Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon
A girl crash lands on an alien planet and one of the aliens wants to breed her. 👀
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Pros: cool story, really funny, alien sex
Cons: abrupt ending, unassuming cover (i will elaborate) and pregnancy nonsense
TRIGGER WARNINGS: KIDNAPPING, SEX TRAFFICKING, DRUGS, RAPE, MURDER, GORE, AND VIOLENCE
So... I certainly didn't anticipate alien smut to be on my reading list this year but I could say the same thing about serial killer smut. 2022 has been a wild ride and it's only April! How did I get here?
I had seen this book all over TikTok and while I don't exclusively read things I find on Tiktok, I do like to toss a TikTok rec into my reading schedule every now and then just to mix things up. It has not always been a success but it is usually entertaining.
The story follows a human girl named Georgie (cool name) who gets abducted by basketball-headed aliens in the middle of the night. She and the other girls being held captive on the ship are dumped onto some random, freezing planet with the aliens presumably returning to recapture them at a later date. In the meantime, Georgie and the girls now have to figure out how to survive and get themselves back home. Georgie somehow becomes the leader and sets off on foot to explore the strange planet and hopefully find some help. What she ends up finding is trouble - getting stuck in a trap, losing consciousness and when she wakes up... an enormous blue, horned alien (Vektal) is, um, eating...her...out?
…Not a bad way to wake up, for sure, but THIS IS SERIOUS.
The story unfolds after that and I have to say... I really enjoyed this ridiculous book.
The writing was pretty good. There were intriguing plot points, great and easy flow and the most important (to me) it was really fucking funny. To have your writing be funny, you have to know exactly what you're doing and articulate it well. I feel like more respect needs to be paid to the authors who can properly execute funny writing; it is no easy thing. I talked in depth about language and humor in smut on TikTok if you want to hear more about that but I just want you to know this book was funny and I really applaud the author for that.
I really liked Georgie too; she was a believable and endearing main character. I really liked but also low key hated that there was a language barrier, though I understand why there would be. It was kinda fun to see how Vektal interpreted Georgie’s words and vice versa. She told him her name was Georgie so he called her "Shorshie" and that was just precious, I don't care what you say. I also liked Vektal; he had a brute flare to him while also being kind and respectful of Georgie and her friends the entire time.
HERE COME THE SPOILERS
Ok so... not really a spoiler but the cover. I would rethink it. It is a gorgeous illustration, don't get me wrong. However, it is not a cover that tells me "Oh! That is graphic alien porn!" I literally found my copy in a Wal-Mart next to actual YA books. AND YES I UNDERSTAND THAT IT'S THE PARENTS RESPONSIBILITY BLAH, but little Jessica might have her world rocked is all I’m saying.
TW: RAPE - the book starts out with a pretty brutal alien rape scene of one of the captive girls and like YOWZA what a way to start, huh? Just look out.
I hate pregnancy storylines, I really, really do... so I HATE that Georgie got pregnant. I also hate that I called it fairly early on in the book. I hate surprise pregnancy tropes but I loathe them entirely in my smut. Get out of my smut. I also don’t have a breeding kink, I don't think getting pregnant by someone you just met is romantic or a fun fantasy. It's just not for me. If you’re into that though… have a blast!
I really liked that Vektal called Georgie his “resonance.” Honestly. I know it is probably cheesy to a lot of folks but I was just like... "AW!"
Speaking of resonance, I really liked that aspect of the story and how it was explained. The "khui" that lives inside of the aliens; it rumbles aka imprints aka resonates with someone when they find their soulmate. I liked it. What I didn't like was the way the khui was implanted/inserted. Hell to the no, you are not cutting open my shoulder and letting a worm crawl in. Hard pass.
The ending sucked in my opinion. It was so fast I almost didn't even realize that it was over. The entire book went really fast, but the whole thing was that they were worried about the aliens coming back to collect them. I was expecting some epic fight scene but nope. They just said "oh, they're not where we left them? Bye." and that was that. Weird.
Another thing I had trouble wrapping my brain around: all of these women just…wanted to stay? They all ended up accepting the khui into their bodies and just staying on the ice planet. Did they not have like, family back on earth? A boyfriend? A job they love or a pet even? I just found that hard to believe and they all agreed to stay fairly quickly too. If it were me, I would've had questions:
"Ok so, we're just ALL staying because Georgie got knocked up by a cerulean rhinoceros man?"
"And we're all going to resonate with these aliens too? I'm married, I just-"
"Can you at least show me where I will be living first? I need to know if this is an upgrade or a downgrade from my Earth situation. The bar is low but still."
I just can't believe that they wouldn't have a little bit more of an issue with staying on a planet and completely giving up on going home but maybe I'm the asshole.
SAFE ZONE
Overall, I had a really fun time reading this book. I recommend this to anyone who likes funny writing, sci-fi alien romances, easily understood fantasy or dirty, dirty smut. It was probably more of a 3.5, maybe even a 4... I reserve the right to change my mind at any time. It was a great read to break up some of my more heavy reads of the month.