The Velderet: A Cybersex S/m Serial
Tan, a widely published sf-erotica short-story writer, now attempts to meld the genres in a novel. Although the results are mixed, the potential of her genre blending is, to say the least, stirring. Roommates Kobi (male) and Merin (female) live in a world too utopian to be utopia. Free from all inequality, they share a strange desire: to be sexual slaves. Their fellow Bellonians discourage any iniquity, so Kobi and Merin explore their fantasies secretly in cyberspace at the state-sanctioned sex house at which Kobi works, the Velderet. When the Bellonians inaugurate diplomatic relations with the powerful, belligerent Kylarans, their entire existence soon rests on Kobi's willingness to be enslaved. Tan does well at wedding futuristic fantasy and sex, but sf buffs will have to suspend disbelief repeatedly to keep from poking holes in the sometimes-thin plot. Still, Tan's interesting exercise in alchemy manages to provoke the mind nearly as much as the body.John GreenCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved