Men in Space by C.C. Bridges, Ethan X. Thomas & Kallysten

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Crimson by Ethan X. Thomas

Crimson is an alternative reality story from all the possible perspectives you look at it. First of all, the prejudice here is not given by the fact that Benjamin is gay, but by the fact that Adam, his partner is of a different breed.

Benjamin and Adam are different in all possible aspects other than one, their sex, and this is the only thing that seems to not arising trouble. Benjamin is 44 years old and still mourning the betrayal of his former lover; he is an high level police officer, he should be always the leader and responsible for the good being of his men, but in his private life he craves to be mastered. Benjamin is a submissive and he did the unthinkable, he killed his previous master; for this reason, since he was forced to kill the one man in the world he swore to always obey, he now has made his special mission to hunt down Tazu, the man who forced him to do that.

Adam is not a Terran like Ben, he is a mix of human and bird, instead of hair he has feathers, and his skin is deep blue. You can’t possible not notice it, and that is the reason why he is ostracized. Actually Adam is not even gay, but truth be told, in this futuristic tale, the preference in sex seems to not be important; it not defines who you are or why you are a misfit. Other than being of a lesser breed, Adam is also a lot younger than Ben, 28 years old, so he doesn’t fit at all the role of Master, and Ben craves for a Master. Adam and Ben are totally mismatched, and so it’s quite difficult for them to go undercover as a married couple in a exclusive resort. More Ben has to play the role of Master, something he totally doesn’t feel in him, and Adam the one of the slave, something he totally hates since his people has always fought to come out from slavery.

I had some trouble to mentally enter in the story since the authors don’t give you background notion, you are plunged directly into the story and have to pick up clues here and there to understand the whole. It’s something that I find quite often in futuristic tales, actually there are two opposite ways to tell a story: or the author gives full details, even too much, sometime overloading so much the story to boring the reader, or the author only hints to the alternative reality, letting the reader to fill the voids with his own imagination. Probably I prefer the second way, and it’s the one chosen for Crimson, just enough details to allow understanding the surroundings, and then, you are free to build the reality as much as you like.

http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/crimson

Amazon Kindle: Crimson: A Men in Space Story

Moonlust (Men in Space) by Kallysten

Usually a sci-fiction story tends to have a “grandeur” feeling; maybe it’s the great expanse of the space, of those spaceships, big and cold. You almost get lost in those spaceships, and the simple men who work in there are in second line, all the high tech solutions are the main characters and the men succumb to them.

Moonlust takes a turn from the usual plot and uses a very old fashioned device to do that, the mating fever. At first Kar met Jay alone, Kar had a very old spaceship he needed someone to pilot and Jay was the right man; probably Jay was not right only for the spaceship, he was right also for its captain, but Kar feared to be hurt from Jay’s possible future deception (how an old fashioned feeling, the old as time fear to fail that pushes men to not even try). Consciously or unconsciously, it’s not clear, Kar hired also Will, a pretty hot young thing who is immediately all octopus over Jay. But Kar clever diversion backfires him: now he has not only to avoid Jay, now he has to avoid the both of them together, who are all over each other at every moment and in every place of the ship!

Kar is barely managing to do that when a mission sends them to an alien planet during the mating season: the pheromones in the air produce an unexpected side effect also on them. Or maybe Kar is saying to himself that to justify why he is suddenly in bed with both Jay than Will and he is enjoying every moment.

As I said, other than being setting in a spaceship sailing unknown routes, this novella is basically a funny romp. Unusually for me, I like all three men in the ménages: Kar is almost tender in his “I want/I don’t want to want” attitude towards Jay, and it’s almost funny how he put himself in a bigger danger when he hired Will to “distract” Jay; Jay has those mystery aura around himself, and basically that easy attitude that makes him like a rascal, a character that I always liked in romance; and finally Will, the happy-to-go boy, the one who is always smiling, the one who wants to make everyone happy… obviously if this means making himself happy along with.

http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/moonlust

Amazon Kindle: Moonlust: A Men in Space Story

http://samhainpublishing.com/print/men-in-space-print (print book)

Amazon: Men in Space

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle




Cover Art by Kanaxa

Comments

[ethanxthomas.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the review!