“If you should flee, no matter where you run, I will always follow.”
CECE
I thought getting a linguistics degree would land me a decent job, not get me shipped off to an alien planet ruled by barbarian warlords with tails. But that’s exactly what happens when my own government kidnaps me, along with a bunch of other women, and drops us on a brutal desert planet in the name of research. But the mission goes wrong. Because of course it does. Soon enough I’m separated from the other humans and stuck with a seven-foot-tall alien warlord who will not leave my side. He doesn’t speak English, but his dark eyes and massive body speak volumes.
I need him to survive and find my friends. But am I willing to give him what he wants when what he wants... is me?
BUROUDEI
When I saw the face of my future fated mate in the sacred Lavrika pools, she was unlike anything I'd ever seen. I thought that fate was wrong, or that maybe I'd gone mad. But then when she falls from the sky, crashing into my desert, my fate becomes my reality. She is small, and pale, and fights me every chance she gets. But everything in me calls to everything in her, and she represents the salvation of my tribe.
She is mine. I will destroy anyone who tries to take her from me.
But what if the one who tries to take her from me... is her?
Every new SFR series manages to come up with an entirely new way to view male genitalia.
I used to look askance at kangaroo peen in another book series because the romance didn't work...and that genital setup is so not my jam. But then Ursa Dax said "hey, how about Doberman ears, cat nose, human bodybuilder torso and thighs....and some kangaroo tail and feet? Or you know, land crocodiles, but not til later?"
Um, excuse me what now?
So of course, I've devoured the entire crackilicious series in a couple of weeks. Because that's how I roll.
Any-whoosie, let's do this.
Series: I think it was interesting to come at this familiar trope (human women kidnapped and thrust onto alien planet for REASONS) instead making the kidnapping as part of a mission to explore a strange new world (ok I just kept doing the Star trek opening, but you get what I mean).
The women end up being a reason for separate tribes on the planet Zaphrinax to come together because of the hope of repopulating their numbers with the human women, as opposed to the typical alien villains kidnapping women for sexual slavery etc. The worldbuilding is enough to keep me engaged without getting lost in the minutiae. And the overarching storyline continues to build. I'm digging it, kinda the way I like IPB. Getting to know the Sea Sand folx and their Lavrika's blood that fixes everything, and the survivalist aspect, seeing how the human women are fragile yet determined to make it on this deadly planet. They were all selected for this "mission" because of their particular skillsets and that makes the individual stories click along. It can be a little predictable but I like the comfort factor of that predictability since the physicality and the sheer weird factor of the planet itself keeps things hopping.
This Book: Cece and Buroudei - they're a good starter couple. Pretty sweet and not particularly challenging but a good intro to the series.
The following ratings are out of 5: Romance: 💙❤️💚💜 Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙 World building: 🌏🌍🌏🌎 Character development: 😊😘😟😄 Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙 Narration Type: Dual Narration
The Hero:Baroudei - he is one of the largest in his Sea Sand tribe. He was so excited to see a Lavricka, a creature that was sacred to his people. The Lavricka was a peaceful creature that came to him and led him on a path to see the face of his fated mates in the Lavricka’s pools. They could only see the face of their mate in the pools when they were with a Lavricka. He followed the Lavricka far to the cliffs, then to the pools to see his fate. He was surprised that the face he saw was not one of his species. Though he felt a longing for her.
The heroine:Cece - she woke up in her Toronto apartment after having a strange dream about an inhuman male. She went running, trying to outrun her feelings of loss after the dream. She recently lost her grandmother, the only other person in the world who loved her. Cece was working on her PhD in linguistics and was just trying to get over her grief for her grandmother. She was grabbed off the street during her run, drugged and she woke up with a bunch of other women, and were transported somewhere by some military guys.
The Story: Cece and the other young women with her were kidnapped (specially selected) by their governments and were sent to a merciless desert planet as some sort of top-secret experiment. Some of them were brutalized by the military personnel. They are told if the mission is successful, they will be allowed to go home. They are told they need to study energy resources on an alien planet.
The women were surprised to find out that they were aboard a spaceship and had no say in what was happening to them. This was a pretty good story. The people that were in charge of the women got what was coming to them when they landed on the planet and Cece ended up with Baroudei. Since she was into Linguistics, she was able to communicate with him on a very basic level. The characters were likable and the story was interesting.
