We think all 25 finalist stories are really excellent, and any of them would make worthy recipients of a Spiral Award.  But this year’s winners are, unquestionably, five of the best MC stories of 2005, and our biggest congratulations to them and their deserving authors.

Pink (FF)

Gutter-Princess of Xanadu by EyeofSerpent

This story is about sex in strange places and the people who go there.  Along the way, you’ll find monsters, saints, hot cars, the universe in peril, vending machines that brainwash women, etc.  Beware. The author will also abuse the English language and re-invent words.

Eye’s own story synopsis, above, gives you just a small taste of what’s inside this maelstrom of a story.  There’s also time and event shifting, blisteringly hot erotica, heroes and villains, new and strange powers, stranger relationships, wit and danger, and, most importantly, tight and exciting writing and MC conceits… an absolute roller-coaster of fun, lust, and creativity from one of the finest writers of our genre.

Green (FD)

Geisha by Archibael

A useless bimbo is mind-controlled into becoming a smart, competent, and ruthless executive.

An incredibly intriguing story of turnabout, of how the controlled becomes the controller, about how things change when you add intelligence to the mix, and the command to desire it more and more.  The transformation of Jilly, the bimbo, into Evangeline, the corporate mogul and hypnotic manipulator, is hot and wonderfully-well executed and described, and her ultimate “triumph”, like her, is a sight to behold, and a joy to read, by another of the best MC writers going.

Yellow (MD)

Lie Berries by MichelleLovesTo

Jeff decides to get hypnotic revenge on his fiancé after he catches her cheating on him.

A story of nearly helpless revenge, with an MC controller who cannot resist hypnotically changing, and ruining, perhaps the best thing in is life, simply because she was trying to make things better for others, for betraying herself, and him, to be true to what was most important to her.  An almost brutal story, wonderfully written, with characters you can really feel… feel their pains, their pleasures, and their motivations… by one of the best MC writers of the past few years.

Purple (Mixed)

Summit by Tabico

There’s a new Mind Controller in town, and the Masters and Mistresses already living there must decide how to deal with him.

Mixing characters and aspects of many of her past excellent stories, Tabico has created a deeply atmospheric, MC-laden, terrifically exciting story of conquest and control, of wheels-within-wheels, of all that can happen when powers collide.  An unstoppable mutant controller, who must be stopped somehow, mixes with the perceptions and activities of a single woman, who must swim through a morass of plots and MC conceits, to create a tightly-written and deeply erotic story by another one of the all-time greats of the genre.

White (MM)

Joseph — The Programmable Boy by Topaz172

The Agency’s plan to create an expendable Spy-kid ended in disaster a decade ago. Ex-Spy-kid Joseph was happy for everyone to think it was all over. Unfortunately falling in love with a straight boy wasn’t part of the plan… not tactically or strategically. The only option left is to use the Cephelographic Analogue Transcriber one last time.

Topaz’s synopsis, above, about says it all, but does not fully describe the exciting, intricate, and arousing way that Joseph sets about his task, or the wonderful way the story is written… filled with humor and heat, with sly machinations and love-sick desire.  Like all the previous winning stories, this one contains great characters and characterizations, almost boundless creativity and writing skill, and a plot-line to be both admired and enjoyed by all, irrespective of your sexual preferences, and all by another of the very best writers that MC erotica has to offer.

The 2005 Spiral Achievement Award

There’s really no reason to hold you in suspense on this one, as the winner of the first annual Spiral Achievement award will come as no surprise to anyone, for all the obvious reasons.  And so…

This year’s recipient of the Spiral Achievement Award is… 
Simon Bar Sinister.

Active in MC erotica for about as long as any single individual, owner and operator of the EMCSA, and a terrific writer of MC erotic fiction in his own right, Simon has done more than any other person to structure and support and maintain the genre that we all hold dear.  Basically single-handedly running perhaps the premium repository for MC stories on the web, Simon has given us a place to post, a set of ground-rules to follow, and done simply yeoman’s work in getting the stories up on nearly a week-in-week-out basis, in color coding them, labeling them, synopsizing them, and with taking all kinds of file types and working them into the software that he has available to run the place.

He creates links to referenced stories, links to author files, categorizes the stories, accumulates and posts readers picks.  He does his best for the authors in posting corrections and rewrites, and in removing or adding blocks of stories as authors come and go.  He gives us heads-up on the MC Forum to changes and delays and deals with ASSTR problems and inconsistencies.  And he just recently accomplished a major overhaul of the whole EMCSA site, and did it with remarkably few glitches, ones that he’s quickly corrected.  He didn’t ask, he didn’t debate, he just did what he thought would be in the best long-term interest of the EMCSA and the writers and authors who frequent there.  That he asked for input after the changeover, only shows how much he cares about the final product.

To quote Monty Python… “That’s a full workin’ day, lad!”

And let’s not forget about what a fine writer he is, with stories of his own on the Archive from as far back as 1994.  Some of his stories that have become Reader’s Picks include, Absolute Obedience, Command & Control, Force of Will, Spa, and Prince City.

No, there was little doubt as to the outcome of this award, and it is indeed our honor and privilege to give the 2005 Spiral Achievement Award to Simon Bar Sinister, with our great thanks and best wishes for the future… for both you, your writing, and the EMCSA.