Rating: ★★★+.5 | 04/03/2015 | Science Fiction Romance | 188 Pages | Self-Published
Ice Planet Barbarians starts of visceral and down right disturbing as 22-year-old Georgie wakes up. locked in an alien cargo hold with 11 other women. The women fight their captors and find themselves dumped on a barren ice planet which they very quickly discover the planet is not so barren. It’s inhabitants are a small, primitive tribe of mostly male sa-khui, the titular barbarian-like aliens. Oh and it turns out their tribe leader, Vektal, is Georgie’s fated mate.
I normally stray away from fated mate or inter-species-alien stuff , but I actually ended up enjoying this book–it kind of reminded me of a smexeier Dr. Who episode ? Dixon’s use of Georgie’s colloquial first person narration, the world (planet?) building and the survival plot really hooked me. I also appreciated the tribal nature that develops between all the women as they try and survive. As for the inter-species thing….while I could deal with the blue skin, body ridges and horns, the tail was just a bridge too far and I chose to ignore it.
I actually only had one major problem with this book; THE ENTIRE PLOT OF THIS SERIES IS MY WORST FREAKING NIGHTMARE !**
Let me explain. At one point all the women make A Choice and do A Thing that means they can’t ever leave the ice planet. The reason this is my nightmare scenario can pretty much be encapsulated in this line:
I mean, there aren’t any toilets, but living as a barbarian? Not so bad when you’ve got a big, sexy barbarian male with you.
— Dixon, Ruby. Ice Planet Barbarians: A SciFi Alien Romance (p. 175). Ruby Dixon. Kindle Edition.
Nope. Nope. Nope. Noppity Nope. Vektal and his sa-khui are literally living in the Stone Age–they eat their meat raw, all the native creatures on the planet wants to kill them, it’s always cold and as for this whole fated mates thing ? Yeah, there are no epidurals on a barren ice planet ! If I were one of these women I would be trying to Macgyver my way off the planet as quickly as possible. Especially since it’s hinted that there exist sa-khui on other planets that don’t live like barbarians.
Personal Nightmare Fuel aside, Ice Planet Barbarians is an intense, enjoyable, sci-fi romance with a really fun voice. In the back of the book Dixon says you can read the books in any order and ( if you’re cool with the whole trapped in the Stone Age thing) it seems like a great vacation series for dipping in and out of !
SIDENOTE
There is novella about one of the women having twins and while the name of the novella delights me the cover….bothers me deeply.
**Okay, maybe not my worst nightmare. My worst nightmares include being eaten alive, getting kidnapped, eating a cockroach, my car falling off a bridge, being kidnapped and locked in a basement and going to work with a hair roller in but it’s in the top 5.