San Francisco (on panels and helping out the great folks at YNOT) and then I turned right around and went down to San Jose for Westercon a week later. Whew!

But now that I'm behind my desk again expect a lot of project and anthology updates and more cool stuff very, very soon!

Never Dusty!

2011-06-28T14:11:00.000-07:00

We (Heart) New York

2011-06-27T19:20:00.000-07:00

How To Wonderfully WriteSex (11)

2011-06-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

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 ):

There’s no doubt about it, things are really tough right now: aside from the depression/recession that seems to be killing publishers daily—and making life even harder for writers—there’s the too-often- painful transition from print to digital books, and the problem of getting yourself heard in a world full of other authors screaming for attention.

So it’s only natural that writers would feel a lot of pressure to write books and stories to fit what they think is the flavor-of-the-moment, to work only to spec.

So, should you do it? In my opinion the answer is a definitive, absolute, certain … kind of.

Before getting too far into it, I should back up a tiny bit and say that stories are very different—no duh—critters than novels. Aside from the obvious length thing, the big difference between the two is that with stories getting the out into the world usually depends on if you’re writing for a specific anthology, Web site, and such. If that’s the case then, absolutely, you should work to try and meet the guidelines set by the publisher or editor.

[MORE]

Dr. Faustus Likes The Bachelor Machine

2011-06-21T15:42:00.000-07:00

The cool news keeps coming! Check out this very touching review of my science fiction erotica collection, The Bachelor Machine, from Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com!

It is with great pleasure that I can report that Circlet Press has now made available a new e-book version of M. Christian‘s short story collection, The Bachelor Machine. For thaumatophiles, it is a do-not-miss.

The new edition consists of nineteen stories and two appendicies from the 2003 on-dead-tree edition plus a new foreword.

Many — though not all — of the stories are set in a gritty cyberpunk world, one which at times makes even the imagination of William Gibson look somewhat tender by comparison. Radical forms of body modification, virtual realities, biohacking, and so on are explored in all sorts of permutations of gender and practice, or beyond gnder and practice. Some are just exquisite. The backer’s tale “Heartbraker” plays like X-rated version of Ghost in the Shell. I hope M. Christian will forgive me for offering a taste:
Their cunt was on fire—molten, their lips and their clit steamed in a thumping beat as both their bodies moved over each other. Nipples stroked across soft breasts, bellies glided on a sheen of fine synthetic sweat.Their cunt was rapidly melting in a pool of vibrating wine, a tub of jiggling butter.They weren’t just hot or steaming—they were
burning in their roaring lust, combining in a echoing, reverberating bonfire. Linked, each hardwired into the other’s genitals, mixed and matched, they surged and merged.
(And if, after reading that, you don’t want to run out and buy this book right now, I should wonder what you’re doing on this blog.)

It’s not all cyberpunk. “The New Motor” has a superficially steampunk feel, but what it actually seems to do is take a cyberpunk erotic sensibility and project it backwards into a real nineteenth-century America that was full of eccentric and goofy spiritual movements, with rather delightful results. And there is dark political satire here as well, in a story like “Guernica,” in which closeted BDSM enthusiasts derive pleasure in parodying the grim, oppressive police state in which they live.

These are often edgy stories: I am full of admiration for M. Christian’s willingness to “go there,” wherever “there” is. Consider “Everything But the Smell of Lilies,” a story of a sex worker who has been modified so that she can be killed by clients who get off on that sort of thing has to be one of the squickiest things I’ve ever read…and read, and read, and read again. So fair warning, these are not stories for the squeamish or the easily offended. And they’re challenging in other ways as well, full of twists and non-conventional narrative structures and devices. This is erotica for advanced readers.

And yet for all the edginess, for the cyberpunk grit and the sense of a brutal world, there are touching moments, bits of tenderness in the oddest of places. The final story, “The Bachelor Machine,” about an encounter with a deteriorating, way-past-her-prime sexbot contains a twist that left me with a catch in my throat. As usual, I won’t give it away. But I shall urge you to read it yourself. You can order a copy from Circlet here.

Don't Bother To Knock

2011-06-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

More Finger's Breadth Praise!

2011-06-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

I can never say this enough: I truly have wonderful friends -- just look at these two amazing Finger's Breadth blurbs I got from Theda Hudson and Jardonn Smith (and who are both amazing writers)! Thanks so much!

