The Bachelor Machine

''The Bachelor Machine'' is a collection of erotic science fiction short stories by M. Christian. It was first published in 2003 () by Green Candy Press; the book is introduced by Cecilia Tan. It was republished in 2010 by Circlet Press () with a new foreword by Kit O'Connell. The stories take place in a wide variety of settings, with an assortment of themes and widely differing tone, from grim to humorous. There is also a wide variety of sexual acts depicted in the work, including many which are not possible with modern technology, involving a wide variety of partners in heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual and sometimes non-human couplings.

Plot summaries

Some of the short stories in this collection include,
*"State", about a prostitute who is trained to behave like an expensive robot designed for sex.
*"Bluebelle" is about a police officer and his police vehicle (for which the story is named). His vehicle is also his sex partner.
*In "Winged Memory," a prostitute wears "whoreware," wearable computing equipment which includes a bracelet that charges cash cards and eyewear that cycles from green to red when a client's time is up. A man sells his memories (not unlike '' Strange Days'')) in exchange for money to hire the prostitute.
*"Eulogy" is set in a future where humans are effectively immortal. In the story, a woman wants to perform oral sex on a man with a rare illness which is still actually fatal because the participants are bored with eternal life and miss their deceased friend.
*"Butterflie$" is the story of a computer hack which drains a victim's bank account while seducing them in virtual reality.
* "Everything But the Smell of Lilies," which concerns Justine, an expensive prostitute who has been surgically altered: thanks to extensive implants and modifications (such as rerouting of arteries and internal oxygen tanks), she can have her throat slit by a client who can then fulfill necrophilic fantasies on a body that can wake up again, save them from criminal charges, and collect a hefty fee. In this story, her pimp asks her to stage a distraction from a crime and act as a real victim, placing her in the hands of a paramedic with a taste for actual corpses.
* Lines of sexual orientation are blurred in "Fully Accessorized, Baby," where two women have sex, both using fully functional prosthetic penises (one also has a cybernetic arm made of teak).
* "The New Motor" is erotic historical fiction about the spiritualist John Murray Spear and a mystical machine he is led to build.
* "Guernica" depicts the behavior of BDSM enthusiasts in a dystopian future where only procreative heterosexual sex is legal.
* "Hackwork" is about a future where a high-tech form of possession allows a woman to hire her body out for sexual pleasure to clients that will feel her every sensation remotely.
* "Heartbreaker" is about a cyborg is incompatible with the wiring in his home.
* "Skin-Effect" concerns two android lovers, one of whom is a soldier that has been completely replaced by artificial, robotic parts.

See also

* Sex in science fiction
* ''The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even'' (Marcel Duchamp)

References

# Tan, Cecilia and Christian, M.br>New Bedfellows: Sex & Science Fiction
Retrieved October 28, 2005.
# O'Connell, Kit, 2004

Retrieved October 28, 2005.
# Christian, M and Tan, Cecilia (introduction). ''The Bachelor Machine'' (2003). Green Candy Press. .

External links

M. Christian's homepageBook review
on Cleansheets.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bachelor Machine, The
2003 short story collections
Erotic short stories
Science fiction short story collections