I received this book via Early Reviewers. I have to admit that, like most anthologies, some of the entries just bogged down the reading for me. It was not as.. stimulating as others.

It starts off strong with "One Tongue" by A.C. Quill and "Dido Burns" by Taylor Verdon.

I also found "Noi Leggaivamo Per Diletto" by Alex Freeman, "Cave Suckers" by Elizabeth A. Allen, and "Welcome to evolWorld" by Louise Kane to be excellent reads that stayed with me.

While not every story was to my tastes, the stories are inclusive and varied enough that everyone should find something that will catch their attention. ( )

The 'Introduction' and thirty titles and authors comprise this publication's 'Table of Contents'. (p. 5) The editors, T.C. Mill and Alex Freeman, inform the reader that these are stories that will “fire the imagination” but leave one with a cautionary warning that “they are not how-to manuals” and one should “check out information from committed sex educators to enjoy activities with all participants’ full and informed consent.” The 'Introduction' (p. 7-10) provides one with a sampling of what is purported to be “beyond the crass and cliché, they draw on literary traditions and break new ground, spanning from the playful and lighthearted to the bittersweet to the empowering. And they are very erotic.”

Comments on three of the stories:

'One Tongue' by A. C. Quill (p. 11-13)

The Biblical setting is Genesis 11 and the story of the building of the tower that would reach to the heavens in the plain of Babylon by the descendants of Noah's sons after the Flood. Two workers meet three days following their leaving the tower. “When we’d worked together, I could have struck up a conversation. The mud-luggers were happy to chat with the water-carriers. Back then, we all spoke one tongue. But I had no casual words for her. She made my mind into a furnace. 'Press me against the high, hard walls we’re building. Carry me to the top of the tower. Make me look down, and fuck me until my head spins.' Those words had welled up in my mouth, and I’d kept my lips sealed. And I’d thought I might drown in my spit and choke on my desire. Looking back, that time seemed like heaven. Because I couldn’t say a thing to her, now.” The story continues with a back and forth of word exchanges and mutual desire and carnal explorations. The final paragraph: “It was an invitation, I realised. A suggestion that we might swap more words, and learn one another's language. That we might not scatter, but instead travel on together. I held her in my arms and considered it. If we did, we would remember: these were the first words we spoke with one another.”

'Dido Burns' by Taylor Verdon (p. 14-19)

In bed reading aloud to each other: “a small ritual each night, a joining of minds, a relaxing of bodies, a precursor to sleep” a woman is reading from Virgil's epic 'Aeneid' in particular Book IV, variously translated into English as 'The Passion of Queen Dido' or 'The Death of Dido' or just 'Dido and Aeneas', whilst her lover “leans away from her, stretching across the bed to the small table next to it. He returns with his hands full of her favorite toys, the heavy dildo that pushes against her walls in the most exquisite way, the vibrator that sends lightning radiating from her clit.” [ . . . ] “Some time later, she feels his breathing slow and his heartbeat steady. He squirms beneath her and she hears him scoop up the discarded paperback. 'Should we start Book Four over?' he asks. She can’t help but laugh because, except for some kind of fire metaphor, she has absolutely lost the plot. So he begins again, with Dido’s infatuation with Aeneas, her casting aside of sense and duty as she falls under Aphrodite’s spell. His voice rumbles against her cheek as Dido shows Aeneas her city, as she feasts him and falls for him, as he leaves, as she mounts her own funeral pyre at his loss. He comes to the end of it and closes the book softly and runs a hand down her back, loving as ever. She is just on the edge of sleep, safe and satisfied in his arms.” This is a clever interwoven narrative of the passion of Dido and the erotic reading game of two lovers.

'Noi Leggiavamo Per Delitto' by Alex Freeman (p. 120-137)

Sophie and Olivia are researching a batch of letters by a “mysterious authoress Elizabeth B.” in the town archives of Yorkshire, England. While perusing these texts written in English, French and Italian, our characters exchange comments:

“Sophie clears her throat and [reads aloud;] 'Darlingest, the bruises you left on my thighs are fading and I long for more, for your violent passion to ravish me until I can’t breathe.'”

“Well, gosh. You’re surprised?” Olivia asks, her thick eyebrow arched, “People back then had desires too, you know.”

“I know, [Sophie says] but I’m not used to them writing about it this explicitly.”

And Sophie and Olivia, excited by their reading the texts of Elizabeth B. begin to actualize their erotic imaginations with each other.

The literary backdrop to this story is Dante Alighieri's 'Commedia' particularly Canto V of the 'Inferno' Canticle. Dante's guide is Virgil and both descend from the First Circle to the Second, reserved for “the Lustful” including Assyrian Empress Semiramis “who made lust lawful in her law to take away the scandal into which she was brought” and also “wanton Cleopatra” and Paolo and Francesca and “more than a thousand shades [ . . . ] whom love parted from our life.”