“M. Christian is a writer whose style reminds me of film director J.J. Abrams -- quick edits, flash scenes shown from varying angles and distances. Unlike Mr. Abrams, however, M. Christian holds his camera steady. No jerking you around. His carefully-chosen words take you to the scene, allow you time to absorb and analyze, and then he gets you the hell out of there so he can repeat the process elsewhere. When you read M. Christian, nothing is wasted, everything is gained.

“His latest, Finger's Breadth, centers around a serial sicko who has a funny way of treating his tricks. First he drugs them, and then he severs their pinkie finger. Yes, gay San Francisco is terrorized, and a cross-section of those involved are psycho-analyzed by M. Christian -- victimizer, chasers of the victimizer, victims, victims of the victims, and wannabe victims. Sounds like a heavy load of information, and it is, but with the no-bullshit storytelling style of M. Christian, this hair-raising roller coaster is all whoops, no loops. So, take my advice: do not miss this ride.”
- Jardonn Smith, author and pornographer

“M.Christian dives into the mystery and horror of act engenders and explores in loving, poetic detail how it tears lovers and the gay community apart with no apologies and no lube beyond his lush descriptions of his beloved San Francisco, relationships, flirtations, and sex, always hot and honest however, deceitful or hidden the people or circumstances.

“He carries us along slickly through the coarser, ugly, and sorry details of the ways the victims and the community cope with fear and need and intimacy all the way to an ending as surprising as it is unexpected.”
- Theda Hudson

Ernest Hogan On Finger's Breadth

2011-06-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

Remember how I was just saying that Ernest Hogan - who is one of my all-time favorite authors - is a real star-in-the-heavens for his wonderful blurbs for The Bachelor Machine and Love Without Gun Control? Well, he just sent me ... hang on, I have to sit down for this ... okay, my head's cleared a bit: a fantastic blurb for my brand new novel, Finger's Breadth:

“FINGER'S BREATH is a real wild ride, the sort of novel you turn to when the apocalyptic mayhem out your window gets dull, and you lust for something to remind you of what it's like to live life at full-throttle. M. Christian sends the reader hurtling like a hockey puck through a world of crime, out-of-control passions, mutilation, and madness. Terms like noir and hardboiled don't quite fit -- this is more like ultraviolet, the invisible light that makes the scorpions glow in the dark.”
- Ernest Hogan

What Folks Are Saying About Finger's Breadth

2011-06-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

As I'm starting to ramp up the promo for my new queer erotic thriller/horror novel, Finger's Breadth, I thought I might start by sharing some of these flat-out-fantastic pre-release blurbs some of my favorite writers (and people) were good enough to do for me.

"M. Christian is constantly expanding his game, giving us stories which joyfully play with genre while remaining as literate, complex and human as any mainstream work. He is far more than an erotica, SF or horror writer; each new book bearing his name should be anticipated, acquired and savored by those who love good fiction."
- Jason Rubis, author of STRANGELY MADE

"'Fingers' Breadth' creates a vivid portrait of a community torn apart by suspicion, where the thrills of hot, anonymous sex go hand in mutilated hand with the chill of fear, and no one is entirely what they seem. M. Christian skilfully mixes a dark, potent cocktail of lust, longing, paranoia and an overwhelming need for acceptance..."
- Liz Coldwell, author of TAKE YOUR SLAVE TO WORK

“To be effective, the act of literary intercourse between horror and erotica should be deeply unsettling. It should leave the reader feeling uncomfortable, overwhelmed by equal parts dread and anticipation. M. Christian understands this better than most, weaving a tale that permits the reader but a finger’s breadth of space between fear and arousal. His deft control of the story makes us feel the blade, but it's his subtle manipulation of our emotions that makes us want the cut.”
- Sally Sapphire, BELLASBOOKSLUT

“M.Christian is irritating the hell out of me. It’s bad enough that he’s such a prolific writer but why does he have to be so damn good? I try to keep track of where he’s going, but it’s impossible. He’s written novels about vampires, “Running Dry” and “The Very Bloody Marys”. He’s turned me on with his sexy erotica. “All Eyes On Her,” then he writes science fiction in “The Bachelor Machine.” He delves into contemporary angst with the fast paced “Me2”. Did I mention “Brushes” and “Painted Doll”? He skips happily and effortlessly from genre to genre, like a gazelle on crystal meth.

