Ice Planet Barbarians, Book 1
Heat Factor: Let’s melt this ice!
Character Chemistry: We will be together because my parasite wills it! Slash, for a fated mates story, they have a super-cute we-are-confused-by-each-other dynamic.
Plot: Human woman abducted by evil aliens, dumped on a frozen planet, meets a sexy blue alien who definitely wants to bone her.
Overall: Perfect escapism
We might have mentioned a time or two or three that Ingrid developed an obsession with Ruby Dixon, so I figured…I should give it a try.
Let me tell you right now: I REGRET NOTHING.
The premise of this book is utterly absurd. The fact that Vektal magically knows that Georgie is the one even though they are different species because he has a parasite is ridiculous. The deus ex machina that magically explains what’s going on to Georgie (IN ENGLISH!) and then implants alien language into her brain is ludicrous.
But you know what? I don’t even care that nothing makes sense, because I am having SO. MUCH. FUN.
So why does this work?
First, Dixon writes the kind of prose that reads like eating popcorn. Everything is very immediate, and there are just enough sensory details to give you a good sense of place and character, and there aren’t distracting extraneous or improperly used words. And it’s funny!
Second, Georgie is saucy and stands up for herself, but she’s also appropriately terrified at her new situation. In other words – it’s fun to be in her head, but she’s not an idiot. (Ok, maybe she’s a little bit of an idiot for going out alone into the wilds of Not-Hoth and also trading sexual favors for help from an alien, but desperate times and all that.)
Third, Vektal is just so besotted and it’s adorable. He’s huge and muscled and is a bad-ass hunter, but he wants nothing more than to nurture and protect his weird alien mate.
I want to tell Georgie that she is mine. That she is my resonance. That she’s safe with me and I won’t let any harm come to her if she’ll just trust me. That she is my light and my reason for being now, and that we shall create a hearth and family together. But I can tell her none of these things.
As long as you don’t read too much into it (nurture and protect = control) then it’s very soothing. Swoon.
If you’re looking for a book that is completely divorced from your current reality – unless you were recently abducted by aliens or unless you live in a frozen wasteland where everything is trying to eat you or unless your boyfriend is actually one of the aliens from Avatar – then Ice Planet Barbarians is an excellent way to turn off the world for a few hours.
Content Warning: Readers see a secondary character get raped early on; this same secondary character later commits suicide. If even a small side-plot of dark and edgy is not for you, but you’re interested in big blue aliens, Dixon recommends starting with book 2.
Buy Now: Amazon
Looking for something similar?
Sci-Fi Romance! Or, Aliens, Robots, and Spaceships, OH MY!
I know we are meant to be because of you scent / my parasite / an ache in my knee
The Smut Report 
I have been meaning to pick this up, and now I’m sold! A prose that “reads like eating popcorn” is actually a good way to describe a lot of the weird romance-fantasy novels I’ve read. Great review!
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You definitely should! It was so fun and completely ridiculous.
And I must admit that the popcorn phrase came from my husband – he used it to describe reading Harry Potter.
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