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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
Sexy Space Babes is a series at war with itself. The Shil'vati, polygynous purple space orc amazons, have invaded Earth, wanting nothing more than to FUCK HUMAN MEN. So the premise is obviously horny, yet it is not purely, or even mainly, porn. The actual story is that of a man shanghaied into serving in the military of an alien empire he doesn't believe in, yet inadvertently enmeshes himself into its system and with its people, trying to balance his own sense of morality and indignation with the losses and benefits he's experienced. And also fucks like four different species of aliens and gets three girlfriends. Bizarrely, there was also a gay sex scene, but it was removed from later versions of the story.
In fairness, the first book is mostly in harmony with itself. The military setting is merely a device to get an everyman into a room with horny sweaty amazons (in space). It's the succeeding two books that crank up the plot and begin taking the setting seriously and putting focus on the military elements. In the end, there's both too much military BS compared to the sex, but the sex also keeps interrupting the story and is rarely relevant. There is also frustratingly little connection between books. The main love interest of the first book does not appear in the second, and barely in the third. One character from book two carries on to book three, The author claims more is coming, and it will be less military focused than the preceding two books.
That promise is mostly immaterial, since what's interesting about this story is the strange web of fanfiction it has spawned. Fanfiction typically centres on large media properties like Harry Potter, Star Wars, SuperWhoLock, etc. Fanfiction for obscure works is less common, let alone for a self-published novel, and as far as I know, fanfiction for a self-published novel morphing into a shared universe may never have happened before. It has become a self-sustaining phenomenon, with fan authors sharing their fan species, worldbuilding elements, and even making references to and borrowing the characters and events of other fanfictions.
The convoluted web of Sexy Space Babes fanfiction
Something about a tale of invasion by sexy space babes has ignited the imaginations of a particular kind of online weirdo. Something in the premise speaks to their dicks, yet they are unsatisfied with its specific elements, whether fetish/romantic, or military/political. Some, like Cryptid Chronicle and The Only Thing That Matters are much darker than Sexy Space Babes, exaggerating the bad, yet unexamined things attributed to the Shil'vati in the original, turning them into tyrannical rapists with a completely dysfunctional and unaccountable political system. Others like With the Hanks go full fluff, because we're here to read purple amazons get penetrated with dicks, not bullets. The dozens of fanfictions span a wide variety of genres, but typically include both a military and a romantic element.
Common elements include protagonists being shanghaied, dragooned, kidnapped, arrested, drafted, or otherwise forcibly removed from their comfort zone, confusing usage of the words "masculine" and "feminine", Maryland being the reddest of red zones, Interior agents being absolute bastards/idiots, nobles being absolute bastards/idiots, rebels being absolute bastards/idiots, Shil'vati males being mincing gay stereotypes, mint being an aphrodisiac, Shil'vati BO smelling like lavender, Shil'vati misinterpreting action movies as pornography, Shil'vati being amazed by random Earth foods/inventions/practices, Shil'vati being horrendously god awful flirters, and more.
Failing Upwards asks a simple, poignant, question. "What would life be like if you hada two bombshell tomboy amazon sugar mommy girlfriends?"
In For a Penny tells a more involved drama, with an unusual dramatic arc. The protagonist, Kendrick, starts out at the maximal point of masculinity, saving a woman under a hail of gunfire, from which he loses his social circle, his job, and his home, forcing him to rely on his Shil'vati girlfriend and friends. When his girlfriend punches out her bitch coworker, he seemingly starts to accept his feminine role, but his mentality continues to decline, with a panic attack at an Italian restaurant and an emotional outburst at a baby shower (seriously). The end point of this development remains to be seen, but I expect it will be some kind of integration of his human and Shil'vati sides of life, standing in for the masculine and feminine aspects of his personality.
While the dramatic development is a bit soap opera-like, I enjoy the way people are written as communicative, in the same vein as I Want to Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die. They just talk to each other. Events that would be drawn out like Herala's scheme to split Sean and Morivey, or Sean and Pelrinn's reconciliation after the baby shower, are instead resolved quickly and sanely.
