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

Review Tuesday: Skin Effect by M. Christian

Skin Effect: More Erotic Science Fiction and Fantasy Erotica

By M. Christian

Sizzler Editions, 2015

Normally, when I write a review, I treat the book as a stand-alone entity, without considering prequels, sequels or other books in a series. In reviewing Skin Effect, however, it’s almost impossible not to make some reference to The Bachelor Machine, M. Christian’s first collection of science fiction erotica, which I reviewed back in 2009. For one thing, there’s the subtitle, “More Erotic Science Fiction and Fantasy Erotica”, pointedly implying the existence of the previous volume. Then there’s the author’s Afterword, which explicitly compares the perspectives in the first book to those in this one. Even the title is a reference to the earlier book, the name of one of the stories therein (which is not included here). In any case, I couldn’t really read this collection without being reminded of the earlier volume. The stories are equally inventive, but extremely different in tone. To me, they suggested a more mature, subtle and balanced vision of the future.

The world of The Bachelor Machine is largely dystopic, a dark environment of crumbling infrastructure, poisoned nature, desperate individuals, oppressive and dehumanizing technology. The stories in Skin Effect reflect a greater degree of hope as well as the expected impact of more recent technological developments—constant data streams gathered by wearable sensors; software agents that relieve us of the need to learn or remember; the omnipresent social media-sphere, where every thought, action and emotion is immediately visible to one’s audience and one’s worth as a human being might be measured by the number of spectators one can muster. Like those in the earlier book, however, these tales ask difficult but intriguing questions about reality and human existence. What does it mean to talk about one’s life history, when memories can be implanted or erased at will? What happens to sex when changing gender is almost as easy as changing clothes and every possible sexual variation is available via simulation? Is there something special or unique about direct experience, unmediated by technology? Is that sort of genuine, first-hand, totally disconnected experience even possible anymore?

One of my favorite stories in the collection is the simple and elegant “Prêt-à-Porter”. A rather shy, serious young woman purchases a – garment – made of the ultimate intelligent fabric, fabric that transforms itself into whatever sort of clothing or costume its wearer desires—and which shapes its owner’s desires in the process.

---

It was ... warm, like a another person's skin. She knew it would be, but the comfort of it was still calming – making the release of that second breath slow and easy. It moved up her body like a splash from a shallow pool, the warmness of it making her relax even more.

As it flowed, it stayed black – but just as she noticed that, it changed: rolling through a rainbow of hues, shades, and saturations. As it flowed, it stayed glistening like colorful latex – but as she noticed that, as well, it changed: tumbling through an array of textures, contours, weaves, and shapes.

She couldn't help it: she laughed. It was like a puppy, fresh out of the box and eager to play. It didn't take her mind long to imagine the artificial, intelligent, endlessly chameleonic material as wagging a form of artificial, intelligent, endlessly chameleonic, tail.

---

“LMS”, the last story in the volume, is another high point. Set in a nearer term future than most of the tales (a future in which humans still design web sites!), this tale features an insecure, depressed protagonist who is pried out of his fugue of self-loathing by an encounter with a transsexual who sincerely admires his work. This is a sexy but surprisingly sweet love story, set in a world where your Facebook numbers can determine your personal fate.

“A Kiss Goodnight” presents the next stage in evolution, as an aging pioneer in the study of artificial intelligence is seduced by the “ghost in the machine”, the sentient, self-aware outcome of his own research. The language in this tale is utterly gorgeous, whether the author is describing the taste of a peach (a real peach, grown on an actual tree—something exceedingly rare) or the nature of the professor’s elusive partner.

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Shimmering shoals of software; ripples of digital entities flashing in and out of existence – some on a scale of centuries, others faster than anything alive could ever blink, the on and offs of their own basic (in its own way primitive) DNA coding drifting, merging ... vast snowflakes of algorithms wheeling and spinning against an infinite spectrum of quantum uncertainty ... breaking, splintering, only to merge into new complexities, new potentialities. It was a flashing, flickering, fairy kingdom of brilliant streaks, pops, swirls, cascades of illuminated data coming and going, evolving and learning, growing and refining ... flowering unique forms for unique tasks while deep, immense structures, eternally pondering monoliths of infinite potentials and possibilities, thought their long computational thoughts ... knowing every permutation and branch of possibility and, within it all, a cool and perfect understanding of their original architects, the first programmers, far more than they could ever know themselves.

---

Despite this awe-inspiring vision of distributed intelligence, the physical coupling between the professor and his digital partner is compelling, even world-shattering, flesh and blood sex a kind of fundamental language that in some sense transcends species.

