An arousing look into the future - Hard Drive by @MChristianZobop #scifi #erotica #anthology

When I heard about the release of Hard Drive, M. Christian’s newly released collection of science fiction erotica, I offered to put up a post for him on my blog. However, I soon realized it would be disingenuous to pretend that he was just another author, that this was just another bit of social media promotion. I’ve known M.Christian for a long time—at least fifteen years—and I’ve always been a fan of his erotic fiction.

No, scratch that. I’m not a “fan”. That implies slavish adoration. I am a discerning and appreciative reader. He’s one of the most imaginative and versatile authors I’ve encountered. He writes everything from horror to romance, scifi to stroke. He can create believably erotic scenarios involving characters who are straight, gay, lesbian, and completely unlabeled. Even after all these years, he can still surprise me.

We’ve read and reviewed each other’s work over the decades. He has edited my stories for his collections; I’ve done the same for him, including his single author altruistic erotica volume Coming Together Presents: M. Christian, which supports Planned Parenthood

 

So I can’t really claim to be objective when it comes to M. Christian. He’s not only a valued colleague, but a friend.

Still, you should believe me when I tell you this book is a treat. Hard Drive collects the best of his speculative erotica tales, a genre that’s one of both his favorites and my own, published over his long career.

Here’s the blurb—a bit breathless, but accurate never the less:

With The Bachelor Machine, M.Christian set the gold standard for erotic science fiction: stories that pushed the absolute limits of both outrageous sex and fantastic technology.

His follow-up collection, Skin Effect, raised it even further: a book that Publisher’s Weekly praised as “Future technology’s ability to alter the very nature of our humanity—and the ways those changes interact with sex—shapes this solid collection of futuristic stories from erotica author M.Christian.”

Now M.Christian has personally selected his favorite stories from The Bachelor Machine, Skin Effect, and his other erotica collections to create the ultimate celebration of sexually-explicit cyberpunk science fiction: Hard Drive.

With a special introduction by science fiction legend Arthur Byron Cover, Hard Drive is a book that will take you to the outer reaches of BDSM, gay, lesbian, and straight sexuality in the near and far future: worlds of brilliant imagination, relentless passion, and supernova heat!

And here’s an excerpt from “State”, possibly the best piece of sci-fi erotica I've ever read. The main character is a human woman impersonating an expensive humanoid sex robot. In the world of this tale, robotic sex is a more valuable commodity than flesh-on-flesh. The protagonist finds her masquerade a personally arousing challenge.

The streets, and common knowledge, said that Autos took a while to power up, boot up their software, get their circuits warm and ready, though never really willing: the perfect love-doll. The perfect toy. The real fact was that it took Fields time to get completely into her Act.

Her friendly gray robe went first ... into the hidden closet behind the false wall of phony, blinking telltales and dummy flat-screens playing loops of technical gibberish, with the rest of her reality, hung on a hook next to her vid discs, street clothes, wigs, pills, towels, creams, sprays, and plain-faced bottles of special dye.

Very special dye; an incredibly durable, bonding polymer that she applied each morning; but she was always careful to examine every inch of herself in a roll-up plastic mirror, lathering on the thick blueness at the faintest signs of her real pinkness, before the light over the door flashed green. Her hair, every brown strand, was months gone and kept at an imperceptible level by a chilling spray of tailored enzymes. Sure, she could wear any of her wigs, and sometimes did for those who just couldn't deal with a too-inhuman Automaton, but for the most part, she liked going smooth and streamlined: you paid for a machine.

The little yellow hexagon pills still had about another two hours to go – her skin texture and temperature would be just that different. Not quite human, almost machine-synthetic. Anyone, of course, who knew the real Mitsui would know the reality of pink skin-and-blood Fields under the blue, behind the contacts, beyond the re-engineered body. But then the Autos were very rare, their legends and rumors huge … and who would know the real thing after all, in the dim shadows of big, sprawling, bad Kyushu?

Fields's body was a gift from Mama. Really, an investment: those long days, two years ago with the Osaka Scalpers, had taken what nature had lucked her with and shaped her into an almost perfect Auto Class B – still one of Mitsui's most popular models. Strong shoulders; round face with high, almost too-wide-for-nature cheekbones; tiny, pert, full lips; huge, crystal-blue eyes; high, wide, and moderate tits, huge against her small actual frame, with aggressively large nipples. Some of it was really hers, some was machine-made for her machine Act. Her looks, real or made, would be good and profitable as long as the real unit was state-of-the-art ... and the rumors of how good, and how hot, kept flying.

Fields's cortical jack was a gift from Sammi, now long gone. His gift of matched wet dreams through cheap Kobe scalp implants was also gone. One quick brain-trip with the tall and lean New Tokyo hustler had been enough for the preteen Fields (spasms of her riding him, his impression of "nothing-but-sex nothing-but-sex" and her always on fucking top, running/stomping all over her images of that one time – that one good time – at that Osaka shrimp stick stand when he had just smiled at her oh so special); the jack was the one and only thing that really remained of him. It was important to the Act, so she kept it polished and in good repair. The clients knew (if they knew anything) that no one had shrunk the hardware for the Autos enough for them to be self-supporting. They expected and got her – Regulation Blue, hairless, eyes also blue but also no irises, just slightly cool, perfect little ass, perfection tits, and trailing her braid of cables: a love-doll lifted from a Japanese collective consciousness, a manga sex-toy – all eyes and ass and tits and mouth and cunt. Pure fantasy, rolled off the assembly line to a male libido's factory specs. Her body was flesh, tricked by drugs and chemicals – the jack on the crown of her head was real, the line was dead, but she was still State: the perfect whore, the perfect trick, perfect in her Act.

And, god knew, she liked it. Liked it a lot...

Hard Drive: The Best Sci-Fi Erotica of M.Christian

is available on Kindle from Sizzler Editions (free on Kindle Unlimited).

Amazon: http://a.co/hu8fVcB

A print edition is coming soon.

About the Author

Calling M.Christian versatile is a tremendous understatement. Extensively published in science fiction, fantasy, horror, thrillers, and even nonfiction, it is in erotica that M.Christian has become an acknowledged master, with stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and in fact too many anthologies, magazines, and sites to name.

M.Christian's short fiction has been collected in many bestselling books in a wide variety of genres, including the Lambda Award finalist Dirty Words and other queer collections like Filthy Boys and BodyWork. He also has published collections of nonfiction (Welcome to Weirdsville, Pornotopia, and How to Write and Sell Erotica); science fiction, fantasy, and horror (Love Without Gun Control); and erotic science fiction including Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Better Than the Real Thing, the acclaimed The Bachelor Machine, and its follow-up, Skin Effect.

As a novelist, M.Christian has shown his monumental versatility with books such as the queer vamp novels Running Dry and The Very Bloody Marys; the erotic romance Brushes; the science fiction erotic novel Painted Doll; and the rather controversial gay horror/thrillers Finger's Breadth and Me2.

M.Christian has also become a celebrated sexual futurist, both through his novels and short stories as well as being a Senior Columnist for Future Of Sex (https://futureofsex.net), which provides "insights into the fascinating topic of the future of human sex and sexuality."

M.Christian’s site: www.mchristian.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MChristianzobop

Tumblr: https://mchristianzobop.tumblr.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mchristianzobop

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mdot.christian