Mann Ramblings knows how to tell a story. "Tequila Revelations" had a finely structured beginning, middle, and end with a pulse racing story arc. Their tabooed night of passion was full of spine-tingling suspense, anticipation, and Mann delivered it without disappointment. It was well infused with humour despite the obviously cliched initial encounter, the story turned in a course that was totally realistic. Many stories I have read start off great and then end off with me going "what the fuck just happened?" There were several other archetype-like characters that ended up in positions I didn't expect either. The fiancee (archetype = manipulative bitch) didn't stay the manipulative bitch. The best friend didn't revoke his marriage, and in the end, they lived happily ever after, separately. This turn of events gave me a lot of respect to both Artie and John. They are men of their honour, and loyal to each other. Artie to his friendship, John to his wife. It may not please everyone but it definitely pleased me.

The inception-night-to-remember story-within-a-story kinda weirded me out at the end, but after reading it a few more times I think it fit with the overall tone of the story. "Tequila Ramblings" was light-hearted and fun yet serious at times. As I've said, Mann's "ramblings" are in actuality, finely constructed and entertaining stories.

Michael9344 has way of words. "A Friend for the Doc" is well crafted with two exemplary elements: solid, endearing, breathing characters, and memorable imagery. The character that struck out to me the most of Pete: he sounds like an extraordinary person, with a polar personality -- he has a heart full of love yet when something goes against his principles, against his nature, he can cut them out of his life like.... snap! I felt very drawn to him, intrigued and frightened all at the same time. Michael brings this character right out of the screen.

Pat and Matt were both very alive, too, in all of their personality and demeanour juxtaposition. The moment of Pat's vulnerability was very touching. As for the rest of the story, I thought the ending was sweet, but I wanted to learn more about all of them. Where will Pat and Matt end up? Will they ever see Pete again? Judging by the title (Book 1 of Doctor Pat), I'm assuming there will be more, and I am awaiting eagerly for the next installments.

Ieshwar has made a massive comeback with this short, but hauntingly beautiful one-shot. The language and the imagery takes my breath away. The contrast between the protagonist, enshrouded by darkness, by coldness, by loneliness, by sadness, and his love of this radiant beauty, was delivered through Ieshwar's stunning, poetic choice of words and metaphors. What I really enjoyed was how much the story could be interpreted, notably one comparison was made by Mann: "I kept picturing this as the night falling in love with the sun and being burned alive by its radiance, only to repeat the process each day." There are many scenarios in life in which we have fallen in love with people who are good for us, who aren't good for us, but it is forbidden in some way -- by parents and religion, by cultural laws, societal norms, or even by physical boundaries. But that doesn't deny the essence of what love is, and as Ieshwar put: "If you see from the eyes of a romantic, you will see love everywhere... even in the moth who keeps coming to the flame to the point of death."

Truly, "Till the Last Breath" is an amorphous, beautifully written, multifaceted story of a doomed love.

Carringtonrj is a very talented writer. I've noticed RJ's writing recently, mediated by the feature of "Centaur."

Now onto "Sex." RJ's prose is exemplary. If you have problems constructing scintillating prose in a scene where characters are reminiscing, you better read this story. RJ's writing is intelligent but not condescending, and the narration is loaded with such interesting sentence structures and words that urge the reader to constantly read onto the next line. Even though this whole story was about reminiscing, I wasn't bored for a moment, which really says something about this era of internet-media-multitaskers. Besides that, RJ maintained this sort of drunken, nostalgic, sad yet beautiful atmosphere throughout the piece.

"Sex" is a one-shot, and I don't usually like one-shots, but this is good. Really good. I loved it, and I loved it because of its utter complexity in dealing with one clear central theme: the multifaceted nature and individually created definitions of sexuality. This theme isnt explored on GA very often -- I can only think of writer Percy from off the top of my head that writes out of the box in this way (but I haven't read his antho entry, I WILL GET TO IT). "Sex" deals with the conflicts that arise when two individuals, Heather and Katie, with differing definitions of their sexuality, yet are the best of friends, completely in love with each other, try to endure a relationship. It shows that sexuality, love, and friendship has many layers that aren't mutually exclusive.

Sexuality for me, and sexuality as I perceive it, isn't just black and white, gay and straight, and it's not even a spectrum of grays, or even a Kinsey scale of varying degrees of bisexuality -- it's all sorts of fluid and often defined and experienced differently from person to person, unbound by social laws which tell you "this is what gay is. This is what bisexuality is. This is what straight is. This is what transgender is. And this is what love between them is. We accept all sorts of these categories but if you deviate, if you feel any differently, you're gonna be forever alone."

"Sex" demonstrated this clearly through the medium of interesting characters. Heather is great. I like her. She seems fun -- bawdy, romantic, caring, but most importantly, she's got herself figured out. In this way, she feels like the embodiment of these societal values -- she's gay, and she knows what she wants.

Katie encompasses all of that undefinable convolution I described above - I don't think she's necessarily confused, but her sexuality is certainly confusing. Her love towards Heather is defined by herself in that way. Not that she has to get herself figured out -- it's just this sort of relationship, when Heather knows what exactly she needs, and Katie cannot give all of it in the way that Heather needs it -- their love, friendship, connection or whatever was obviously bound to fail.

RJ has created an amazing, well-crafted, lyrical yet concise, and thought-provoking piece: "Sex." Definitely check it out.

"The Strength of Love" was poignant, beautiful, and full of hope. For a subject matter this dark, I expected the story to be bogged down with irritating angst and over-the-top prose -- but that wasn't the case at all. Rosenkrantz created a short piece wherest the highlight of the story was in Eli's character -- his strength, and his resolve to keep wanting to get better, and in Adam's character -- his strength, and his resolve in wanting to make his lover better.

It was a really touching tale of both of them. Really beautiful. Really memorable.

I can still recall the scene where Eli tries to sexually gratify Adam in the midst of his sickness, but when Adam stops him Eli bursts into a splurge of anger and frustration, but Adam gathers his lover in his arms and holds on. And after that, Eli tries even harder to make things work, to make up for it. Memorable. The ending wherest Adam was killed could have been viewed as tragic, but to me it didn't feel like it. Eli kept on at it because he knew that was what his lover would have wanted, and in that sense Eli won. He won his sickness, he won his life, he won his happiness. He owned himself, deriving strength from love.

Rosenkrantz has created a simple, heart-wrenchingly beautiful piece. Definitely read it.