A review by ghilimei
Off Limits: Tales of Alien Sex by Ellen Datlow
4.0
Much better in my opinion than the first installment, most of the stories in this collection have a strong feminist message and focus a lot on the moral and psychological implications of prostitution. Just like the first collection, these stories are not erotica, so don't read them if that's what you're looking for. The title is quite misleading for those looking for sex scenes between aliens - the alien in most of these stories is the alien in our daily lives: either the alienation, the isolation that is so terribly human, or that which is not your own to begin with, be it your perception, your (sexual) preferences or even your gender.
Reading these stories was an intense experience for me, so intense at times that they seeped into my subconscious, giving me strange dreams that sometimes turned into almost-nightmares. I loved almost every story and I'm glad I didn't give up reading this collection after the negative experience I had with the first installment.
Also, since I couldn't find this anywhere else, here is a short description of each story in this book. I hope someone will find it useful.
The Reality Trip by Robert Silverberg
An alien living incognito in New York, gathering information on the human species and reporting back to the Homeworld three times a day. A poetess drawn to lonely, „wounded things„ like a moth to a flame. What could possibly go wrong?
(for some reason, I kept imagining actress Krysten Ritter as Elizabeth)
The Tattooist by Susan Wade
A beautiful, unexpected and somewhat bitter tale of telepathy and emotional transfer slowly altering one tattoo artist's life and perception while she completes an unusual job.
Dolly Sodom by John Kaiine
A strange man lost in a surrealist brothel. A very short story worthy of Julio Cortázar.
The Lucifer of Blue by Sherry Coldsmith
Could sex sway the outcome of one of the biggest events in human history? A blunt story of prostitution and (somehow) feminism.
The Queen of the Apocalypse by Scott Bradfield
Harriet is broken and she is numb and so she forces feelings into (or out of?) herself by self mutilation. But she is also pathologically incapable of saying NO, so her life slowly stops belonging to herself until one grand, final, yet involuntary act of self mutilation.
Oral by Richard Christian Matheson
Picking off where the last Alien Sex collection left off, this very brief tale wonders yet again what sex really is by exploring the more unlikely forms it can take.
In my mind, it goes hand in hand with Pat Cadigan's Roadside Rescue from the first Alien Sex installment.
Grand Prix by Simon Ings
Less about sex and more about the boundaries of our bodies. Quite a lot of feminism in this one too. 20 years ahead of Pussy Riot and yet the story depicts their perfect predecessors.
The House of Mourning by Brian Stableford
Yet another straight-forward view of the sex industry, compulsion, addiction and the need to point fingers in order to keep the gleaming appearance of our own righteous lives. Corruption always comes from the outside or that's what we so desperately want to believe.
Fetish by Martha Soukup
Tattoos and piercings are a thing of the past; body alterations are now the big fad. Martha Soukup says it best: „This is a story about dealing with the pain from the alien by playacting the alien, incorporating the alien„. Lovely, empowering in a way, with a pinch of bizarre.
Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland by Gwyneth Jones
Is it enough to distance ourselves from our bodies to be „safe„ during sex? This story ventures into the world of virtual sex.
The Future of Birds by Mike O'Driscoll
In a future where HIV has been contained, an even more destructive new disease appears, caused by the Hormonal Dysfunction Virus. HDV is hereditary and lies dormant in both males and females until the onset of premature puberty, after which is simply sucks its victims dry and bleeds them out. It appears though that it only activates in women, leaving men as mere carriers.
It's a simple matter of role play, of replacing the „gay plague„ with a „gender plague„ and then laying back to admire the lengths to which the sex industry will go to keep its glowing bubble of indulgence and fake safety. It's a story of use and abuse and the lengths to which people will go to find that fake safety in a golden prison. It's not so much a story of alien sex as a story of alien genders.
Captain China by Bruce McAllister
The excruciating story of a child prostitute who believes in superheroes.
Background: The Dream by Lisa Tuttle
Very short story questioning sexual identity and what happens when you feel you're trapped in the wrong body.
Aye and Gomorrah by Samuel R. Delany
Another story of sexual identity and fetish on the surface, it goes deeper by exploring the self-sabotaging attraction to something permanently unavailable and the fear of it ever becoming available.
Ursus Triad Later by Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg
A very short and bizarre rape story.
Sextraterrestrials by Joe Haldeman and Jane Yolen
Short poems imagining sex between various extraterrestrials resulted from a game of „poetry dare„ between the two authors.
The Dream-Catcher by Joyce Carol Oates
The dream-catcher catches an incubus.
His Angel by Roberta Lannes
The author explains that „on the surface, this is the tale of a madman who seeks twisted redemption in the saving of an angel and finds his just reward„. Going deeper, I guess this story asks a question that is not alien to many of us: is God really there, or are we simply blinded by our desire to believe, twisting ambiguous events into irrefutable proof of what we want to see?
Eaten by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman's quite famous prose poem of sexual use and abuse, a rather explicit metaphor of how one can be drawn in and eaten alive by the predators among us.
