My Favorite Aliens
Shout out to Allstate for putting me on hold so long I could write a whole newsletter
Remember last year when I was all “nahhhh I only read contemporary/historical romances” and then this year I was like “by the way I’m writing a fated mates alien book.” What I’m saying is that Ice Planet Barbarians is a gateway drug, and now I’m constantly itching for a fix. Below are my three favorite alien series, rec’d by their first books, if you also want to follow me into the abyss of space for a good, horny time.
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Taken to Voraxia by Elizabeth Stephens. When I first discovered Elizabeth Stephens, only this first book of the series was available on Kindle Unlimited, and when I tell you I spend hours trying to find another way to read them, on various book apps, through my local library, etc…. Because I knew. I knew it would quickly become one of my favorite alien series. And a few weeks later, thankfully, she added them all back to her KU, and I absolutely demolished them in a week.
This first book really sets our stage for the rest of the series, despite every book taking place broadly on a whole different planet (she is on a whole other level, I’m telling you). It’s a series that really is best in order, because there’s a lot of macro plot stuff that only feels truly satisfying if you understand what’s come before. So what we set up is that there’s this barren-ish moon full of monsters that is inhabited by human settlers who came from an evacuation from Earth hundreds of years before (decades before? I don’t quite remember the timeline). Things aren’t great on this moon, especially because in addition to having basically no resources, every few years terrifying giant aliens come, pick fertile women, and hunt them in the jungle before assaulting them. No human woman has ever survived birthing a hybrid child, so after the first Hunt a generation ago when a handful of kids were born but all the mothers passed on, the plan has become to abort any pregnancies that come from the Hunt across the board, because of course being hunted and raped isn’t enough.
Miari is one of the few hybrid kids to survive after that first Hunt, and she’s officially about to be of age for her first Hunt. A real horror show, considering her good friend (and heroine of book 2) went from a vibrant young woman to a shell of herself after her first Hunt. As you might expect. A new big scary alien (Raku) appears and seems eerily drawn to her (and she, against her considerable will, seems drawn back), but because she’s not of age, she’s not eligible to be hunted. So this strange new alien, who from his POV has found his Xiveri Mate (hm???) calls off the hunt until she’s old enough to participate…
We cut to a year or so later, when Miari, who’s an intrepid inventor, is making an escape from the safety of the human settlement because she knows she’s going to be chosen for a hunt, and, hey, actually, fuck that. She and her friend, aka book 2 heroine, abscond, and then run into trouble, then get rescued by a furious Raku, leading to her friend getting put in a healing goop for all of this book and her to start making deals with Raku in exchange for protection for her people and a promise for no more Hunt. And then things get even more interesting, and of course incredibly spicy, from there.
What I love, and have mentioned I love previously, about Elizabeth Stephens books is that when she sets up a truly fucked up system and makes her characters suffer within it… she comes back to it. She doesn’t just rescue her protagonists, they change the damn world whether it feels likely or safe or not. And watching this intergalactic community change with the humans starting to come into positions of power and influence is so damn satisfying. This is a bit of an advanced series with some pretty dark themes occasionally, so I wouldn’t recommend it to a totally new romance or scifi romance reader, but if you’re out there already having enjoyed a couple of books like this, run don’t walk to snag this series!
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon. You know I had to. This was my first sci-fi romance series, after years of insisting I “only wanted to read contemporary/historical.” But then last Thanksgiving, while at my mother-in-law’s house, I remembered people mentioning these books, saw the first wasn’t too long, and thought… why not? I’m experiencing my first genuinely cold winter holiday in years, and I want a wintry book that’s not too long to try.
Reader: I read the next 10 books in two days. And by the end of the year had read like 30. These are the books that blooded me for alien romance, and I will always feel nostalgic over them for this reason. And I got to interview Ruby Dixon recently too!
So I definitely think you should read this first book first, but after that, I don’t think you necessarily need to read all of this series in order, because every few books we kinda get a refresher on what’s going on and how the world works, so if you skip around to the couples/stories that have the most interesting blurbs, I think you’re probably fine to do that. I enjoyed reading them in order because the world around the couples does change between books and I enjoyed watching this new little society have to expand and change and not just culturally, and learn new things about the Ice Planet, aka Not-Hoth (lol).
Anyways, in this first book, we meet Georgie, a human woman just abducted by scary and not fuckable aliens. Some messed up things happen on the space ship she and a bunch of other suspiciously young and beautiful human women have been captured on, and then their holding cell gets ejected during a malfunction, with clear indications that the bad aliens will be back for them later. They crash onto a snowy planet the women, in various states of injury and distress, are stranded on. The women decide to call it Not-Hoth, because it’s got Hoth vibes, and Georgie, the accidental de-facto leader and least injured, decides to wander off for help.
And she good and goddamn finds it in a very fuckable giant blue alien with horns called Vektal, who can’t communicate with her, but does know as soon as they come across each other that she is his fated mate, because the parasite in his chest that enables him and his people to survive on this planet is resonating with her, a thing they do when a viable perfect mate is ready for impregnation. This is a whole thing for the entirety of this series: when you resonate with someone, it’s not just that you’re fated perfectly for one another, but it’s also baby-making time, and in future after finding each other, the khui (the parasite) may resonate again for additional babies. And you can’t really deny the call of the khui because you essentially both go into heat and it will slowly kill you until you consummate.
Chaos ensues, the group of girls is integrated into sa’khui big blue alien society, and thus begins what is now a 60+ book series (spanning technically three series) that continues to this day. New nubile young humans get regularly dropped onto this planet when we run out of eligible bachelorettes for our big blue boys. It’s always wild. It’s sometimes fine, it’s sometimes exceptional. But it’s always a hell of a good time.
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Captive of the Horde King by Zoey Draven. Recommended to me first by friend and fellow author Rebecca V. Archer, this series feels more fantasy than sci-fi, but we’re on a different planet, there is a galactic alliance thingy, and there are human refugees from another version of a messed up Earth, so even though there’s magic (kinda) and Dothraki vibes… I’m calling it an alien series!
So these Dothraki vibes are STRONG. Nomadic people called Dakkari (HmmMMMMM) are native to the planet that a bunch of alien refugees ended up on (including humans) who closely control the perimeters of the areas the refugees are allowed to remain within. But there are a lot of rules, and not all of them are conducive to survival for the various new peoples. So when rules get broken, the Dakkari lay down the law.
But when Luna’s brother breaks one of the rules because they’re all starving, she intercedes with the punishment coming his way, selling herself to a Dakkari Horde King in exchange for leniency. What if Khaleesi went willingly etc etc. Well. “Willingly.” And then more stuff happens!! I don’t really feel the need to explain beyond that, except to say that it lives up to the promise of its premise in a way I can’t always say for alien books I’ve read since this series.
This is another series I recommend reading in order: unlike the other two on this list, this is a fairly concise 6-book series (a sequel series just started, but set 200 years in the future) and because of the politics and overarching plots it’s worth knowing what came before to enjoy each individual story. Because some wild stuff happens in the later books, and you kinda gotta know some stuff leading up to it! (I will say, books 1 & 2 were far and away my favorites, but I did still enjoy the full series).
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Next week, it’s Halloween, and I’ll be recommending books with paranormal activity within!
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!
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LOL that subtitle! And I could really use some escapism these days so I need to pick IPB back up once I get through my TBR.