Bachelor Machine: The NEW Edition!

This is GREAT news! I am extra-pleased and extra-proud to announce the release of a brand-new edition of my celebrated science fiction erotica collection, The Bachelor Machine, by the legendary Cecilia Tan's Circlet Press. While I put together a formal press release check out the book on the Circlet site as well as on amazon.

Angela Caperton Likes Coming Together Presents M. Christian

... and the WOWs keep coming! The great Angela Caperton just sent me this very sweet review of my collection Coming Together Presents M. Christian (a special project where the proceeds are being donated to Planned Parenthood). Thanks so much, Angela!

I have a confession: I am the world’s slowest reader. I know readers who can plow through several hundred pages in a couple days. Talk to me in a month or more.

But there is a reason for my plodding pace. I don’t read. I digest.

Thoroughly.

I hang on word choice, structure, lyrical sentences. Plot and character are sacred to me, and if a story doesn’t convert me immediately, it had better redeem itself quickly.

M. Christian’s erotica is a sumptuous feast I will gladly enjoy again.

In Coming Together Presents: M. Christian, I found stories – some previously published, others new to print – that kept me filled, kept me coming back for more – and kept me guessing!

M. Christian doesn’t shy from sensitive subjects in his stories, and in this collection dives headlong into issues of body image, selfishness, couples on the edge, one great story of a raunchy breakup that was totally hot, and does all this while taking us to the past, living in the now, and hurtling us beyond the stars – and constantly wrapping the stories in the tendrils of relationship and sex.

Several of the selections have stayed with me. In “Missing Alice” I was completely drawn into the description of Alice’s vivacious personality, her freedom of style, and the void her absence causes the narrator. I especially loved M. Christian’s authentic portrayal of how we change, how relationships evolve, and how a wild child might one day be the couch potato you can’t live without.

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Lisabet Sarai Likes Love Without Gun Control

Wow ... and I mean WOW: check out this wonderful review of my science fiction/fantasy and horror collection Love Without Gun Control (from the always-great Renaissance/PageTurner Books) by Lisabet Sarai:

I know M.Christian primarily as an author of erotica—an astonishingly versatile writer who swings from gay to lesbian, from contemporary to science fiction, from cyberpunk to humor, without missing a beat. Anyone who's not familiar with his energy and creativity in the erotic realm should get a copy of Coming Together Presents M. Christian (and support Planned Parenthood at the same time). Until he sent me a copy of his new collection Love Without Gun Control, I didn't fully appreciate the darker side of his imagination.

The title story of this collection paints a hilarious but nevertheless chilling picture of a society in which everyone carries and uses deadly weapons—all the time. He cleverly spins out the implications of such a scenario, in particular the difficulties it poses for lovers.

Equally funny, grotesque and scary is “Buried & Dead”, a tale of political ambition amid the zombie apocalypse, overflowing with rotting flesh and dangling entrails. “Constantine in Love”, the impeccably satirical final tale in the collection, will also make you laugh, though not without a grimace, as the unflappable Constantine Foote, polymath, wine connoisseur, seducer and con artist, desperately chases the woman of his dreams.

These are the lighter tales. Most of the other stories in Love Without Gun Control will leave you queasy, terrified, or both. “Needle Taste” portrays a bleak future in which a vicious serial killer has the mass appeal of a rock star. “Hush Hush” unfolds like a nightmare in the narrow alleys of Beijing, as an adventurer watches one person after another being robbed of speech. In “Wanderlust”, a man cursed by a jealous goddess is forced to live out his days driving his Mustang from one lonely gas station to the next. “Shallow Fathoms” is pure horror, fueled by the repulsive fascination of madness. “Nothing So Dangerous” builds an intricately detailed dystopia of universal surveillance and arbitrary detention, in which trust is the most perilous thing of all.

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Wonderful Time At Floating World

Sadly, Floating World is now but a memory ... but WHAT a memory: I had a total, complete, and utter blast. Major kudos to the great folks who put on such a magnificent event (I'm especially looking at YOU, Corey).

Thanks to all the folks to attended my stuff (MAGIC WORDS: USING EROTIC WRITING TO EXPLORE YOUR HIDDEN SEXUALITY AND SPIRITUALITY; IMPACT PLAY BEYOND FLOGGERS AND CANE; SEX SELLS: HOW TO WRITE & SELL EROTIC; and the author reading). I hope you all had a good time!

It was an extra thrill to meet folks I hadn't seen in ages, like Laura Antoniou, Cecilia Tan, Karen Taylor, Lori, Ralph Greco, and so many others -- and to make great new friends like Tom, and the extra-special Loren.

I can't wait for next year!

How To Wonderfully WriteSex (6)

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):


Other writers get it, of course: romance writers live in rosy castles and have crinoline dreams; science fiction authors are pasty-faced nerds with more love for science than humanity; horror pros keep bodies in their basement for research.