My only real complaint with the story is the uneveness of the focus of the characters. Sean and Morivey are obviously the main characters, which is fine, but while Pelrinn and Grikel have fullblown subplots, and Ciltari has enough presence to justify her existence, Valran is nothing but a hanger on. I forget she's there most of the time, and I think the only thing she's actually done in the story is organize the Italian dinner. The story would really benefit from her either getting something to do (and it seems she may be getting a minor love interest like Ciltari), or being edited out entirely, but such are the hassles of writing serialized stories.
Just One Drop is an absolute beast. A despairing man is hired to teach a course on Humanity on the Shil'vati homeworld's most exclusive girls' school, which proves to have a disguised princess in attendance, a secret agent posing as a teacher, and a squad of commandos monitoring everything. I've only read 28 chapters of the so-far released 90, and that's already north of 100 000 words. There are dozens of characters, at least a half-dozen subplots going on already, and thankfully the author provides a dramatis personae because otherwise I would never be able to keep up.
The plotting is extremely ambitious, juggling extreme grief and healing, the joys and tribulations of youth, the ideological justifications of an expanding empire, the politics of its aristocratic upper class, multiple spy subplots, and of course, romance. On the other hand, the story is extremely slow. Even after 28 chapters it barely feels like it's started up.
Tom isverging on a Gary Stu. He's got Christ-like forgiveness, professorial education, pedagogical skill, a great cook, musically inclined, big dick. God damn, give him one flaw. The only time he's not wowing people by just existing was when Sephira thought he was an awkward swimmer, but that's the one arena Shil'vati are allowed to outdo humans so it doesn't count. The story also overdoses on quoting dadrock lyrics.
Alien Nation makes Just One Drop look like a bit of flash fiction. Exceeding 600 000 words, I can't be assed to read something so long.
Der Weizenbauer is an alternate history in which the Shil'vati invade Earth at the tail end of WWI. It follows the romance of a crippled German lieutenant and his Shil'vati steward. Since the Earth's technological level is so much lower, the Shil'vati are able to take over almost completely bloodlessly, and the aristocratic organization of Europe slots more neatly into the empire, with the empire reaffirming the position of the nobility. The author's other stories are also in European settings, and he attempts to push back a little against the Amerocentric assumptions of other Sexy Space Babes writers.
Far Away: A man's girlfriend is arrested by an Interior agent on trumped up charges of kidnapping and espionage, likely to be shanked to death before ever making it to trial. Little does she or their tormentor know, he is a former Death's Head medic, and he calls in every favour he has to keep her safe. Weird mix of fluffy and very dark, I just found it kind of uncomfortable.
The Marauder: "Rescued" from cryostasis transport, a man is given the choice of returning to the Imperium for his court martial, or entering debt-bondage in the Consortium, where he joins a group of Nighkru mercenaries (and fucks them). Really not my thing.
With the Hanks: A low ranking Interior agent with terrible luck falls in love with a small town man after being invited to spend Christmas Eve with him and his rambunctious family. Cute.
Lifeguards and Amazons: Stick in the mud Jae and his manwhore twin brother Mae end up teaching a swimming class for Shil'vati. Unlike many other stories, it directly references the events of the original book and includes characters from it, the twins Vieysha and Veiyshi.
The Cook: After being saved from sexual harassment, a depressed cook falls in love with the woman who saved him (and her squadmates). Gets insanely dark toward the end. Like, there are transgressive books where you know the authors know there are lines and are deliberately crossing them, so paradoxically it's insulating from the fuckedupness of what you're reading, your Hoggs and American Psychos. Or there are monotonous jackoff fantasies like The 120 Days of Sodom. Then there are stories where the author casually throws a grenade in your lap and gives no indication that it's a bit unusual.