“As if that weren’t enough he’s now written what I think is his best work to date, “Finger’s Breadth”. A mystery that could come straight from the pen of Agatha Christie. As much as a whodunnit it’s “what the hell is going on”? Why so many gay, three fingered men around? Who’s responsible? Who is amputating fingers?

“M.Christian’s “Finger’s Breadth” is as compelling as it is a piece of carefully crafted writing. He knows how to keep his reader’s attention and he does it beautifully.

“I’d use words like “talented” and “gifted”, I know he doesn’t believe in that kind of stuff, but hell, who cares what M.Christian thinks? I’m going to use them anyway.”
- Billierosie, author of FETISH WORSHIP

“Finger's Breadth is a tale of what happens when accident begets fetish, what happens when that fetish turns fad, and how a near-future city of queers reacts to change. I couldn't put it down!”
- Kit O'Connell, author and editor

"The work of M. Christian is extraordinary not only in its quality and originality, but also in its versatility. This is a writer who goes beyond the mere challenges of writing convincingly from different genders and orientations and psychologies and walks of life, in different settings, subgenres, moods, and tones; this is a master of the craft who can thoroughly reinvent himself, as a voice, every time he picks up the pen—always with glorious results."
- Jeremy Edwards, author of ROCK MY SOCKS OFF

"M.Christian has seen the future -- and it is hardboiled! If you love crime stories -- gay or otherwise -- and you love science fiction, you will love Finger's Breadth. No other storyteller nails it quite like M. Christian does. This is a real page turner."
-- Marilyn Jaye Lewis, author of FREAK PARADE

“M. Christian delivers a tale of terror, suspense and erotic gay love in fresh, satisfying ways. No other writer combines genres like this master storyteller. A gorgeous thriller and a thrill to read!”
- Olivia London, author of SAN FRANCISCO LOVIN’

“M. Christian has done it again! He's managed to successfully throw queer, horror, suspense, and science fiction with a dash of erotica to create a total mind bender of a book, "Finger's Breath".

“Missing fingers + Queer men = Determined cops who want to end this horrendous crime sweeping across their town. “Finger’s Breath” is a total mindfuck and will leave you gripping your covers tight (that's if the criminal mastermind hasn't claimed them already) – just so you can ensure no one will come after your digits. But remember – the men who lost their fingers did the same and fell prey. So, I ask you – how well are your fingers protected when you’re not looking?

“Are you sure?”
--Dr. Alyn Rosselini, author and editor

“M. Christian is a force to be reckoned with. Just when you think you understand the path that his narrative and characters are taking, Christian throws a monkey wrench, or a limb, or a head into the works and you have to get your bearings and start all over again. No matter which book of his you pick up, prepare for an intoxicatedly weird ride.”
-Ily Goyanes, author and filmmaker

"Strange and sexy, Finger's Breadth is a seductively suspenseful read."
- Paula Guran, Darkecho

“Finger's Breadth is as dark and rich and well-blended as good bourbon. Sexy, suspenseful, and believable in the details and elements of its world. Great stuff!”
- Angela Caperton, author of DARKNESS AND DELIGHT

“Finger’s Breadth is mesmeric storytelling, riveting in execution and appalling in implication. M. Christian’s tale of erotic terror in a near-future San Francisco is imagined so skillfully that it grabs the reader with its easy familiarity, then refuses to let go as it careens to its shocking yet completely believable conclusion. Evoking such Grand Masters as Armistead Maupin, Thomas Harris and Rod Serling while remaining strikingly original, Finger’s Breadth is Christian at the height of his considerable powers. Like Charon the ferryman, the author takes the reader down the dark rivers of human sexuality and shows us things that would normally never see the light of day. Ultimately the most compelling aspect of this fiction is how fascinatingly and terrifyingly plausible it is. Finger’s Breadth should come with a warning label: Read this before clubbing.”
- Christopher Pierce, author of ROGUE SLAVE, ROGUE HUNTED and KIDNAPPED BY A SEX MANIAC

"M. Christian is one of the most fantastically inventive authors out there. And do I mean out there! Buckle up for another ride into a great imagination. Don't miss FINGER'S BREATH."
--Adam Carpenter, author of DUDE RANCH and the European Flings Trilogy

Tumbling We Will Go!