It’s natural for people to think that because you write smut … well, it’s pretty obvious that they think: thin, greasy mustaches, seedy domains, hacks, perverts – the clichés pop immediately to mind. But what’s really interesting is that this isn’t the toughest of occupational hazards for the erotica writer. After all, life is full of surprises: the romance author is a cynical young guy, the science fiction writer can’t balance his checkbook, the horror fan loves Fred Astaire movies, and the erotica writer is just doing a job.

Who cares what other people think: it’s what’s inside you that counts – and what’s inside erotica can be very unusual, sometimes almost traumatic.

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More Floating World Fun

I can't begin to tell you how thrilled I am to have been invited to the Floating World Convention! For all you attendees here's the final list of what I'll be teaching/attending and when:

MAGIC WORDS: USING EROTIC WRITING TO EXPLORE YOUR HIDDEN SEXUALITY AND SPIRITUALITY
(Fri 1130am-1pm)

There are many ways to reach your inner sexual and spiritual self -- but one of the most surprisingly powerful paths is through the written word. In this lecture/workshop, participants will hear how erotic writing (fiction as well non-fiction) can reach hidden places that often lay unexposed, help make personal discoveries and to assist in a personal journey of self and sensuality. Participants will learn how to free their erotic writing voices, how to develop their writing towards discovering their erotic spirits within, and when to silence -- and when to listen -- to the inner critic.

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IMPACT PLAY BEYOND FLOGGERS AND CANES

(Fri 9:00 – 10:30pm)

Join this workshop to receive hands-on instruction in a variety of different impact techniques and styles including hands, paddles, crops, batons, quirts, and more. While the physics of these toys – and many others – is basically the same, to use each one effectively takes particular skills and techniques that are not immediately apparent. Participants will learn not only how to inflict the most please and pain but also how to use each item, and more, without hurting the wield-er as well as the wield-ee.

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SEX SELLS: HOW TO WRITE & SELL EROTICA

(Sat 1:30-3:00pm)

The market for erotic fiction and nonfiction is booming! There actually is a secret to writing great erotica - and you'll discover just what that is in this fun, hands-on workshop with well-known erotica writer and teacher M. Christian.

For the beginning writer, erotica can be the ideal place to begin writing, getting published, and -- best of all -- earning money. And for the experienced writer, erotica can be an excellent way to beef up your resume and hone your writing skills. M. Christian will review the varieties of personal and literary expression possible in this exciting and expanding field. He'll also teach you techniques for creating love and sex scenes that sizzle.

Plus: current pay rates, how to write for a wide variety of erotic genres, from magazines to websites, where and how to submit your erotic writing, and more.

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AUTHOR READING:
(Sat 7:00PM – 8:30PM)

Join me, Sassafras Lowrey, Cecilia Tan, Xan West, Laura Antoinou and Batsheva for a author kinky-as-only-kinky-can-do reading event. It was be a blast and a half!

Sharazade Likes Best SM Erotica Vol. 3

This is real sweet: Sharazade - who chatted with me a few weeks back - has just posted this great review for Best S/M Erotica Vol. 3. I don't want to gush too much about this so you'll just have to click here to read the whole wonderful thing (okay, I gushed a tiny bit).

It’s a little strange that I bought myself a copy of Best S & M III: Still More Stories of Still More Extreme Sex (published by Logical Lust, 2010), and that is because of its title. “Best” is fine, and “III” sounds good, but to be honest, S & M (sadism & masochism) really isn’t my thing. I have no objections to it, on either side, it just doesn’t hold any strong personal interest.

Just to be sure, I checked a dictionary. This definition is for the term sadomasochism, but you could divide it easily enough: The combination of sadism and masochism, in particular the deriving of pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from inflicting or submitting to physical or emotional abuse. Well, there you go. “Abuse” does not sound appealing to me.

So why buy a whole anthology of it? Well… it was a loaf I bought for one slice. For about a year, I’ve been following the blog of a writer called Oatmeal Girl. Her blog is largely personal reflections, with some poetry and a little fiction. And I just love her writing (even though, yes, she does write a lot about sadism, and masochism… but in a way I like, somehow….). She’d never published offline before, though. So when I saw an announcement on her blog that she had a story coming out in print, I wanted it!

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Call for Submissions: Yo Ho Ho - Pirate Erotica

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Call for Submissions: The Love that Never Dies - Undead Erotica

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Call for Submissions: Kink In San Francisco

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New Anthologies!

I'm exceptionally thrilled to have just agreed to edit not one, not two, not four, not five ... well, okay: three brand new anthologies for one of my all-time favorite publishers (and people) Jean Marie Stine's Renaissance/Sizzler Books. I'm going to post the calls one after another here just to give you folks an early head's up before sending them out into the big, wide, kinky world.

So sharpen your pencils and get writing!

Dark Roasted M.Christian

Check it out: a brand new Dark Roasted Blend piece I did just went up: this time about some of the strange - and beautiful - creatures living in the VERY deep sea.


Here's a fun fact for you: did you know that you, an unprotected human being, can last for about two whole minutes in a vacuum -- say on the surface of the moon? Here's another amusing bit of knowledge: did you also know that you, still just an unprotected homo sapiens, would last only the barest smidgen of a second before being totally, completely pulped by the crushing pressures at the bottom of the sea?