In the Month of Athyr by Elizabeth Hand
Feminism, sexual identity, genetically engineered sex slaves - the gender war is at a new high. It somehow ties to The Future of Birds by Mike O'Driscoll by investigating a future where women are on the verge of becoming obsolete.
Reading these stories was an intense experience for me, so intense at times that they seeped into my subconscious, giving me strange dreams that sometimes turned into almost-nightmares. I loved almost every story and I'm glad I didn't give up reading this collection after the negative experience I had with the first installment.
Also, since I couldn't find this anywhere else, here is a short description of each story in this book. I hope someone will find it useful.
The Reality Trip by Robert Silverberg
An alien living incognito in New York, gathering information on the human species and reporting back to the Homeworld three times a day. A poetess drawn to lonely, „wounded things„ like a moth to a flame. What could possibly go wrong?
(for some reason, I kept imagining actress Krysten Ritter as Elizabeth)
The Tattooist by Susan Wade
A beautiful, unexpected and somewhat bitter tale of telepathy and emotional transfer slowly altering one tattoo artist's life and perception while she completes an unusual job.
Dolly Sodom by John Kaiine
A strange man lost in a surrealist brothel. A very short story worthy of Julio Cortázar.
The Lucifer of Blue by Sherry Coldsmith
Could sex sway the outcome of one of the biggest events in human history? A blunt story of prostitution and (somehow) feminism.
The Queen of the Apocalypse by Scott Bradfield
Harriet is broken and she is numb and so she forces feelings into (or out of?) herself by self mutilation. But she is also pathologically incapable of saying NO, so her life slowly stops belonging to herself until one grand, final, yet involuntary act of self mutilation.
Oral by Richard Christian Matheson
Picking off where the last Alien Sex collection left off, this very brief tale wonders yet again what sex really is by exploring the more unlikely forms it can take.
In my mind, it goes hand in hand with Pat Cadigan's Roadside Rescue from the first Alien Sex installment.
Grand Prix by Simon Ings
Less about sex and more about the boundaries of our bodies. Quite a lot of feminism in this one too. 20 years ahead of Pussy Riot and yet the story depicts their perfect predecessors.
The House of Mourning by Brian Stableford
Yet another straight-forward view of the sex industry, compulsion, addiction and the need to point fingers in order to keep the gleaming appearance of our own righteous lives. Corruption always comes from the outside or that's what we so desperately want to believe.
Fetish by Martha Soukup
Tattoos and piercings are a thing of the past; body alterations are now the big fad. Martha Soukup says it best: „This is a story about dealing with the pain from the alien by playacting the alien, incorporating the alien„. Lovely, empowering in a way, with a pinch of bizarre.
Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland by Gwyneth Jones
Is it enough to distance ourselves from our bodies to be „safe„ during sex? This story ventures into the world of virtual sex.
The Future of Birds by Mike O'Driscoll
In a future where HIV has been contained, an even more destructive new disease appears, caused by the Hormonal Dysfunction Virus. HDV is hereditary and lies dormant in both males and females until the onset of premature puberty, after which is simply sucks its victims dry and bleeds them out. It appears though that it only activates in women, leaving men as mere carriers.
It's a simple matter of role play, of replacing the „gay plague„ with a „gender plague„ and then laying back to admire the lengths to which the sex industry will go to keep its glowing bubble of indulgence and fake safety. It's a story of use and abuse and the lengths to which people will go to find that fake safety in a golden prison. It's not so much a story of alien sex as a story of alien genders.
Captain China by Bruce McAllister
The excruciating story of a child prostitute who believes in superheroes.
Background: The Dream by Lisa Tuttle
Very short story questioning sexual identity and what happens when you feel you're trapped in the wrong body.
Aye and Gomorrah by Samuel R. Delany
Another story of sexual identity and fetish on the surface, it goes deeper by exploring the self-sabotaging attraction to something permanently unavailable and the fear of it ever becoming available.
Ursus Triad Later by Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg
A very short and bizarre rape story.
Sextraterrestrials by Joe Haldeman and Jane Yolen
Short poems imagining sex between various extraterrestrials resulted from a game of „poetry dare„ between the two authors.
The Dream-Catcher by Joyce Carol Oates
The dream-catcher catches an incubus.
His Angel by Roberta Lannes
The author explains that „on the surface, this is the tale of a madman who seeks twisted redemption in the saving of an angel and finds his just reward„. Going deeper, I guess this story asks a question that is not alien to many of us: is God really there, or are we simply blinded by our desire to believe, twisting ambiguous events into irrefutable proof of what we want to see?
Eaten by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman's quite famous prose poem of sexual use and abuse, a rather explicit metaphor of how one can be drawn in and eaten alive by the predators among us.
In the Month of Athyr by Elizabeth Hand
Feminism, sexual identity, genetically engineered sex slaves - the gender war is at a new high. It somehow ties to The Future of Birds by Mike O'Driscoll by investigating a future where women are on the verge of becoming obsolete.