Sexcrime

Taking its title from George Orwell's 1984, this anthology of 12 stories exploits the theme of transgressive and societally forbidden sexual acts in various fictional future dystopias. The turn-ons here supposedly involve illicitness or actual illegality, but the authors don't reach too far into the speculative for their subject matter. Instead, they tend to take what is currently taboo to one degree or another and place it in a mildly futuristic setting. The result is usually effective erotica, but less than satisfying SF. Standout stories are the ones that work both as sex and SF (M. Christian's ""Slate,"" for example, wherein a human female plays the role of a robotic sex-toy); employ a hot but humorous tongue-in-cheek (and other orifices) approach (Simon Sheppard's take on outlawed fleshly encounters vs. virtual unreality in ""Blackout""); or explore an extended sociosexual metaphor (in ""Nudes Ascending a Staircase,"" Renee M. Charles does a riff on ""what if all erotic art were really banned?""). Relying on reprints for half of the material strengthens the book as a whole, but readers of the now well-established subgenre of SF/fantasy-based erotica will find a lot of familiar material. Still, while it doesn't really go where no anthology has gone before, this is one collection of erotica that aims to stimulate the mind as well as the body, and succeeds. (May)