Still with the facts and, hopefully, still fun: there is more light on the dark side of the moon than there is down, down, down in those ocean depths.

But what's especially chilling is that these facts -- amusing or otherwise -- are some of the few of things we know for certain about the deep sea: it's commonly said we know more about the surface of the moon than we know about what happens right here on our own planet, in that murky world at the bottom of the sea.

One thing we do know, though, beyond that despite the crushing pressure (at least 16,000 pounds per square inch) and the absolute, total, complete darkness, there is life.

Even at the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench, and the deepest part of the Trench, the Challenger Deep, there are living things. Auguste Piccard, who made an adventurous trip in 1960 to the bottom of the Deep in his bathyscaphe, the Trieste, saw a few extreme creatures that managed to made that extreme environment their home.

While not as deep – but just as dark – as the Deep, scientists have found, and continue to find, an amazing, and sometimes nightmarish, world of creatures in the abyssal plains, which make up more than a staggering 50% of the earth's surface.

Light is so rare down there that its uniqueness is an allure, for mating, as well as a lure, for eating. Grammatostomias flagellibarba, a dragon fish to you and I, uses bioluminescence – biological light– mainly for the latter: any deep, deep, deep swimmers that notices, and becomes interested in, a certain tiny flickering light will end up becoming caught by the dragon fish's monstrously huge, and needle-sharp toothed, mouth. The light being a glowing lure at the end of a long, thin filament connected to the underside of the fish's jaw.


The sea angler uses a similar trick, though it's more globular instead of having the dragon fish's lean and nasty body. The angler's lure is the same in function, but different in location: its flashing trick is a kind of deadly finger between its eyes and it's similarly sharp-toothed mouth rather than being at the end of a thin strand like the dragon fish.

While neither of these fish – and there are far too many to name here – are monsters in size, there something called abyssal gigantism, the tendency for other forms of extremely deep-dwelling organisms to not only be odd, strange, bizarre and darned creepy but also oddly, strangely, bizarrely and – yes, you guessed it – creepily huge.

Do you have a small dog, a cat, or a larger-than-average tortoise? How would you like to have a pet the size of any of them but isn't just from a different species but from a whole different phylum?


Cute? Not really. Cuddly? Absolutely not. But the giant isopod would certainly be a conversation starter if you took it out for a walk: imagine a pill bug weighing over four pounds.

Other abyssal giants include the poster child for arachnophobia, the Japanese spider crab, which averages 12 feet from leg to creepy leg; and then there's the giant ... well, we'll get to him in a minute.

While not a heavyweight, one of the most oddly lovely creatures living in the dark depths is the very-correctly named vampire squid. Blood red, with soft hooks instead of a squid's regular suckers, it has the neat trick of flipping it's legs over its soft body turning itself into a spiny ball. The vamp has its own bioluminescent trick as well: glowing when it wants to be seen but turning its lights off when it wants to vanish into the darkness.

The so-called Piglet variety of squid is, for want of a better word, actually cute: looking for all the world like the strange mating of a cartoon character, a bunny rabbit, and a kitten, this deep water oddity is almost a complete mystery – though scientists, not reputable ones, have speculated that the piglet's defense mechanism is to make adversaries go "Awwwwww..." and leave them alone.

The granrojo is almost the vamp and the piglet's relation, despite the fact that it's a jellyfish and not a squid. While neither hooked or spiked -- or cute -- this deep-water creature is just as odd, with chubby arms and an almost plastic looking crimson bell.

Yet another contender for the oddly pretty prize is the so-called barreleye. This fish takes vision to a new level of spooky strange. Sure, it has eyes, but instead of having to deal with an oh-so-annoying skull that gets in the way of what it's trying to see, the barreleye's head is transparent: to look up it just moves its eyes to focus through its clear – and a bit disturbing – cranium.


We could go on, and there are certainly more than enough odd and strange and weird and beautiful and disturbing creatures out there, but it has to be mentioned that while we know about some, there are still possibly thousands of even odder, stranger, weirder, more beautiful and disturbing creatures in the deep seas.

Remember the promise about getting back to one particular example of abyssal gigantism? Well, there is one creature that is a mix of the known and the unknown, almost a poster-child for the wonder, and horror, of the dark oceans. For a long time it was thought it was just a myth, a story shared by sailors who'd been out at sea too long. But then there was evidence: the disturbing marks on the sides of Sperm Whales, the kings of the sea -- evidence of nightmarish battles between one and the other miles below the surface.


These giants are out there, possibly the largest species currently on the planet: eyes the size of dinner plates, 30 foot tentacles dotted with razor-toothed suckers, and a massively strong beak. Architeuthis, the giant squid to you and I, was recently filmed, for the first time, but there is still much – too much – we don't know about it.

So take a moment and look up at the full moon, wonder about the mysteries that may be up there, but then go to the shore, look out at the sea, and think that we may very well know more about a hunk of rock 250,000 miles away than we know about a world full of life just a few miles away, and many, lightless, miles straight down.