Quickies: Short Short Fiction on Gay Male Desire

Brevity may be the soul of wit, but in James Johnstone's Quickies: Short, Short Fiction on Gay Male Desire it's also the essence of an inflamed sexual imagination. Gay male porn--even at its best--has never been noted for its succinctness; the rule has always been "the more details the better." In the 69 pieces here--from noted writers such as Jonathan Strong and Lawrence Schimel to newcomers like Viet Dhin and Sandip Roy--Johnstone has assembled a panoply of the sexy, the odd, the vibrant, and the powerful that covers the full range of gay sexual desire and expression. None of the stories is more than four pages long, and each of them packs a wallop. While they all contain some sexual material--from slow love-making to quick tricking, from arcane fantasy to pulp fiction sex--none of them falls into the category of simple-minded, obvious porn. Johnstone's strength as an editor is being able to choose stories that feature the quirky detail or strike the surprising emotional cord. With its abundance of wit, warmth and wonder, Quickies makes most porn anthologies look overwrought and undersexed. --Michael Bronski