2011-06-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder, folks, that I have a wee little hobby of running a bunch of Tumblr sites. Check them out if you're curious about the bizarre, the strange, or the just-plain-fun images I come across and put up on them:

Rude Mechanicals is a cyberpunky land of cyborgs and androids ... kind of a visual compliment to my Bachelor Machine, Love Without Gun Control, and (naturally) Rude Mechanicals books.

Meine Kleine Fabrik is a picture-postcard take on my weird-but-wonderful-stuff-in-the-universe blog of the same name.

Lust For Glory is a ... well, 'lustier' place that acts as a kind of slideshow for my erotica blog, Frequently Felt.

Love ya, Stephen -

2011-06-09T14:14:00.000-07:00

"I began writing seriously when I was about thirteen. Out streamed poetry, stories and novels, the latter of which were always aborted early, usually half way through the second chapter. It took my friend Douglas Adams to encourage me to go further and he did this by pointing out that the reason I had never managed to finish a novel was that I had never properly understood how difficult, how ragingly and absurdly difficult, it is to do. “It is almost impossibly hard,” he told me. It is supposed to be. But once you truly understand how difficult it is,” he added, with signature paradoxicality, “it all becomes a lot easier.” It was many years later that Clive James quoted to me Thomas Mann’s superb crystallisation of this. “A writer,” said Mann, “is a person for whom writing is more difficult than for other people.” How liberating that definition is. If any of you out there have ever been put off writing it might well be because you found it so insanely hard and therefore, like me, gave up and abandoned your masterworks early, regretfully assuming that you weren’t cut from the right cloth, that it must come more easily to true, natural-born writers. Perhaps you can start again now, in the knowledge that since the whole experience was so grindingly horrible you might be the real thing after all. Of course finding it difficult and managing to complete are just the first stages. They are what earn you the uniform and the brass buttons, as it were. They don’t guarantee that what you complete is any good, or even readable. That is quite a different kettle of wax, a whole other ball of fish."

- Stephen Fry

Bibrary Bookslut Likes Finger's Breadth

2011-06-06T14:21:00.000-07:00

OMG! The good - nay, the great - just keeps on coming: the fantastic Sally Sapphire at Bibrary Bookslut just posted this very touching review of my brand-new gay/erotic/thriller Finger's Breadth. Thanks so much, Sally!

To be effective, the act of literary intercourse between horror and erotica should be deeply unsettling. It should leave the reader feeling excited by uncomfortable, overwhelmed by equal parts dread and anticipation.

If you’ve ever read any of his work (and shame on you, if you haven’t) you know M. Christian understands this better than most. With his latest, he has woven a tale that permits the reader but a finger’s breadth of space between fear and arousal. His deft control of the story makes us feel the blade of the assailant, but it’s his subtle manipulation of our emotions that makes us desire the cut of the victim.

The story starts out with simple, if deliciously perverse, premise. A mysterious figure is haunting the underground community of San Francisco, abducting young gay men and cutting off the tip of their little finger. That’s it. No other torture or mutilation, just that missing tip of a finger. With his ounce of flesh taken, they’re free to go.

As creepy and unsettling as the abductions are, it’s what comes after that comprises the bulk of the story. Suffice to say, things get weird, for both the abductees and the community at large, as the story develops in directions that you can’t begin to imagine. It’s a testament to M. Christian’s writing skill that we never question what happens, no matter how weird it gets. Instead, we’re encouraged to embrace the guiltiest of pleasures by indulging in the tale, until we’re so deeply involved that we can’t pull away from the final horrors ahead - and then are left delighted, and deliciously spent.

I had a chance to give this an early read (I’m actually quoted on the publisher’s website, which is very exciting!), and only a desire to take a break and collect my thoughts prevented me from reading it in one sitting. If you’re at all intrigued, then I urge you to give it a read – you won’t be disappointed.

Filthy (Boys) Reviews

2011-06-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

As the new edition of my queer collection, Filthy has just been released by the wonderful Renaissance/Sizzler (now called Filthy Boys) here's a quick blast of some reviews the book has gotten. Enjoy!

Erotica That Reads Like Literature

I have enjoyed M. Christian’s work for a long time. His solo collection Dirty Words and his two multiple-author anthologies co-edited with Simon Sheppard, Rough Stuff and Roughed Up, are among my favorite volumes of erotica.