This is the message of “The Potter’s Wheel” as well, a fascinating tale in which a woman who supports herself by selling her experiences via social media is chosen to meet the Potter of Gujyo-hachiman, a Living Treasure renowned for his exquisite porcelain. Living off the ‘Net at his monastic retreat in rural Japan, more or less purely in the physical world, the Potter helps Peers reconnect with fleshly, unmediated desire.

Although a few are listed as previously published, all of the stories in Skin Effect were new to me, with the exception of “The Bell House Invitation”, which I’d called out as one of the sexiest stories in The Bachelor Machine. I was delighted to have the chance to savor this unique ménage once again. Indeed, the story might be more consistent with the worldview spun by this volume than in its original home.

All in all, Skin Effect is a solid collection of speculative erotica. I have to be honest and admit that I found it less erotic, overall, than The Bachelor Machine. However, that may say as much about me (years older than I was when I read the first book, and far more jaded) than it does about the book. I think it’s fair to suggest that the sex in these stories is sweeter and more sincere, less about thrills and more about connections. That’s fine, as far as I’m concerned. I want more than heat in my reading; I want original ideas and graceful language. In this regard, there’s no question that M. Christian delivers.

New Release - The Last Amanuensis

It's Sunday again, but the story I want to share with you today doesn't contain any kisses. The Last Amanuensis is a dystopian erotic tale I composed for the just released anthology Written on Skin: An Anthology of Etched Desire, edited by my idol, Remittance Girl, with Aisling Weaver and Raziel Moore. The theme of this collection is the eroticism of tattoos and body modification.

My story falls into the speculative genre. After a militant Empire takes power, fiction and poetry are banned as frivolous pursuits. Infractions are strictly punished. But the creative spirit cannot be suppressed, and poetry goes underground.

Adele, a widow from the Emperor's endless wars, takes a position as secretary to a mysterious Professor. As he comes to trust her, he instructs her in the most personal of her duties: tattooing the Professor's poems onto his aging body and turning him into a living book.

Here's a snippet:

Poetry is like blood - you can't hold it back


-->

“Tonight's poem was the last, Adele. As of tomorrow, your services will no longer required.”

“No – please – don't send me away...” I seize his illuminated thigh, making new marks with my fingernails. Only when I see the pain in his eyes do I release my grip. I know that the bloody crescents I've carved are not responsible for his distress. “I need you, sir. I can't live without you.”

“Nonsense! You're young, strong, full of life. You have a bright future, if you can manage to get out of this hellish country. As for me, my last days are ticking away. And I have accomplished what I set out to do – with your help, my dear.”

He reaches out to brush my cheek with his fingers – only the second or third time he has ever deliberately touched me – and I dissolve into tears. I fling my arms around his neck, mashing my breasts against his tattooed chest, and flatten him to the bed. He gasps as the mattress presses against tonight's work, but for once I ignore his pain. In an instant I'm straddling him, fighting to remove my voluminous nightdress and bare my own skin to his gaze.

“Adele...get hold of yourself!” he admonishes in his most professorial tones. Still, he does not resist as I grasp his cock and stroke him to full hardness. I take him into me, swaddling him in my wet heat. His eyes grow wide as I clench around his surprising bulk and ride him as I've dreamed of doing for so many months – since that first night, really, when he trusted me with his secrets.

He's used to pain, my professor, but not to pleasure. I coax him toward his peak, using my hands when his cock begins to soften. Sometimes I lean forward to dangle my breasts in his face, or sweep them across his nipples. He arches up with an anguished moan when I fasten my mouth on one of those little nubs, burrowing my nose into his poems as I suck. I imagine I'm feasting on his penis, swirling my tongue, raking his flesh with my teeth. He moves inside me, caught in my furious rhythm, helpless in the face of my lust.

I picture his cock, a rod of pale ivory, burrowing into my slick, blood-red folds. I think about writing a poem of my own on that still-virgin skin and fly off into a climax so fierce and sudden that the world goes black.

He doesn't come. When I regain my senses, he's holding me close, stroking my hair, breathing in my ear. His cock droops outside my drenched sex. I fumble between us, squeezing his reluctant organ back into my cleft, to no avail. My own juices coat my fingers, but the more viscous texture of semen is absent.

“I'm sorry, sir... I could take you in my mouth...”

“Hush. Don't be sorry, Adele. You've given me another great gift. Just be quiet for a while.”

My rebellion has burned itself out with my desire. I settle into his arms, with my head on his shoulder. If I squint, I can just make out the line of a poem.

He sends me back to my room before dawn, as he has so many times before. I go meekly, knowing I need to sleep. I leave the gold. We can discuss that later. After my success in seducing my beloved professor, I believe I can to sway him. I will convince him to let me stay. Now that we are lovers, how can he refuse?

You can buy Written On Skin from the publisher Burning Book Press, Drive Thru Fiction, and Amazon.