Off Limits: Tales of Alien Sex

by Ellen Datlow, Jane Yolen, Simon Ings, et al.

Book Overview

Featuring Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, Samuel R. Delany, Elizabeth Hand, Robert Silverberg, and 17 more of today's leading writers, this book includes 20 provocative tales of close encounters.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312140193
• ISBN13: 9780312140199
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 316 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Not Free SF Reader

Basically what it says. Not too bad though, and definitely not 'porn style'. This is designed to look at the differences, ways to relate, problems and surprises associated with relationships between different species of people, let alone different races. Also, there are a couple of supernatural type tales to be found in this collection towards the end. Off Limits : The Reality Trip - Robert Silverberg Off Limits : The Tattooist - Susan Wade Off Limits : Dolly Sdom - John Kaiine Off Limits : The Lucifer of Blue - Sherry Coldsmith Off Limits : The Queen of the Apocalypse - Scott Bradfield Off Limits : Orl - Richard Christian Matheson Off Limits : Grand Prix - Simon Ings Off Limits : The House of Mourning - Brian Stableford Off Limits : Ftish - Martha Soukup Off Limits : Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland - Gwyneth Jones Off Limits : The Future of Birds - Mike O'Driscoll Off Limits : Captain China - Bruce McAllister Off Limits : Background: The Dream - Lisa Tuttle Off Limits : Aye and Gomorrah - Samuel R. Delany Off Limits : Ursus Triad Later - Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg Off Limits : The Dream-Catcher - Joyce Carol Oates Off Limits : His Angel - Roberta Lannes Off Limits : In the Month of Athyr - Elizabeth Hand Bags of skin trio. 3 out of 5 Mutant tackle tattoo empathy. 3.5 out of 5 Coin full. 3 out of 5 Spanish Civil girls and quartermaster's stores. 3 out of 5 Adultery hate. 1.5 out of 5 Feeling it up, explained. 3.5 out of 5 Formula Zero carjcking off. 4 out of 5 Addicted to professionals. 4 out of 5 Bearded lady is still quite popular. 3.5 out of 5 Sword and sorcery virtual therapy. 4 out of 5 In a future with a bleeding disease decimating the female population male-females in demand. 3.5 out of 5 Child superhero saviour definitely not from around here. 4 out of 5 Bonus gonad growth. 3 out of 5 Gender altered space workers provide exotic on shore leave. 3 out of 5 Goldilocks close to bears. 2 out of 5 Put it where the man says next time. 3.5 out of 5 Genegineer stork stunt tragedy. 3.5 out of 5

Changing perceptions through alien education

Ellen Datlow has done it once again -- assembling disparate tales, spanning decades of writing and a multitude of writing styles, into an anthology that is thematically cohesive and offers a bit of something for everyone. Anthologies are often difficult to review because of the diversity of voices, but if the reader approaches this collection as a buffet (from which one may pick and choose) rather than a 12 course meal, there will be more than one can consume at one sitting. Classic stories by Robert Silverberg and Samuel R. Delany have been intermixed with more recent works by Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, Elizabeth Hand, and 17 more of today's leading writers. Off Limits includes provocative tales of close encounters -- love, sex and life -- and plays with your perceptions of what is truly alien. One piece of advice: skip reading the Foreward by Silverberg and the Introduction by Datlow as they unfairly offer judgements of what the reader will find between the book covers and tainted my desire to read further. I found much more depth and content to contemplate than Datlow and Silverberg gave the author's credit for