Which brings me to Filthy: Outrageous Gay Erotica, a new collection of gay erotic stories by M. Christian. To say this is a great book is an understatement. It runs the gamut of emotions, from anger to sadness to ecstasy to envy.

Here are capsule reviews of some of my favorite stories from Filthy…

“The Greener Grasses” in one short story captures the entire paradox of trying to reconcile a leatherfetish lifestyle into the humdrum world of 9-to-5 jobs and dishes to be washed more than volumes of scholarly non-fiction ever has.

“Flyboy” is a wistful tale of a man who has two lovers, one flesh and blood and one as big as all outdoors. Guess which one gets him in the end. You might be surprised.

“Love” reads as a tender valentine to all the gay men, imaginary or otherwise, who have inspired the author over the years to create his amazing tales of erotica.

“Suddenly, Last Thursday” is a haunting, harrowing riff on Tennessee Williams’s play Suddenly, Last Summer.

And “Friday Night at the Calvary Hotel” is an amazing tale that gets my vote for one of the top ten best short stories ever.

Filthy transcends its genre of erotica and enters the realm of literature.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

- Donovan Brown

What makes a good short story? Felice Picano, in his forward to Filthy offers some of the more traditional takes: a deft handling of voice, of place, of character. But really, what makes a good short story - what makes a great short story - is a truly good idea.

Luckily for Christian – and luckily for us – truly good ideas are not in short supply in this collection.

A perfect example comes in "Sunset Boulevard," one of many tales that puts a queer twist on an old story. Christian, riffing brilliantly on the campness of the original movie, recasts the central fading screen siren as an aging gay porn star. And it might seem risible to allow the gloriously queeny Norman Desmond to intone, "I am big. It's porno that got small," but Christian pulls it off.

Christian isn't shy of a little shameless genre straddling with his startlingly imaginative ideas either. In "The Hope of Cinnamon" we enter a future world in which gay men have mastered the art of time travel in order to save their queer brothers from oppressive regimens of the past. But this tale is also a good example of how the short story format can be frustrating for the reader when presented with such a dazzling concept as this one. The idea is simply too big for the form. The problem presented – that the rescued men cannot cope with a life in nirvana – isn’t so much explored as thrown at us before we are hustled away for the next story.

This is where the book wears thin. The stories in this book are short, averaging ten pages of in-out wham-bam. After a while it starts to feel like Christian is torturing his readers, deserting his unsatisfied readers for fresh thrills before they have quite achieved emotional climax. Too much is left undone and unsaid. This collection could have featured just the five best ideas – including the wonderfully disturbing quasi-religious "Friday Night at The Calvary Hotel" – and served up five wonderful novellas.

In the final story – the most enjoyable of the whole collection – Christian once again attempts a daring feat and pulls it off neatly as he spins us a tale of a young gay reader so besotted with an author of outrageous gay erotica he takes a pilgrimage to his grave. Angered by his discovery en route that his hero was in fact in a relationship with a woman, he means to urinate over the author's last resting place, but ends up recalling too many of the author's purplest passages and doing something entirely different. It is no surprise when Christian reveals the name on the headstone of this soiled grave.

While Filthy is a wonderful book, and just the thing if you are in the mood for an enjoyable quickie (or twenty), it's not the place to turn if you are more in the mood for a story that can go all night.

– Mathilde Madden, Reflection's Edge

I read a guide to reviewing books recently. It said a reviewer should be impartial. I can see that point of view; the work should be judged on its own merit. However, it's impossible for me to pick up a book by M. Christian and not have expectations that are based on previous works I've read. So I guess it's only fair to begin this review with full disclosure: I'm a fan.

I'm torn over the idea of erotica as a distinct genre, and M. Christian's work is fuel for this internal debate. In The Hope of Cinnamon, a future society rescues gay victims from Nazi death camps and brings them forward in time to a sanctuary. Gen, one of the Helpers who works to integrate the Rescued into their new home finds out that few of the Rescued successfully survive the transition. He decides to travel back in time to experience the death camps for himself so that he will have a better understanding of why the Rescued fail to thrive in a society that fully accepts them. While this story does touch on sex and sexuality, it is a great example of speculative fiction that prompts further examination of our time and how current and future gay generations need to be aware of the history of gay culture and see it in proper historical perspective instead of viewing it, and judging, through hindsight.