This audiobook was done in dual points of view via dual narration. It was narrated by Patrick Zeller and Aleatha George. Patrick Zeller is a good narrator, though his voice sounds a bit older than I like for romance novels. Aleatha George has a youthful, but pleasing voice and is great at showing emotion through her voice. I liked her quite a bit.
3.5 stars - Solid series set up and I will continue. That said... I could have SWORN that I have read this before. Like I had to go back and check my spreadsheet to see if I had just lost my marbles and was rereading. I guess not, but that just speaks to the potential lack of originality to the plot.
The world building in this novel was not great. It was fine once the heroine was on the alien world, but the heroine comes from contemporary Earth, with the technology therewith, and yet the governments of the world supposedly have space ships capable of faster than light intergalactic space flight? It makes absolutely zero world building sense. The heroines needed to come from a far future Earth capable of space flight, or they needed to be abducted by aliens. This is incredibly lazy world building for an SFR novel.
Hmm, this was an ok story, not great but somewhat entertaining. It was distinctive in that it managed to be both creative and unoriginal at the same time. It was creative in its alien characterization: these people were described as kangaroo gladiators, which I pictured like Captain Kangaroo, only buff. They had a kangaroo type bottom half, large ears that stuck up but their torsos were more humanoid. However, they weren’t described as bouncing around and seem to perambulate more like humans as well. Of course, as in all alien reads, the author differentiates their sexual parts quite creatively; they have three tongues, or a tongue forked into three parts that work independently of each other, and their dicks are large *of course* and also triple-pronged. But other than their slightly offbeat looks, the rest of this story was a pretty standard, primitive alien planet fare. The world building and origins of humans was kinda meh and didn’t really wow me or offer anything that I haven’t already seen in other books. And the story itself was quite slow moving at first. It did end with some action but the resolution was extremely quick and the ending more hfn than anything. This makes sense as the author is trying to sell a series and wants to lead us into the next segment. I will probably read the next one eventually, but I’m in no real hurry. Overall this was a quick, low angst read with a fated mates feel and that was mildly interesting.
To the people who recommended this book to me, shame. I did not enjoy this book at all and it was mostly because of that atrocious trope of "females! We need females!" If I see one more book with that trope, I will BURST! But more than that, it was *how* the trope was executed. Ruby Dixon's Ice Planet Barbarians had that theme, as did Ella Maven's Drixonian series, but why these books/authors excelled and did well for me was because of the way the females were treated and spoken about; they were treated like living beings, valued and adored. I love that, because we already live in a society where women are possessions and objects. I do not need or want to read that shit in books, especially the alien/monster stuff I love. So this did horribly for me because as soon as the women arrive, they were being snatched and taken by the aliens because they're a "boon" and "prize" for the tribes. Tribes were going to go to war over them because warriors could finally break their celibacy and find mates. The whole mate thing seemed like it was forced on the women. Just because a warrior found he had a mate, that's it. The woman had to accept and couldn't do anything about it. The author made great talk about how the females had "a choice to reject" but that's not how the "warriors" behaved, spoke, or thought. The men even talked about how they had a claim over the women WHO THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW OR COULD SPEAK WITH! BRUH! These people talked about the women like they were buying chicken from an auction! YUCK!
I stopped reading this book 4 times, then at the 58% mark, I was skimming pages and only really read the dialogue. The ending was not a HEA for me. For once, I would really love to see a woman stand with her people and fight for more rights and freedom than just being a mate to a warrior. I really hate how quickly and easily these women give up everything and just roll over in scifi books.
Obviously, I won't continue this series. Didn't enjoy the author's writing either, so I'm not sure if I'll read from her again.
Awesome set up and world building, but the characters are what kept me here and eager to see what was going to happen next... Buroudei and Cece are incredible together ❤ 😍
Still on the fence for the next 3 books, that are already available, but I'm curious enough to head to book 2 now anyway. Though I'm not sold on the main characters for book 2. Hopefully they can win me over. We shall see.
Based on book 1 though, I would recommend you give this one a try.
