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).
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."