As much as I hate the term coming-of-age tale, Utter West is a near-future story that shows a character coming of age, and more. Pony is the narrator's hero, the one who escaped their suburban hell and went beyond it to something wonderful and mystical - or so the narrator wants to believe. Unaware that he's destroying the beautiful myth that's grown around his disappearance, Pony comes back as an ordinary adult, prompting the narrator to break free and take the journey Pony failed to make into the beyond of the Utter West.

If noir is more your style, enjoy M. Christian's homage to Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood Boulevard, or sink into the corner pocket of the night world of pool hustlers in The Hard Way. That Sweet Smell is really the scent of corruption, but keep telling yourself it's success, because in this story, that delusion is all the narrator has to cling to.

Moby is purely tall tale, told with the flair of real yarn-spinner. Could anyone stink that much, be that cussedly mean, or be that hung? It's all in the telling - joyously and outrageously over the top.

Or maybe you're in the mood for bittersweet romance and love. Flyboy is the soaring romance we all long for, crashed down to earth by the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. And Love is a writer's story, about how much it means to us when our stories are wanted, and how hard it is to separate the pure love of acceptance from the physical.

And then there's horror. Friday Night at the Calvary Hotel is the hardest story to read in this collection for it's intense mix of sadism, masochism, religious imagery and sex. Stories like that cling to you long after you've put the book down. You decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I like that. Suddenly, Last Thursday is horror of a different stripe - lush and gothic, where you might have to read a line several times before your brain accepts what it's telling you. That slow dawning of realization is delicious and shivery.

In the movie Sunset Boulevard, Joe Gillis says, "Sometimes it's interesting to see just how bad bad writing can be." Yes, but it's gratifying to see just how good good writing can be too. It's unfortunate that erotic writing has a reputation for bad writing, but sit down with this collection and let M. Christian change that prejudice.

– Kathleen Bradean

“Filthy” is subtitled “Outrageous Gay Erotica”, it could also be called “the book that stole my Saturday”. It arrived in the mail and I intended to slot it into my reading queue after several other books that have been waiting patiently for my attention. I flicked over the somewhat dry preface to the first story and it was all over.

In 'The Greener Grasses' M. Christian shows us immediately that this is not a collection to be trifled with, picked up and put down. I was thrust immediately us into the point of view of a real flawed, sexual, vulnerable protagonist. The sexuality is always frank but blended with charming love stories like 'Heart in Your Hand' or '2+1' or folksy fables like 'Moby'. The writer’s skills are perhaps best shown in the apt blending of sexuality with darker threads such as in 'Bitch' where one man’s bitterness and hate escapes his control or 'Friday Night at the Calvary Hotel' with its queasy look at the blend of sadism and sexuality in religious symbolism. I found the homage stories 'Hollywood Blvd' and 'Suddenly, Last Thursday' just a little heavy handed but still engaging reading.

The stand-outs for me were simple stories, but perfect in their parts. 'Oroborous' uses a botched tattoo to contrast the pain and trouble of “fixing” what is “wrong” about us (not what we would choose) with the joys of embracing it what we are. After reading it I had one of those moments staring at the wall and letting it sink in. And there were actually tears in my eyes at the end of the tragic love story of 'Flyboy'. The speculative stories are also strong: 'Utter West' gives a new meaning to the youthful desire to get out of a dead-end town and 'The Hope of Cinnamon' shows a far future gay community that rescues persecuted gay men from the past and is shown, through their eyes, what may be missing from their apparent utopia.

All of the stories have a strong concept as well as explicit sexual content. I would quibble at calling it “erotica”. Erotic, yes, but not quite in the step-by-step manner intended for one handed reading. It’s one of those oft-quoted phrases that our biggest sex organ in our brain; I’m willing to bet that author M. Christian would agree. Almost every story in this collection is perfectly constructed for the intellect: set up, satisfaction and pay off within a few short pages. Some stories are unapologetically erotic and others nostalgically sensual, only obliquely erotic at all or proudly a little perverse—but the erotic is there to serve the story in the manner and amount the narrative requires.

If you are looking for sexually-charged fiction that also has heart and intelligence “Filthy” is the collection for you—just don’t pick it up until you have the free time to read it from cover to cover.

– Emily Veinglory

Out Now: Finger's Breadth

2011-06-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

As teased for quite a while, I am extremely pleased and proud to announce the publication of my brand new queer/erotic/sf/thriller/horror novel, Finger's Breadth, by the great folks at Zumaya Books. While I'll be doing a lot more about the book in a bit I just wanted to put out the word that the book is now available as both a ebook and print version.