When I got the double whammy of I was absolutely flabbergasted. What are you even supposed to say to that. The protagonist accepts it, because this is a story about broken people clinging to and healing each other, and if it wasn't for her he'd probably be drinking himself to death on the streets. Maybe this is my judgmental tendencies coming out, but I feel in that situation I'd be torn between running away changing my name and burning off my fingerprints, or searching for the nearest sharp object to cut her throat before committing suicide by cop.
The Piano Man: Years after being violently raped during the invasion, a piano player falls in love with a persistent woman. Sort of similar to The Cook in premise, but plays its cards very differently. It opens with the heavy stuff first, as the pianist, but the rest of the story is comparatively lighthearted and the other characters seem like normal people.
It's funny, even in this setting where 7 foot tall 300 pound women makes it at least physically plausible, this story still needs to resort to the pianist almost being murdered during his rape to make it traumatic. Women non-penetratively raping men might be the final frontier of the imagination. It's so outlandish you have to tack 10 'ands' on to make it stick. While it's not a common motif, to be sure, I can only remember two times the idea actually felt disturbing to me. Cyteen, but the woman was really old so I was kind of imagining my own grandma, and Cherryh's prose style may have been contributing to my nausea. Blood+ had that bit where, but that was more "WTF, can you just put something like that in a TV anime?" than real horror. The way she terminator walked while her clothes were falling off was way too sexy for it to be rightly horrifying. The near-rape scene in To Your Eternity wasn't that disturbing, though Fushi does sometimes act traumatized by the idea of sexual love (vomiting when Kahaku hugged him, and shuddering and remembering Hayase when Mizuha asked him to love her).
In fairness, the first book is mostly in harmony with itself. The military setting is merely a device to get an everyman into a room with horny sweaty amazons (in space). It's the succeeding two books that crank up the plot and begin taking the setting seriously and putting focus on the military elements. In the end, there's both too much military BS compared to the sex, but the sex also keeps interrupting the story and is rarely relevant. There is also frustratingly little connection between books. The main love interest of the first book does not appear in the second, and barely in the third. One character from book two carries on to book three,
Spoiler
but she more or less breaks up with the main guy at the end.That promise is mostly immaterial, since what's interesting about this story is the strange web of fanfiction it has spawned. Fanfiction typically centres on large media properties like Harry Potter, Star Wars, SuperWhoLock, etc. Fanfiction for obscure works is less common, let alone for a self-published novel, and as far as I know, fanfiction for a self-published novel morphing into a shared universe may never have happened before. It has become a self-sustaining phenomenon, with fan authors sharing their fan species, worldbuilding elements, and even making references to and borrowing the characters and events of other fanfictions.
The convoluted web of Sexy Space Babes fanfiction
Something about a tale of invasion by sexy space babes has ignited the imaginations of a particular kind of online weirdo. Something in the premise speaks to their dicks, yet they are unsatisfied with its specific elements, whether fetish/romantic, or military/political. Some, like Cryptid Chronicle and The Only Thing That Matters are much darker than Sexy Space Babes, exaggerating the bad, yet unexamined things attributed to the Shil'vati in the original, turning them into tyrannical rapists with a completely dysfunctional and unaccountable political system. Others like With the Hanks go full fluff, because we're here to read purple amazons get penetrated with dicks, not bullets. The dozens of fanfictions span a wide variety of genres, but typically include both a military and a romantic element.
Common elements include protagonists being shanghaied, dragooned, kidnapped, arrested, drafted, or otherwise forcibly removed from their comfort zone, confusing usage of the words "masculine" and "feminine", Maryland being the reddest of red zones, Interior agents being absolute bastards/idiots, nobles being absolute bastards/idiots, rebels being absolute bastards/idiots, Shil'vati males being mincing gay stereotypes, mint being an aphrodisiac, Shil'vati BO smelling like lavender, Shil'vati misinterpreting action movies as pornography, Shil'vati being amazed by random Earth foods/inventions/practices, Shil'vati being horrendously god awful flirters, and more.
