Reserved for my "EROTIC BOOK-BOX".
Edit, October 9, 2008: A amusing plot of an "adult comic strip" artist, caught up with and by the heroine of her drawings. Or is it just her fantasy taking over?

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

This book is off to the Swiss Alps.

This next installment in the spiral was waiting for me when I returned from holiday - along with a few other rings. I'll try to get to it quickly and send it on promptly - thanks so much for making it available and sending it on.

Here as part of the erotica spiral which resumed after the summer.
Quite uneven I found. Some good parts but then it started going totally downhill for me towards the end.
Dogfood??? Hello....?

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

This spiral now continues... on its way from the alps to Greece. Enjoy!

Arrived in Athens. Link to the spiral's journal.

.
.

"a simple plot to provide exactly what the readers wanted, plenty of breasts and bottom"

That’s how Strip Girl’s protagonist, the fictional Sarah Shelley, hired as an illustrator for a comic strip appearing in a porn magazine, describes her commissioned project. In Strip Girl though, there’s more…

One of the pleasures of reading novels derives in part from the reader's identification with the protagonist of the book. Female readers of Strip Girl will 'naturally' associate with "Sarah Shelley" and her erotic adventures. When that projection of the reader's consciousness onto the fictional character takes the reader to another level of fictional displacement, things take on a curious postmodern twist.

"Sarah Shelley" is employed as a cartoon strip illustrator. Soon Sarah goes from merely drawing nudes, on commission for the racy magazine, to agreeing to pose nude for a photo shoot that will be printed in a sister magazine's main pictorial. This isn't a revolutionary concept; it's no secret that female readers of erotica & porn often fantasize themselves as the object, as the porn content itself.
What happens in Strip Girl though is unusual. Sarah's illustrated cartoon characters 'come to life' and disrupt Sarah's 'reality.' The strip figures that Sarah draws on paper are but projections of her own fantasy. But then these imaginary characters take control of the plot, ‘forcing’ Sarah into sexual situations ‘beyond’ her ‘limits.’
It becomes a contest of wills ... between the ‘real’ Sarah and the ‘fictional’ Celeste - which of the two women can conjure up more degrading situations for the other? Sarah is both attracted to and fearful of her inner fantasies, as represented by the fictional Celeste, and is determined to take control of her sexual id by becoming more bestial in 'real' life than whatever her darkest fantasy (Celeste) can be.
The meta-fictional conceit is taken one step further when Sarah becomes the subject for several canvases painted by Antoine - a meta-fictional character whom Sarah did not 'create' for the cartoon strip; he seems to have been summoned into the story by the 'unreal' Celeste.
Eventually Sarah’s sexual sensibilities evolves so that she seeks out the fictional/fantasy in preference to the ‘flesh and blood’ boyfriend. His fantasies both in bed and in the scriptwriting for the cartoon strip, aren't a match for the wild scenes that Sarah or Celeste can conjure up.

Another aspect of the fiction vs. reality dilemma: Once Sarah realizes it's her mind that's in control of the meta-fiction, the self-consciousness of creating the fiction/art/alternate reality dispels the conceit of the woman’s lack of responsibility for what happens to her. It's curious that Sarah resorts to (childishly) blaming her wild imagination/libido on the copious amounts of wine and absinthe she imbibes.

Fortunately all of the above doesn’t make for a complex read. I enjoyed the progressive levels of sexual intensity, even if the scenes did repeat themselves - first Sarah is thinking up a scene in her mind -how she’ll draw Celeste- then Sarah is getting all hot and bothered as she’s drawing the scene on paper, and eventually Sarah is made by Celeste to re-enact the ‘fictional’ scene that Sarah had committed Celeste to perform ‘on paper’ earlier. After all, the repetitions contain the requisite amounts of “breasts and bottoms,” and more...
One of the nice aspects about this book is that there are plenty of (fantasy) males conjured up for the benefit of Sarah/Celeste.

Sarah the cartoon illustrator, Giles the cartoon writer, and their boss at the porn publishing firm make frequent self-referential remarks on the nature of porn & erotica – what the readers ‘want’, what the ‘standards’ are, etc. If Strip Girl is a metafictional work, does reading it inform us about the nature of erotica, or about the act of reading/writing erotica? And who the X(%#$@ is Aishling Morgan/Peter Birch/Penny Birch in all of this?

Received today!

ETA: 02.12.2009 - travelling to dark-draco, as Kera asked to be skipped.

Received yesterday - I still have a few books from the spiral to read before this one, but will get round to it as soon as I can. Thanks for sending.

This was quite good, hasn't beaten Morgan's last book on the spiral that I read (Conceit and Consequence), but so much better than some of the books that have been included. I agree with th 'dog food' exclamation - that really turned me off towards the end, which I felt was a let down. I liked the dual story and the 'fantasy' world of Sarah, but would have liked to see that resolved a bit better, rather than just being excepted. We all like to live in our fantasies, but that was a bit ridiculous! Good read though - looking forward to the other books by this author that I still have to read.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Continuing on it's spiral journey ... enjoy!

Arrived today, thanks dark-draco

Not bad, liked it more then her other book "Conceit and Consequence".

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Am sending this book and Conseit and Consequence to JennyC1230.
Hope the volcano ashes will not delay it but it should be fine as it´s going to the States and not to Europe.

This book is here! I will read and get it moving again soon.

I couldn't get into this one, so I am passing on to awakeagain soon.

Awakeagain is dropping out of the spiral. Sending to IceAgent to continue the Book Spiral! Enjoy!

rec'd and started reading already, thanks for including me!