Look at your hand: four fingers and a thumb, right? But what if you woke one morning and rather than four fingers and a thumb you are ... short one? How would you feel? What would you do? What would you become?

The city is terrified: a mysterious figure is haunting the streets of near-future San Francisco, drugging and amputating the fingertips of queer men. But what's worse than this horror is how it transforms the men of the city. For what's worse, a horror or that it can, so easily, turn any of us into something even more horrific?

Erotic. Terrifying. Fascinating. Disturbing. Intriguing. Haunting. You have never read a book like Finger's Breadth. You will never look your fingers, or the people all around you, the same way again.

ISBN-10: 1934841463
ISBN-13: 978-1934841464
Paperback: $15.99
ebook: $6.99

Amos Lassen Likes Finger's Breadth

2011-06-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

I am ... simply speechless: Amos Lassen is not just a fantastic reviewer and writer but he is also a dear friend - which makes his very touching review for my brand new (and just released) new novel, Finger's Breadth so touching. You are the best, Amos!

I have long been a fan of M. Christian. His erotic writings are what I called literary erotica and he is one of the founders of that genre. His horror writings also are in a class of literary horror and when he tells you a story, you simply cannot stop reading. When he combines horror and erotica, you are in for a special treat and that is exactly what he does in his new book, “Finger’s Breadth”. The idea for this book is clever and terrifying, probably because something like this could really happen and when you have a story that could be real, you actually shudder twice as much.

The story is set in San Francisco of the near future and something very strange is going on. Someone is haunting the city, drugging the gay men and then cutting off the tip of their little finger. But that is not all. The ensuing terror causes a transformation of the men of the city and the very idea that something like this can happen causes everyone to cower in fear. People begin to suspect each other and no one seems safe.

The story begins with a prelude that sets tone of what is to follow and from the very first line, we feel a sense of gloom as an uneasy atmosphere takes over.

Session No.: 10977642-2
Case Ref: AS-D-341945491
Date: May 7 —
Location: 1: McAllister Detention Center, RM 146
Subject Name: Kenneth Allen Wertz
Subject ID: N946671291
Interrogating Officer: Eric Knorr
Officer ID: CSS-7992309
Attorney Present: No

Officer: Okay, right, so you said you didn’t see anything?
Subject: Yeah, I didn’t see anything.
Officer: You just woke up like that, huh?
Subject: Yeah. On Muni. In the morning, I mean.
Officer: Someone cut your fucking finger off and you
didn’t see anything?
Subject: Yeah, I guess so.
Officer: Tell it to me again”

And we are off on an adventure into the unknown where things become stranger and stranger as the novel moves forward. I Feel I may have already said a great deal about the plot and I do not want to give too much away and spoil the reading experience. Suffice it to say that I was on the edge of my seat as I read. If I am to give you my opinion, let me first say that what makes this novel really unique is that it is not propelled by characters nor plot but by the story that Christian has managed to write in a way that the language and the style that pulls the reader in. For me that has always been the author’s trademark and why I was so free to use the word Literary as I described his erotica and horror stories. It is not that hard to come up with an idea that can be turned into a horror story and that is why horror has been part of the folklore of America and why these stories are so popular on camp-outs as we sit around a campfire. To successfully do this, we need a combination of characters and plot but more important than all else is a novel way to relate the story. For me that is the definition of M. Christian. This book is unlike anything I have read before and I suspect that it will stay with me for quite a while.

Out Now: Filthy Boys - Sizzling Gay Male Erotica

2011-06-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

Remember how I mentioned that my queer collection, Filthy (now called Filthy Boys: Sizzling Gay Male Erotica), would be coming out in a brand new edition from the always-fantastic Renaissance/Sizzler? Well, guess what - it just came out! It will be on amazon very soon (and a print-on-demand version coming in a few months) but check out the new edition here.

