cover image The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine

The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine

Krissy Kneen. Text Publishing (Consortium, dist.), $15.95 trade paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-922079-38-1

Kneen (Steeplechase) delivers on the promise of unusual, science-fictional eroticism with this daring adventure. Holly White is fervently dedicated to an ideal of abstinence to which her friends only pay lip service. Nicholson has inherited a scientific secret that governments consider a threat to humanity. Like everyone else on Earth, Holly is unaware of this danger—as ignorant, in fact, as she is of everything to do with sex. But that’s about to change. Her slow journey toward sexual enlightenment is beautifully rendered in lingering detail. Thanks to a book club that turns out to only read explicit books, Holly is guided to her destiny with Nicholson and his titular machine by treasures of erotic literary history. The combination of sexual awakening, secret societies, and lost technology, wrapped up in Kneen’s loving treatment of her subject, character, and story, makes for a remarkably pleasing read. The conclusion is wildly imaginative and surprisingly satisfying. The characters are delightfully varied, including many from groups that are underrepresented in erotic fiction, and each is more fascinating than the last. The absurdity of the sci-fi thriller setup propels the protagonists to extremes of sexual behavior, but it also acts as a contrast to the erotic content, rendering the pleasures of the flesh simple and charming by comparison with the elaborate plot. Kneen encourages the reader to delight in sexuality that is by turns innocent, gleeful, and cheerfully obscene. (Jan.)