  Five good stories, the rest do not measure up, 2006-03-25
With a titillating title like Alien $ex, I was expecting stories a little more disturbing, perhaps something with a touch of the squishy to it, flavored with the tangy taste of repulsion. What I discovered was mostly mild, neither horrifying or $exual, and only vaguely imaginative.
Table of contents:
1) Her Furry Face by Leigh Kennedy
2) War Bride by Rick Wilber
3) How's The Night Life On Cissalda? By Harlan Ellison
4) The Jamesburg Incubus by Scott Baker
5) Man Of Steel, Woman Of Kleenex by Larry Niven
6) The First Time by K.W. Jeter
7) The Jungle Rot Kid On The Nod by Philip Jose Farmer
8) Husbands by Lisa Tuttle
9) When The Fathers Go by Bruce McAllister
10) Dancing Chickens by Edward Bryant
11) Roadside Rescue by Pat Cadigan
12) Omnisexual by Geoff Ryman
13) All My Darling Daughters by Connie Willis
14) Arousal by Richard Christian Matheson
15) Scales by Lewis Shiner
16) Saving The World At The New Moon Hotel by Roberta Lannes
17) And I Awoke And Found Me Here On The Cold Hill's Side by James Tiptree Jr.
18) Picture Planes by Michaela Roessner
19) Love And Sex Among The Invertebrates by Pat Murphy
The five good stories are 'Her Furry Face', dealing with an orangutan rather than an alien; 'Roadside Rescue', which really does display the strange $exuality of aliens; 'Scales', a story of infidelity with a Lamia; 'And I Awoke And Found Me Here On The Cold Hill's Side', a futuristic glimpse as to where mankind might head if copulation with aliens became a mainstream practice; and 'Love And Sex Among The Invertebrates', a post apocalyptic scientist tries to breathe life back into the world.
The rest of the stories all suffered from what I term "Abstracting and Distracting". Some SF tales, mostly the older pieces in the genre, tend to believe that the more abstract their prose is, the more "alien" it appears, when in reality it is simply too distracting to read. Chunky, clunky sentences strewn haphazardly across a page and using a form of "guess what I'm thinking" detachment does not make for a smooth story. I was particularly surprised at how awful Harlan Ellison's contribution to this anthology was, but even the masters must slip once in a while. Unfortunately, too many of the stories in this collection suffer this affliction, and there are too few good ones for me to recommend this book as a 'buy'. Grab it from the library, or find a used copy.
Only a couple of good stories..., 2001-07-26
... the rest was fairly disappointing and not well written.
Some strong stories, some weak, 2000-02-28
As advertised, 19 tales on the theme of sex involving humans and aliens.Sex is an important part of our lives. It is not so far fetched to believe that the same might be the case for at least some alien species. But, this area is not one that has featured widely in SF writings. Around half of the stories here are published for the first time in this collection. This is not a collection of erotic writing, indeed it is more disturbing and sometimes funny than arousing. Horror fiction has a much stronger tradition of covering sexual matters and some of the stories here wander along the boundary of the two genres. Particularly "The First Time" by K.W.Jeter. This gruesome story is not an easy read but it is also one of the strongest in the collection. "All My Darling Daughters" by Connie Willis and Leigh Kennedy's "Her Furry Face" also dwell on aspects of the human condition that you wouldn't want to discuss with your mother. Nonetheless, they are good stories that use the "alien" setting to good effect. The collection is not confined to such serious, or even disturbing material. There are some genuinely funny stories here too. Especially the classic "How's the Nightlife on Cissalda" by Harlan Ellison and "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" by Larry Niven. Many of the stories deal with the theme of aliens as a sexual threat to humans. From lighthearted stories such as Pat Cadigan's "Roadside Rescue" to the macabre "Dancing Chickens" by Edward Bryant. I'd rate about three quarters of the stories in here as being above agerage or better. A couple were rather weak and the book would have been better had they been left out but, overall, this is a good collection.
Some strong stories, some weak, 2000-02-17
As advertised, 19 tales on the theme of sex involving humans and aliens. Sex is an important part of our lives. It is not so far fetched to believe that the same might be the case for at least some alien species. But, this area is not one that has featured widely in SF writings. Around half of the stories here are published for the first time in this collection. This is not a collection of erotic writing, indeed it is more disturbing and sometimes funny than arousing. Horror fiction has a much stronger tradition of covering sexual matters and some of the stories here wander along the boundary of the two genres. Particularly "The First Time" by K.W.Jeter. This gruesome story is not an easy read but it is also one of the strongest in the collection. "All My Darling Daughters" by Connie Willis and Leigh Kennedy's "Her Furry Face" also dwell on aspects of the human condition that you wouldn't want to discuss with your mother. Nonetheless, they are good stories that use the "alien" setting to good effect. The collection is not confined to such serious, or even disturbing material. There are some genuinely funny stories here too. Especially the classic "How's the Nightlife on Cissalda" by Harlan Ellison and "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" by Larry Niven. Many of the stories deal with the theme of aliens as a sexual threat to humans. From lighthearted stories such as Pat Cadigan's "Roadside Rescue" to the macabre "Dancing Chickens" by Edward Bryant. I'd rate about three quarters of the stories in here as being above agerage or better. A couple were rather weak and the book would have been better had they been left out but, overall, this is a good collection.
Sex is pretty alien, right? This book proves it., 1999-02-27
Ellen Datlow, long-time fiction editor of Omni, had quite a brainstorm when she edited this book full of alien sex stories in 1990. While 9 stories are reprinted, 10 are new to this book. All are worth reading, and a few fall into the good to very good range. None are classics, though, if the word even applies to material published since 1960. Of the reprints, the best material is Connie Willis's "All My Darling Daughters" (1985), which was too dangerous (in the Ellisonian sense) to appear in the genre magazines before being published in her first story collection, Firewatch. In it women discover that their boyfriends are keeping marsupial-like animals because the animal's reaction to sex is much like that of a woman being raped. It's a disturbing, effective story. Of the new material, I liked Richard Christian Matheson's "Arousal" a lot. It's a very brief tale of a woman who makes the mistake of wanting constant sexual arousal and gets it. A short tour de force. The remaining material, while interesting at times, does not quite come off (pun intended). Datlow's notion of horror veers towards the creepily disgusting, which doesn't bother me but doesn't appeal that much to me either. You might like that style better, and if so you should immediately turn to K. W. Jeter's "The First Time," with enough bloody disgustingness for several stories--a record of sorts, I suppose. I am not disrecommending the book, though. It's worth reading and having. Note: another writer with an alien take on sex is Lucy Taylor, whose book Unnatural Acts & Other Stories is more consistent than this one overall.
|
