Rogue Reviews Digest No. 30 - February 1, 1999 NOTICE If you are easily offended, not of the required legal age, or material of an erotic nature is illegal where you are, then do not read what follows. CONTENTS Mailing List Information Ratings Note Reviews "Helena" by E. Z. Riter "Mom's Dirty Dancing" by TDLC "New Year's Eve" by Al Steiner "The Problems of Utilitarianism" by Uther Pendragon "Summer Camp II" by MichaelD38 "Valerie" by JS3729 ***** MAILING LIST INFORMATION I send my reviews individually, when I finish them, to the Sex Stories Discussion List. If you are interested in joining there is a form for doing so on my home page. * Home Page - http://www92.pair.com/leevine/rogue-reviews/ * E-Mail - santiago@switchboardmail.com ***** RATINGS In order from best to worst I rate stories as follows: Outstanding Excellent Very Good Good Grudgingly Good Not Good The "Outstanding", "Excellent", "Very Good", and "Good" ratings indicate, to varying degrees, that I like the story. The "Grudgingly Good" rating indicates that I think the story is well written, but that I find some of the elements in the story so disturbing that if I were to review the story based solely on my personal tastes I would give it a "Not Good" rating. The "Not Good" rating indicates that I do not like the story. ----- Arousal Factor - This is a measurement of how arousing I found a story to be. Story Factor - This is a measurement of how good I found a story to be, devoid of whether there is a lot of sex in it or not. In determining the story factor I take into consideration the plot, the characters, and other more technical aspects, such as spelling and grammar. Possible values for Arousal and Story Factor are, in ascending order: Nonexistent, Low, Average, High, Ultra ***** REVIEWS ----- Rogue Review No. 294 - January 2, 1999 Helena by E. Z. Riter M/F, NC Length: 4,500 words Rating: Grudgingly Good Arousal Factor: Average Story Factor: Average SUMMARY Dan agrees to help a young couple work off their gambling debts by paying for the wife's services. COMMENTARY I've got mixed feelings about this story. It is not my cup of tea. Regardless of whether Helena, deep down inside, was perfectly okay with working off her debts by sleeping with a complete stranger or not, for the most part this story made my skin crawl. I'll admit that I was aroused by the way Helena responded to Dan's commands, but at the same time I still was not over the feeling that something about this scenario was very wrong. Technically, it is well written. I just had a hard time identifying with either character. That made the story less enjoyable for me. LINK http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=432861350&fmt=raw ----- Rogue Review No. 301 - January 16, 1999 Summer Camp II by MichaelD38 M/F, M/F/F, Teen Length: 28,200 words Rating: Very Good Arousal Factor: Average Story Factor: High SUMMARY Mitch and Beth encounter personal and professional problems during the first summer that they are in charge of the camp. Plot A: Brittany loves Mitch, who happens to be engaged to be Beth. Mitch is not about to leave Beth for Britanny, but that does not mean that he does not care for her. Plot B: Brittany is supposed to seduce Rich, and introduce him to the sorority. She gets cold feet, but Karin is more than willing to take her place. Plot C: Someone is spying on the camp. Mitch's fears that it is a child pornographer. Plot D: Leslie seems to know just a bit too much about sex, for a 13-year-old. Beth and Mitch are concerned. COMMENTARY This story is too complex. It felt like the author tried to jam too much into too short a story. I think it probably would have worked better if the author had broken this story up into a couple stories. The serious parts, "C" and "D", were handled too tritely to satisfy me. At the same time, the serious plot lines were not arousing. They made my pickle wilt and made me cringe inwardly. They also did not seem to be very well integrated with the other two plot lines, "A" and "B". At least one thing in this story made me laugh. The scene where Mitch gives in and agrees to sleep with two of the campers. Their names are Courtney and Monica. The first thing that came to mind is the NBC sitcom Friends. There is also a character named Chandler in this story. Was this done on purpose? My basic gripe with this story is that while the individual plots are reasonably well handled, I don't think it works to have them all in a story as short as this one is. My favorite plot line is "A". LINKS http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/16821.txt [1/9] http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/16819.txt [2/9] http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/16820.txt [3/9] http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/16826.txt [4/9] http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/16825.txt [5/9] http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/16827.txt [6/9] http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/16822.txt [7/9] http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/16823.txt [8/9] http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/16824.txt [9/9] http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=406631638&fmt=raw [1/9] http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=406628164&fmt=raw [2/9] http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=406628166&fmt=raw [3/9] http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=406631665&fmt=raw [4/9] http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=406631661&fmt=raw [5/9] http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=406631669&fmt=raw [6/9] http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=406631643&fmt=raw [7/9] http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=406631649&fmt=raw [8/9] http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=406631654&fmt=raw [9/9] ----- Rogue Review No. 302 - January 17, 1999 The Problems of Utilitarianism by Uther Pendragon f/M, Teen Length: 11,500 words Rating: Very Good Arousal Factor: Average Story Factor: High SUMMARY Johanna, an 18-year-old who has graduated from college and is starting graduate work, discusses sex with Jeremy, a friend of her father. COMMENTARY This story is a wordier than your average sex story. The author has mixed together an intellectual discussion of sex and a May-December romance. I think he's done a pretty good job. The two parts balance rather nicely. If anything threw me for a loop it was the transition from one to the other, i.e. one minute they are engaged in a philosophical discussion of Johanna's sex life and the next minute Jeremy has his tongue buried in her pussy. This is not your garden variety sex story. Sex is central to the story's plot, but it is not the be all end all of the story. LINKS http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=435541794&fmt=raw [1/3] http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=435541800&fmt=raw [2/3] http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=435541806&fmt=raw [3/3] ----- Rogue Review No. 303 - January 26, 1999 New Year's Eve by Al Steiner M/F Length: 6,600 words Rating: Very Good Arousal Factor: Average Story Factor: High SUMMARY Two couples swap partners on New Years Eve. COMMENTARY This is a well written story. The author has taken the time to set up the story properly. If you do not like plot or background then you may want to skip the first half of this story. Considering all the work that the author put into setting the story up, I found the action to be a bit disappointing. It is not there was not enough of it, but that after taking the time to describe the world that his characters live in he more or less isolates them from it. I'm not saying that I don't like buildup, because I do. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy this story, because I did. I just think that I might have enjoyed this story more if the buildup had either been shorter, or more directly related to the action in the story. LINKS http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year99/19293.txt http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=435943118&fmt=raw ----- Rogue Review No. 304 - January 28, 1999 Valerie by JS3729 M/F, F/F, Cons, NC Length: 17,700 words Rating: Grudgingly Good Arousal Factor: Average Story Factor: Low SUMMARY Kevin returns to hometown after his wife dies. He runs into his high school sweetheart, who he has not seen in over twenty years, as well as a few other people from his past. COMMENTARY I commend this author for trying to write a story that has a plot. Generally speaking, sex stories with plots are better than those without. The fact that there was some build up to the sex made it, for the most part, more arousing that it would have been otherwise. One problem I had with this story was the rapid fire manner in which it is told. There are no lulls in the action. The story proceeds at an extremely quick pace. Because of this, it was hard to take it at face value. It seemed more melodramatic than serious. On the other hand, the melodramatic mood did soften a couple other elements that I found disturbing. The first, was a scene in which one of the characters is punished by being raped. Considering the tone of the story up until this point I did not see this coming. The fact that the story for the most part did not seem to take itself seriously made it easier for me to stomach this scene, but I still found it distasteful. The story coding did not include "nc" or "rape"; it should have. The other element that bothered me was not quite as overt. If I went to some lengths I might be able to "prove" that it is present, but I'll settle for telling you how it struck me. I am referring to what seemed to be a homophobic message in the story line. At first it seems that the main character just has a problem with accepting lesbianism and bisexuality, but by the end of the story it seems as if part of the authors intent in writing this story was to show how he or she believes things ought to be. If you eliminated the homophobia and the rape from this story it would still need some work. The plot is extremely complicated and would have worked better for me if it had been paced a little more slowly. LINKS http://www.qz.to/erotica/assm/Year98/18098.txt http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=423890770&fmt=raw ----- Rogue Review No. 305 - January 31, 1999 Mom's Dirty Dancing by TDLC M/F, Inc Length: 2,400 words Rating: Very Good Arousal Factor: High Story Factor: Average SUMMARY Told in the first person, a young man in his mid twenties gets a lesson in dirty dancing from his mother. COMMENTARY This story works for me. It is stroke material, but it is well handled stroke material. The story does not begin with sex and the author takes his time in building up to the sex. The characters did not seem too far fetched, for an incest story. LINK http://search.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=428472830&fmt=raw ***** 2/1/99