Failing Upwards asks a simple, poignant, question. "What would life be like if you had
In For a Penny tells a more involved drama, with an unusual dramatic arc. The protagonist, Kendrick, starts out at the maximal point of masculinity, saving a woman under a hail of gunfire, from which he loses his social circle, his job, and his home, forcing him to rely on his Shil'vati girlfriend and friends. When his girlfriend punches out her bitch coworker, he seemingly starts to accept his feminine role, but his mentality continues to decline, with a panic attack at an Italian restaurant and an emotional outburst at a baby shower (seriously). The end point of this development remains to be seen, but I expect it will be some kind of integration of his human and Shil'vati sides of life, standing in for the masculine and feminine aspects of his personality.
While the dramatic development is a bit soap opera-like, I enjoy the way people are written as communicative, in the same vein as I Want to Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die. They just talk to each other. Events that would be drawn out like Herala's scheme to split Sean and Morivey, or Sean and Pelrinn's reconciliation after the baby shower, are instead resolved quickly and sanely.
My only real complaint with the story is the uneveness of the focus of the characters. Sean and Morivey are obviously the main characters, which is fine, but while Pelrinn and Grikel have fullblown subplots, and Ciltari has enough presence to justify her existence, Valran is nothing but a hanger on. I forget she's there most of the time, and I think the only thing she's actually done in the story is organize the Italian dinner. The story would really benefit from her either getting something to do (and it seems she may be getting a minor love interest like Ciltari), or being edited out entirely, but such are the hassles of writing serialized stories.
Just One Drop is an absolute beast. A despairing man is hired to teach a course on Humanity on the Shil'vati homeworld's most exclusive girls' school, which proves to have a disguised princess in attendance, a secret agent posing as a teacher, and a squad of commandos monitoring everything. I've only read 28 chapters of the so-far released 90, and that's already north of 100 000 words. There are dozens of characters, at least a half-dozen subplots going on already, and thankfully the author provides a dramatis personae because otherwise I would never be able to keep up.
The plotting is extremely ambitious, juggling extreme grief and healing, the joys and tribulations of youth, the ideological justifications of an expanding empire, the politics of its aristocratic upper class, multiple spy subplots, and of course, romance. On the other hand, the story is extremely slow. Even after 28 chapters it barely feels like it's started up.
Tom is
Alien Nation makes Just One Drop look like a bit of flash fiction. Exceeding 600 000 words, I can't be assed to read something so long.
Der Weizenbauer is an alternate history in which the Shil'vati invade Earth at the tail end of WWI. It follows the romance of a crippled German lieutenant and his Shil'vati steward. Since the Earth's technological level is so much lower, the Shil'vati are able to take over almost completely bloodlessly, and the aristocratic organization of Europe slots more neatly into the empire, with the empire reaffirming the position of the nobility. The author's other stories are also in European settings, and he attempts to push back a little against the Amerocentric assumptions of other Sexy Space Babes writers.
Far Away: A man's girlfriend is arrested by an Interior agent on trumped up charges of kidnapping and espionage, likely to be shanked to death before ever making it to trial. Little does she or their tormentor know, he is a former Death's Head medic, and he calls in every favour he has to keep her safe. Weird mix of fluffy and very dark, I just found it kind of uncomfortable.
The Marauder: "Rescued" from cryostasis transport, a man is given the choice of returning to the Imperium for his court martial, or entering debt-bondage in the Consortium, where he joins a group of Nighkru mercenaries (and fucks them). Really not my thing.
With the Hanks: A low ranking Interior agent with terrible luck falls in love with a small town man after being invited to spend Christmas Eve with him and his rambunctious family. Cute.
Lifeguards and Amazons: Stick in the mud Jae and his manwhore twin brother Mae end up teaching a swimming class for Shil'vati. Unlike many other stories, it directly references the events of the original book and includes characters from it, the twins Vieysha and Veiyshi.
