Killing Me Softly

by Gardner Dozois (Editor)

This hauntingly seductive collection of erotic stories by some of today's most celebrated authors probes the shadowy realm where life's two great mysteries, love and death, meet and embrace.

Contents
1 • Unchosen Love • (1994) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
21 • The Gardener • novelette by Mary Rosenblum
43 • The Jaguar Hunter • (1985) • novelette by Lucius Shepard
69 • She's Not There • novelette by Pat Cadigan
95 • The Affair • (1984) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg
115 • Hard Drive • shortstory by Nancy Kress
133 • Relationships • (1989) • shortstory by Robert Sampson
143 • Waltzing on a Dancer's Grave • (1991) • novelette by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
173 • In the Air • shortstory by Maureen F. McHugh
189 • North of Diddy-Wah-Diddy • novelette by Michael Swanwick
211 • Nunc Dimittis • (1983) • novelette by Tanith Lee
233 • Chihuahua Flats • shortstory by Michael Bishop
249 • The Two-Headed Man • (1990) • shortstory by Nancy A. Collins
263 • The Joy of Hats • shortstory by Mike Resnick and Nicholas A. DiChario
279 • The Fire When It Comes • (1981) • novelette by Parke Godwin

Genres: Horror, Erotica, Fiction, Anthologies, Short Stories, Supernatural, Fantasy

336 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1995

About the author

Gardner Raymond Dozois was an American science fiction author and editor. He was editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine from 1984 to 2004. He won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, both as an editor and a writer of short fiction.
Wikipedia entry: Gardner Dozois

http://us.macmillan.com/author/gardne...

Reviews

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with any short story collection, there will be stories to love and stories to dislike, and this will differ for each reader. It was no less so for me with some tales touching me deeply, some making my smile, and some boring me to bits. One thing to note is that the subtitle, "erotic tales of unearthly love," is a little misleading. The term "erotic" implies sexual content, and while some of the stories are more mature than others, I much prefer the description beneath, which reads, "a hauntingly seductive collection..." This speaks more accurately to the mesmerizing power of these stories. Sex is not their focus, and some aren't even about love. But they all have their own seductive quality and I'm sure any reader could find at least one tale in this collection that could lure you in to their supernatural worlds.

[Brandie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rather good collection. Only a couple of stories could be considered erotic. More like the book's tagline 'a hauntingly seductive collection' of love in many forms.

I particularly enjoyed the following stories:

Unchosen Love by Ursula K. Le Guin
I recently read The Left Hand of Darkness and really enjoyed it. So this was the story I was most excited to read in this collection and I was not disappointed. A very touching story of finding love and family and the opening of hearts.

The Gardener by Mary Rosenblum
A story of a gardener on a large estate in a city who finds love when he comes across an intruder in the garden he tends.

In the Air by Maureen F. McHugh
I recently read McHugh's China Mountain Zhang a great introduction to her writing and was pleasantly surprised to find this story included in the collection. It's a rather strange but sweet story of the love of twins continuing past the womb when one is stillborn and finding a way to accommodate other forms of love to join their family.

[Karin · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with all anthologies, some stories are better than others. Overall they are well done. I was surprised to enjoy Parke Goodwin's contribution as I generally don't like his writing.

[s · Rating 2 out of 5]

great tanith lee story,

[Maryjane Coons · Rating 3 out of 5]

ok

[Maggie M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creepy love stores, enjoyed each twisted tale.

[Sam Ehret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really horror or erotica (at least not by todays standards). The stories were interesting and enjoyable but not particularly revolutionary

[Sara]

Chachauchau flats by Mchael Bishop
in love
to that greenlake eyes
to that face who write half poem
to that hais go far to sky
to that mouth have dew and diliciss water
to that clouthes y have it its ma home
even to that dog of y
i am in love
even y cant take me
even y have yr travel in cancer candil
iam in love
as i becom after y mountin of dust
as i live in y

[Lena Tumasyan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was mostly a disappointment. The title says "Killing me Softly: Erotic Tales of Unearthly Love" and the back cover talks about Love after Death. This book BARELY had anything to do with love after death or love that lives BEYOND death. I bought it because I was looking for something unique, something different from all the vampire tales out there, but I ended up getting let down.



Out of the 14 stories , only 3 were good. However, THOSE 3 were VERY good and VERY unusual! One story "2 Headed Man" is about a human woman who has sex with a handsome man and and his "worm twin" - however there is nothing "dead" in this story, just truly unusual. I still enjoyed it because I wanted to cringe but keep on reading at the same time! lol In another story "The Joy of Hats" a man has sex with many times a ghost, but he can only do so while wearing a different heat each time. This one was ALSO very unusual and actually DID have a dead soul in love with a human one. The final good one, is not surprisingly, a vampire story "Nunc Dimittis". This was was a little different and for that I give them credit. It was a REALLY erotic love after death - what really, this whole book should have been about.



There was one mediocre story - "The Gardner" about a gardener who falls in love with a human but he doesn't realize he's dead. The rest were just senseless. "In the Air" was sweet ghost story, but nothing "erotic" about it, not even "romantic." Some were long or confusing "She's not there" (read its twice and still had no idea what happened), and had nothing to go with death "Hard Drive" or erotic subjects "Chihuahua Flats". Some were scifi "sedoretu", some were about a love between a son and his mother (which was not erotic at all), A story like the Jaguar had a very confusing ending, and you really rub your brain trying to figure out what really happens. "The Fire When it comes" (nice story on it's own but doesn't belong in this collection) and "North of Diddy-Wa-Diddy" were just tooo long. Short stories shouldn't be that frustrating.



Overall, this collection is not at all what it set out to be. Many of the stories were not "daring" or "erotic" or "dead" as the cover and description claimed this book to be. The editors should have done a better job selecting stories. If they had just called it "unusual love" then fine.. but I was tricked. If they had more stories like "the 2 Headed Man" and put together a collection called "Freaky Love", I'd read it.

[Alicia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really disappointing over all. The only thing that saved this book from one star, were a couple of stories that I immensely enjoyed.
The Affair, Hard Drive, In The Air, and The Two-Headed Man. Maybe one or two others were all right, but I actually ended up skimming most of the other stories in the book. When only 4 out of 15 stories were actually good, a couple were tolerable, and the rest ended up getting skimmed, I can't recommend a book.

I can't really even put this on my Smut Shelf, since it wasn't all that smutty. Disappointing when you really didn't get what you paid for- I would have liked more horror and more smut.

[Alyssa · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some pretty good stories in this book, but very few of them were what I would consider "erotic"! They were all about sex in one way or another, but sex does not necessarily equal erotic. Heavy on the sci-fi, low on titillation.

[Teresa Mobley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, easy to read, collection of short stories.