Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon [Book Review]

 "I'm naked, and there's some guy with a pair of massive curled horns rising from his head between my legs."

- Ruby Dixon

©nottheolivia: how I envision myself on the icy planet.

You know, when I watched the "mating"-scene in "Avatar," I didn't expect that a few years down the line I'd read an erotica about blue aliens on an ice planet, but here I am.

"Ice Planet Barbarian" by Ruby Dixon tells the story of Georgie, a twenty-something year old who got abducted by aliens. Somehow the spaceship crashed on a icy planet far far away from earth. Georgie, who became the leader of a group of women, goes on her way in order to find help on the strange planet. Completely unprepared for the environment Georgie walks straight into Vektal's trap. 

The horned blue alien shows a particular interest in the female human. Georgie offers her body in exchange for his help. A offer which he gladly accepts. Pretty quickly the weird attraction between Vektal und Georgie develops into a galactic romance. Georgie now has to decide between returning back to earth or staying with her blue lover on a icy planet...

I picked up "Ice Planet Barbarians" after this novella invaded my social media platforms and I simply wanted to be part of the crowd. Personally, I don't mind reading smut or erotica, this genre has been part of the literature scene for centuries, so you can judge people as much as you want for reading these books, but they always haven been there and will be in the future.

First off, I didn’t expect a deep plot or a life changing experience reading this book. In my opinion novellas like „Ice Planet Barbarians“ are written to entertain and not shake the core of someone's inner being. (If it did though, good for you.) And that’s exactly what this book did. It entertained me. And to be honest, this novella has to be one of the funniest books I read in 2021. 

©Ruby Dixon

The whole story takes off rather quickly. Georgie gets abducted and the other women on the spaceship were introduced. The crash on the ice planet happened shortly after. In my opinion the opening of the novella seemed pretty rush: Georgie get abducted, orange aliens bad, green aliens worse, Georgie initiates a rebellion and crush. 

Going through Ruby Dixon’s work I saw that she wrote longer novels with a similar plot, so I’m a bit wondering why she chose to keep „Ice Planet Barbarians“ that short when she had the opportunity to built more of a story. Yes, this is erotic literature and the plot isn’t always the centre piece, but I think „Ice Planet Barbarians“ had the potential to have a bigger story line besides its sexy scenes. 

I am aware that this series and the related „Icehome“ series consists of over 20+ novellas, and that there is possibility of more world building, backstory, storyline, etc. when reading the whole body of work that is „Ice Plant Barbarians“, but as I don’t have read all of these books (yet?), I can only point out that in the first novella there was potential for more plot.

The romance between Georgie and Vektal follows a pretty simple formula. Vektal recognises Georgie has his "mate" and Georgie is fascinated by the big blue alien who can't take his hands off of her. Their romance follows the good old attraction-to-love-trope. Firs there is sexual chemistry and tension, but over time this attractions develops into a sort of friendship and then love. It is pretty sweet and enjoyable to read. This trope is one of the main reasons why I do like indulging into erotic literature. In regular romance books you can't really use this trope and make it work, but in this genre you can use this formula perfectly and use it to make the reader connect with the protagonist. 

Dixon's writing style is simple yet effective. She doesn't waste her time on overly dramatic language instead she tells the story like you would tell someone in person. Georgie's thoughts and inner world feel like a real mind of a woman in her early twenties: a bit chaotic, blunt language, bubbly and sarcastic. One thing that confused me slightly as a non-English read was the way Dixon depicted Georgie speaking when telling the story from Vektal's viewpoint. I can only speculate that a native speaker wouldn't have much trouble to "decode" what Georgie said.

The spicy scenes are written pretty good:  not too cringy, not too explicit. At first it could be a bit weird to read the descriptions of the alien male autonomy and how this works in bed, but honestly Vektal is basically a tall blue guy with a vibrator as a penis and that's it. (I admit sometimes I had a moment where I was like "What am I doing with my life?", but then I just went straight book to reading and forgot all about it. )

[TW: sexual assault]

Some readers pointed out that there should have been a trigger warning, because in the beginning of the novella a rape scene is described. I partly agree and partly disagree on this. Yes, there is sexual assault, but it is not detailed nor does it happen to the protagonist. As a reader you basically get a small glimps of what happens to one of the other girls. Obviously that can be triggering for some, but I have read way worse. (If you want to read this novella and skip this scene, don't read page 10-11 and you're good.)

Overall I did enjoy reading "Ice Planet Barbarians". It is a fun and quick read. I am considering reading the following novellas, but for now I have a TBR to get to first. 

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys sci-fi romance, erotica/erotic literature, literature on the lighter and funnier sight and of course smut readers (because you guys are the coolest).

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (*considering the genre, the overall purpose of this book and if I had a good time)