Excepting these three stories, the rest of this collection is tiresome. I look forward to reading (again) Richard Lederer's The Cunning Linguist: Ribald Riddles, Lascivious Limericks. And one of these days will find a copy of the (imagined) Master Debaters which will be shelved next to Cunning Linguists. ( )

This was an enjoyable read, though the quality of the stories in the collection varies greatly. The best thing about it is that it is queer in the fullest sense of the word: open, creative, diverse, radical, and inclusive. The connection to the theme of words and language is stronger in some stories than others, but serves to hold the collection together.

Highlights include "One Tongue," a lush fable set in the aftermath of the Tower of Babel, "We're Not Tentacle Porn," a celebration of diverse bodies and assertion of the right to privacy and autonomy, and "Cave Suckers," a mystery-tinged portrait of queer life in a small Vermont town.

Stories that didn't quite hit the mark include "I Ought to Be Thy Adam," which projects contemporary queerness a little too forcefully into a historical setting, "Head to Toe," where shifts forward and backward in time lead to more confusion than insight, and "Under the Table," which simply felt unfinished.

Cross Posted on Patreon at:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/review-cunning-66553768

Review: Cunning Linguists (the New Smut Project)

CW: this is a review of a collection of erotic short stories..in case the title didn’t give it away!

The brain is sometimes referred to as the largest sex organ we have, and this collection certainly explores that concept, and tumbles through a playground of themes. There’s a breadth -a girth even- of literary themes to delight passionate nerds of all types. Wordplay as foreplay, silly and sublime, from subversive and suggestive innuendo to playful puns. If there is a common theme it is curiosity: about context, about desire, about what the heart and the mind can create when bodies collide.

As in many anthologies, the sheer variety alone offers a menu where there is likely something for everyone, even if not everything is for one reader. Unless, perhaps like me, you are the type of reader as enthusiastic about reaching for a dictionary as your favorite toy.

This anthology leans toward queer, in the verb form: interpreting and playing with erotica in a way that upends traditional categories of gender and sexuality. It invites reading through several lenses: as the good smut it sets out to be, as playful exploration of story forms, of a buffet of ideas and interactions to explore: alone, or perhaps to a friend or loved one.

As a somatic educator, I particularly appreciate that the stories accept and explore that which many still consider taboo: sex and shame are often linked in unhealthy ways, yet many of these stories help craft realistic narratives around consent, physical and mental ability, and body shame, offering alongside well-written smut the opportunity to see how bodies and brains connect across both the differences we manufacturer from the outside and the secret thoughts we hold about our own perceived differences. Educational at times, amusing at others, and sometimes just plain weird in the best ways, I hope to see more writing from these authors, because we don’t just need better smut out there, we need stories that help us imagine healthier ways to connect to pleasure in ourselves and with each other. ( )

This anthology promises two major themes: sex and words. I think it delivers pretty well on the sex; however my tastes in erotica are so specific as to verge on the paradoxical (in fact, the paradoxical would suit my tastes pretty well) so I mostly end up reading - and will review - with a focus on the words. In that respect I thought the anthology was a bit uneven: some stories had a strong focus on language or literature, while in others it seemed so tangential I struggled to identify what angle the author was taking on it at all. This is of course the nature of anthologies, that different stories suit different readers.

The stories then that I personally especially enjoyed were:
* One Tongue by A.C. Quill: walking away from the Tower of Babel with light bdsm yearnings, gentle sex, and the beginnings of swapping languages

* Draft by T.C. Mill: Shakespeare/Marlowe hang out, appropriately full of lush prose, references to their plays, and punnery lewd and otherwise. I especially obsessed over the "scent of rosewater and cloves" as the two get more intimate: evoking the "rose by any other name" of Shakespeare's work-in-progress, and the cloven hooves of Marlowe's current villain.

* The Meaning of Anything by Kristan X, a consent negotiation, of which I noted: "Yes."

* Noi Leggiavamo Per Diletto by Alex Freeman: polyglot geekery which instantly made me want more quotes, ideally in all six languages referred to

* Cave Suckers by Elizabeth A Allen: Loved the voices and banter between the two, especially the punnery. It was stronger for me to begin with; the dialogue turned into a monologue which intended enthusiasm but came across to me as didacticism, and then a scene break cut to live action at which point I lost interest.

* Under the Table by Rachel Kramer Bussel had a nice (lampshaded) turning of the tables

* Planet Rolling Over by Peach Berman - I liked the weaving in of the book I know as Lamentations. The relationship in parts hits my kinks, in parts is just very real and caring.

* First Time by Alex Yan - hot human/alien and especially human/android sex (with a cool worldbuilding setup)

* Inkmanship by Melissa Snowden - interesting reversal of the more usual structure, in that it begins with the more graphic content and then shows the lead-up to it, culminating in a satisfying emotional resolution. ( )