The Cook: After being saved from sexual harassment, a depressed cook falls in love with the woman who saved him (and her squadmates). Gets insanely dark toward the end. Like, there are transgressive books where you know the authors know there are lines and are deliberately crossing them, so paradoxically it's insulating from the fuckedupness of what you're reading, your Hoggs and American Psychos. Or there are monotonous jackoff fantasies like The 120 Days of Sodom. Then there are stories where the author casually throws a grenade in your lap and gives no indication that it's a bit unusual.
When I got the double whammy of
Spoiler
one of his girlfriends killing his brother and another admitting that she murdered a 6 year old childThe Piano Man: Years after being violently raped during the invasion, a piano player falls in love with a persistent woman. Sort of similar to The Cook in premise, but plays its cards very differently. It opens with the heavy stuff first, as the pianist
Spoiler
describes the trauma of ejaculating while being choked to death causing him to want to cut off his own dickIt's funny, even in this setting where 7 foot tall 300 pound women makes it at least physically plausible, this story still needs to resort to the pianist almost being murdered during his rape to make it traumatic. Women non-penetratively raping men might be the final frontier of the imagination. It's so outlandish you have to tack 10 'ands' on to make it stick. While it's not a common motif, to be sure, I can only remember two times the idea actually felt disturbing to me. Cyteen, but the woman was really old so I was kind of imagining my own grandma, and Cherryh's prose style may have been contributing to my nausea. Blood+ had that bit where
Spoiler
Diva raped the little bro of the team to death
Awesome world and concept! Can't say enough good things about it! If you like sci-fi or military bootcamp stories this is a good one. One of my favorite series I have read.
It has been a long time since I read John Scalzi's Old Man's War but I'm still pretty sure it wasn't as sexed up as this book. I mention this because the book's product description mentions that it was inspired by Old Man's War, which might put some people off because this book isn't as deep or philosophical.
In this book, Earth has been conquered by an alien species who are humanoid and whose male/female ratio is something like 1:7. So the female aliens act like human males, horny all the time, obsessed about breast size (instead of dick size), and lacking emotional intelligence (when compared to the other sex). The book doesn't go into the biology or the evolutionary psychology behind this, so I wondered if this setup would even work, but this isn't a hard-scifi book and I found it best to just leave my brain at the door and just enjoy the ride.
And it really is an enjoyable ride. While the situation seems pornographic, what with being the lone man sent to boot camp filled with alien women who all look like amazon goddesses and want to have sex, there is also some limited and I think shallow exploration of the gender roles being reversed. As I continued to read, I found myself looking forward to the climax of the character relationships more than the military sci-fi stuff, which doesn't really make sense at times (why would an entire species be claustrophobic?)
I think this is pretty good for what it is; a light, fun, sexy, sci-fi romp.
In this book, Earth has been conquered by an alien species who are humanoid and whose male/female ratio is something like 1:7. So the female aliens act like human males, horny all the time, obsessed about breast size (instead of dick size), and lacking emotional intelligence (when compared to the other sex). The book doesn't go into the biology or the evolutionary psychology behind this, so I wondered if this setup would even work, but this isn't a hard-scifi book and I found it best to just leave my brain at the door and just enjoy the ride.
And it really is an enjoyable ride. While the situation seems pornographic, what with being the lone man sent to boot camp filled with alien women who all look like amazon goddesses and want to have sex, there is also some limited and I think shallow exploration of the gender roles being reversed. As I continued to read, I found myself looking forward to the climax of the character relationships more than the military sci-fi stuff, which doesn't really make sense at times (why would an entire species be claustrophobic?)
I think this is pretty good for what it is; a light, fun, sexy, sci-fi romp.
Between Worlds features a 19 year old gary stu who is essentially building his own harem. The writing of the sexual acts was just.... that's not how things work. We got slimy, pulsing insides (yum), thick globules of warm lubricant falling from the females engorged slit that is hanging over the head of his member. There were reverse gender roles in this book but it just didn't work for me. There were a few things I did like.... the armor that locked up and ended the simulation for the recruit (mimicking death), and well, that was about it I guess.