Monday, August 23, 2010

Summer School: A Ponygirl Novel by Jurgen von Stuka

 
Summer School is a non-consensual tale of girls being forced into pony play. Actually, the term "pony play" isn't quite right here, because this is quite serious, with no playing around. The girls are eventually made into something as close to ponies as a human body can be taken. (Probably a lot farther than you're thinking.) There are also human cows and human piggies, once you get into the story.

Some non-BDSM parts of the story bothered me:
  • The author tried to show that this could be an economic venture, and tried to explain how the "missing" girls could be explained. I agree you could possibly explain some missing girls in this manner, but once there are dozens of girls who go away to school and then never go home again... for families with fifteen thousand dollars to blow on summer camp, they are going to be able to hire private detectives and lawyers, too.
  • The description of some of the gadgets was too much for me. A description of a complicated mouth gag took pages and pages to describe the gag and then to show how it was installed. Some of the gadgets were well thought out and ingenious, but there were times that the story stopped too long for the descriptions.
  • The author lost track of the kind of bondage her victims were in a few times. Someone in a full hood that blocked sound was able to hear her tormentor speak, but then a few paragraphs later could not hear other sounds that would have been louder than a voice.
     Here's the blurb:

    Desperately wanting to get away from home for the summer, Dori Hammond, talks her father into sending her to a summer riding school. However, she quickly learns that this is not a traditional riding school, and its unusual training methods are cause for alarm. However, having signed the required contract, she and the other students are obliged to submit to a rigorous training regimen. Unbeknownst to them, they’ll be methodically transformed into human ponies. Headmistress Wright and Headmaster Boswick employ mechanical horses, strict restraint, suspensions, impalement, and the resources of the farm's deepest cellars. Their female students quickly learn what a horse's life is really like and that misconduct will lead to severe punishment. Riding, as the girls discover, is more than taking a pony around the ring. As Head Master Boswick says, "You can't learn to ride until you've been ridden."

    Though the girls may resist the humiliating treatment, they often experience an overwhelming sexual satisfaction in the pleasure and pain they are forced to suffer.

    Not all the students are at the school voluntarily. Many are spoiled and unruly young women sent there by their wealthy parents. One unlucky German girl, Lucy, is kidnapped on an overnight train and sent to the school, the abduction arranged for by her Dutch boyfriend.

    Dori and her fellow students are subjected to discipline and training from both the male and female staff. For those who resist, there is the dairy barn where the girls are turned into human cows. And for those incorrigible young females who fail in equine training and in the dairy barn, there is the lowly squalor of the Hog Farm, where they are good for nothing but sexual sport. For Dori and the others, it becomes clear long before the end of the story that their lives will be transformed forever, in ways they never imagined.

    In addition to details scenes of human pony training, the inventive story includes graphic descriptions of elaborate pony costumes, unique extreme bondage and suspension, gags, cuffs, collars, chains, dildos, steel restraints, elaborate bondage devices, electrical stimulation, milking, piercing, surgical body modification and straight and lesbian sex. Strong BDSM content.


    BDSM elements:
    • Bondage and Discipline: Yes. Both taken to the extreme. Some of the bondage could easily be fatal if done as described with no one left to observe. This is fantasy BDSM, complete with floggers that tear bits of skin off and send it flying through the air. 3 of 3.
    • Dominance and Submission: Again, taken to the extreme, and the submission is not consensual. 3 of 3
    • Sadism and Masochism: There are certainly sadists who run the school. And some of the girls seem to be trained into masochism.  3 of 3.
    • Extra Point: The story is based around a sadistic pony girl school, it's safe to say it gets the extra point.
    Obviously, the Intensity Level is a  10 of 10, but I'm not sure what to do with the Heat Level. The first part of the book was a 5 of 5, but the latter part went over the top to the extent that it wasn't hot anymore. More scary than hot. And, with the believability and continuity issues I talked about above, that also interfered with the heat level a bit. I think giving it a 3 of 5 is about right, with the understanding that there are parts of it that do hit the 5 of 5, especially if you're into the whole pony thing.
    • Book Rating: Summer School: 6 of 10
    • BDSM Intensity Level: 10 of 10
    • Heat Level: 3 of 5

      As for the writing elements: There isn't really a plot. The book is a description of what happens to a number of people who end up at this school. One person is followed more closely than the others, and we see how far she is taken into being a pony instead of a human.  But it's the physical aspects we see, not really the psychological aspects.

      Pacing has some issues. Prose and dialogue were well done. There wasn't very much character building, just descriptions of what was happening to the various characters.

      As I said, prose and dialogue were well done, and the voice was easy to follow. If you enjoy pony girl activities, and if the non-consent stuff isn't a turn off for you, then you'll probably enjoy Summer School.   
       

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      1 comment:

      1. Hello there,

        I'm being cheeky but is there any chance you'd consider doing a review of the Novella 'The Riding School' by C P Mandara which is BDSM Pony Play? If you're interested then please contact me on christinamandara@yahoo.co.uk

        This is a fantastic blog btw, I'm going to have lots of fun reading through these :-)

        ReplyDelete