"M. Christian's stories are the fairy tales whispered to one another by dark angels whose hearts and mouths are brimming with lust. He goes beyond the pale, ordinary definitions of sexuality and writes about need and desire in their purest forms. Readers daring enough to stray from the safety of the path will find in his images and words a garden of delights to tempt even the most demanding pleasure-seeker." –Michael Thomas Ford, Lambda Award winner
"To say this is a great book is an understatement. Filthy transcends its genre of erotica and enters the realm of literature." -Donovan Brown, author My Brotha My Brotha
"While Filthy is a wonderful book, and just the thing if you are in the mood for an enjoyable quickie (or twenty)." –Mathilde Madden, author Reflection's Edge
"The hottest explosion since the Big Bang." -Ian Philips, author See Dick Deconstruct
"If you are looking for sexually-charged fiction that also has heart and intelligence “Filthy” is the collection for you." –Emily Veinglory, author Lovers and Ghosts

Ernest Hogan On Love Without Gun Control

2011-06-04T11:49:00.000-07:00

Did I say cool - when I was talking about being blown-away by one of my favorite writers blurbing The Bachelor Machine? What I mean to say is extremely cool as he just sent me a blub for my non-smutty collection, Love Without Gun Control. Thanks again, Ernest - yer the best!

A few years ago I tried to read a tasteful literary magazine full of stories where nothing much happened, and the authors and characters were proud of it. The stories in LOVE WITHOUT GUN CONTROL are not like that. M. Christian lets the reader have it with booth barrels in story after story that set a new standard for Twenty-First Century pulp fiction. From far-out science fiction to gritty, hardboiled realities these are the kind of stories that make the reader hang on for dear life on a wild ride.

- Ernest Hogan

Guest Post: I Masturbate!

2011-06-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

The coolness just keeps on coming. You, no doubt, remember me mentioning - and undressing for - Shilo McCabe, right? If not then take a look at the shot below by her of my magnificently naked self.

Well, the really-great Shilo just posted an old classic of mine, "I Masturbate," on her site as the final part of her awe-inspiring project of the same name. I'm posting a taste of it below but for the rest you need to go to her site ... and be sure and check out the rest of the great series. Thanks, Shilo!

Here we have a final adieu to National Masturbation Month 2011. I'm pleased to offer a guest post by my friend M. Christian. It was the title of this piece of writing that inspired me to name my month of masturbation photos "I masturbate..."

Thanks to everyone who helped to make "I masturbate..." such a success. I can't wait for May 2012!
-Shilo

_______________________________________

I Masturbate!

Sure, I masturbate. Yeah, I jerk off. Damned straight, I yank it, pull it, stroke it, rub it, and jerk it. Lube, soap, shampoo or split. Left hand, right hand, frotage (look it up), other’s hands, sheets, and gizmos (manual, electric, and even diesel). Like it, love it--do it a lot.

Let’s get this straight--we all do it. Sure, yeah, right: “not me” someone says. Sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. We all do it. Nuns do it, dogs do it, cats do it, bees do it, Newt Gingrich and Jessie Helms do it (god, what a thought!). You say you don’t do it, you mean it when you say you don’t do it. Well, who leaves the wet spot on the bed, a topless Tinkerbell?

I masturbate. Come on, let’s say it together, enunciate those syllables: “I” --rounding chorus of self identification. Come on, belt that fucker out--“I”--mean it now, say it true--“Mast-ur-bate.”

I masturbate. He masturbates. She masturbates. They masturbate. We all masturbate. That out of the way? Breathing maybe a bit easier now? Let me tell you this, the old cliché of imagining folks in their underwear has zilch over thinking of all of you sitting there rubbing stroking, jacking, jilling yourselves into a grazed euphoria of self-love. Makes saying that I do it real easy.

[MORE]

Ernest Hogan On The Bachelor Machine

2011-06-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

I will not say cool ... I will not say cool ... I will not say cool ... okay, screw it: this is the very definition of cool. Normally I resist reaching out to writers I admire (bad experiences and all that) but I am such a fan of Ernest Hogan I just had to write him - and was wonderfully pleased to discover that the author of two of my all-time favorite books - High Aztech and Cortez On Jupiter - is a as nice as he is brilliant.

How brilliant? Well, read this books and find out. How nice? Just check out this blurb he just sent me for my erotic science fiction collection, The Bachelor Machine:

These stories report in from the outrageous frontier of the possibilities of technology plugged into sexuality. The world may not be ready for this. I hope M. Christian isn't "eliminated" by fundamentalist terrorists, or taken prisoner by a porn cartel that will mine his twisted brain for ideas.

- Ernest Hogan

Still More Philosophy

2011-05-31T14:47:00.000-07:00