Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Dark Roasted M.Christian

Check it out: a brand new Dark Roasted Blend piece I did just went up: this time about very weird, very wild, and very essential fungi (which, if you know anything about me, is a little too close to home).


Let's play a game: animal, mineral, or vegetable?

The answer? Two out of three. Ladies and gentlemen: the wonderful, and let's not forget weird, world of fungi.

But first a ridiculously quick science lesson, and an explanation for the opening above: scientists consider fungi to be part of a separate and unique kingdom, in that they aren't plants and they're not animals -- so they really are two out of three.

It's this 'not one and not the other' that make fungi wonderfully – and somewhat disturbing – to study. At their most identifiable they an fundamental part of our diet: buttons, portobellos, shitakes, oysters, morels, chanterelles, and more – including the expensive yet ubiquitous truffle. But fungi are also essential to make many of our foods ... well, food: without them we wouldn't have cheese, beer, wine, bread and too many others to name. If that isn't impressive enough, our odd not-quite-an-animal, not-quite-a-plant, is also indispensable to medicine: penicillin, the cornerstone of antibiotics, was mold found in a Petri dish, after all. In fact some experts claim that if anything were to happen to our fungal friends humanity would be, at worst, extinct, or at best, pretty miserable.


But mushrooms and yeasts and molds are only the public face of the fungal world. Beyond beer, wine, cheese, and medicine there's a stranger side – in fact a rainbow of oddness. Mushrooms, you may think, are brown or white, right? But fungi can also be spectacularly colorful: the Parrot Waxcap is as green as grass, the Crimson Waxy Cap is sunset crimson, and the Slimy Spike-cap is even bright purple. There are even varieties of mushroom that aren't just colorful but actually glow in the dark: Omphalotus olearius, the Jack o' Lantern, for example, is a celebrated bioluminescent fungus, as is the Australian ghost fungus.

Even when fungi are brown and dull appearances can be deceiving: the aptly named stinkhorn, for example, produces the aroma of rotting meat to attract flies, which help the mushroom spread its spores. Speaking of spore-spreading, the puffball mushroom and its various relations do it in a very dramatic fashion, quite literally shooting their spawn into the air when touched.

But for all their color and their clever tricks, fungi have an even odder side, one that might make you look at that blue cheese in your sandwich, or that beer you were planning to have with lunch, a little differently – if not with out-and-out fear.

Sure, fungi have given us much but they can also take it away, and not just for people who mistake an amanita phalloides for an amanita caesarea: Cryptococcus gattii, though rare, is alarmingly fatal and is airborne. How fatal? Well, it's considered to be one of – if not the – most lethal fungal infections you can get. There are other deadly fungi, and as most of them are extremely opportunistic and durable, they can spread wildly and are all but impossible to kill. Just think athlete's foot mixed with a rattlesnake.


It's fungi's ability to grow just about anywhere that makes it so amazing. If you name a hostile environment there's more than likely some form of mushroom or yeast that will not only grow there but prefer it over anywhere else. An extreme version of this is when researchers stuck their instruments into one of the most poisonous places on earth and found not only a species of mushroom growing there but one that actually appears to be feeding on the toxicity. How nasty is this place? Well, all you need to say is one word to shudder at the thought: Chernobyl.

But strangeness and fungi don't end with radiation-feasting mushrooms, for there are quite a number of them that feast on other things -- including animals. Nematophagous fungi, for instance, grow miniscule rings that, if a nematode happens to squirm into one, rapidly contract, trapping the unfortunate lunch ... I mean 'worm.' If this makes you a bit nervous take a bit of consolation in that the popular oyster mushroom is also a nematode killer – and it's also tasty, so while it eats them we also eat it.

But eating isn't the only dark thing fungi do. One particular species has an extremely disturbing lifecycle – and a terrifying one ... if you happen to be an ant. Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, if it gets half a chance, will infect an ant and (ahem) eat parts of its brain, causing the poor little insect to basically become the walking dead The fungus finishes it off only after it clamps itself to the underside of a leaf, just where the fungus wants it to die – a location that works really well for the fungi, but definitely not the ant.

Yes, they have given us much: all those mushrooms and other amazing fungi. Without them we would have very bland food, let alone no booze, and would probably die a lot quicker without antibiotics. Some of them are as pretty as flowers, a few may be deadly to the unlucky or the tragically ignorant, while further species lurk in the soil for the unwary nematode, but – basically – they have been our friends for a very long time.

Besides, we'd better watch our step: while the jury is out on the subject, many experts point to a certain forest in Oregon. What's special about this hunk of land, that particular stand of trees? Well, the honey mushroom that lives there, and occupies over 2,200 acres of that forest, may very well be the largest organism on the earth.

So we had better treat them well -- all those wondrous fungi -- just in case that they, or just that single huge mushroom, should wake up and remind us of all they've done for us ... or could do to us.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

A Great Pirate Tale


If you're looking for Yo Ho Ho inspiration I highly recommend the LibriVox reading of Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood. Just click here and be prepared for wonderful presentation of a classic pirate story. Now go shiver your or timbers or something ...

"I remember a time of chaos. Ruined dreams. This wasted land. But most of all, I remember the Road Warrior."

Never mind Burning Man - this is where I'm going.

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.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

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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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

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!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

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!

Sunday, August 15, 2010

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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