Otóż grupa młodych kobiet zostaje porwana z ziemi - przez ludzi - w ramach międzynarodowego super duper tajnego projektu nawiązania relacji z pewnym prymitywnym gatunkiem obcych, bytującym na odległej planecie gdzieś tam w kosmosie. I lecą tam piękne, młode bidulki. A jak dolatują to zostają porwane ponownie przez tubylców.... Jedna trafia do Ghan Bourudeia a wszystkie inne do Ghan Fallo (!). Planeta to morze piasku...... a obcy to ponad dwumetrowe humanoidalne kangury (!) z niedostatkiem kobiet, z ..... oczywiście kosmicznymi penisami i silnie rozwiniętą kulturą fated mates. Brzmi znajomo. IPB to przy tym kandydat do bookera. Wymęczyłam tę serię i ciężko mi uwierzyć, że ten shot napisała autorka moich ulubionych kosmicznych kowbojów😂. Amen
3⭐️ 4🎧 Nothing terribly special or novel to see here, but if you’re looking for a short(er) sci-fi alien romance as a palette cleanser, Alien Tyrant will do nicely.
Super enjoyable read, if you loved Ice planet Barbarians then this is a must read! I do think there were some missed opportunities and the last 30% seemed to go really fast and I wished it was slowed down abit. ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ 🌶🌶
Alien Tyrant is book one in the Fated Mates of the Sea Sand Warlords series by Ursa Dax.
It was distinguishing in that it managed to be both creative and unoriginal at the same time.
I like that we have a language barrier issue at the start. Things like this for me make the story more intriguing. The plot was good, primitive alien planet fare, and the author describes the genital of our aliens distinctively. The world building was ok. Nothing too new or different from other Sci-Fi reads.
The story itself was slow moving at first. It did end with some action, but the resolution was extremely quick and the ending wasn’t anything special. We get an HEA and a set up for the next couple. I’m a bit curious about the next possible hook up and I might read on.
Overall, I found it enjoyable. It’s a quick low angst read with a fated mates feel.
This was a really fun book. I’m always a fan of the human-and-alien-can’t-communicate trope (although I do feel like the problem was fixed too conveniently). I liked our two main characters and the world they lived in. I was a fan of the decision made at the end, it felt very “we’re on your planet and we’re gonna upheave your whole lives” but we move.
I was really looking for another series I could just immerse myself into after reading the IPB series so I was excited for this.
It started off pretty okay with the basic introduction to characters but when the h/H met up it started feeling a little flat for me. It’s becoming a personal pet peeve of mine when there is a language barrier but the human keeps speaking full phrases instead of sticking to single words while attempting to communicate. Especially since this h was supposed to specialize in linguistics, you’d think she’d have a basic understanding on where to start with trying to communicate.
The next thing I didn’t really like was how quick the physical intimacy was for the h. I know it’s very insta love for the H because of the matebond but I typically prefer to feel more of a connection between the MCs before the physical intimacy starts.
It continued to get better as I kept reading but the ending felt very abrupt. I know some authors tend to leave open endings to that we’ll continue following the story but the way that it was done here just left me wanting more of the main story rather than wanting to move onto the next book. I’m continuing the series since I’m enjoying it as a whole but individually I’d say it’s just ok.
Interesting start to a series. The world building was easy to understand and the premise was really promising. It kind of reminded me of Ice Planet Barbarians but with a desert planet instead of an ice planet.
I do think the chemistry between the main characters wasn't as strong as I would have liked but there was a promising base for future stories.
Overall I enjoyed it and will be continuing to read the series.
Als ich dieses Buch auf Instagram entdeckt habe, dachte ich: Warum nicht eine neue Alien-Romanze lesen? Ich erkläre euch jetzt, warum ihr, falls ihr Lust auf eine Alien-Romanze habt, zumindest nicht zu diesem Buch greifen solltet 🪐 🌌
▶️ First of all: Die Logiklücken zu Beginn. Ich erwarte bei einer erotischen Alien-Romanze natürlich nicht, dass alles logisch erklärbar ist. Aber wenn so ein paar Erklärungen am Anfang mehr Fragezeichen hinterlassen als alles andere, dann gibt es da definitiv ein paar Lücken ❓❓❓ Die Protagonistin wird zu Beginn des Buches von der Regierung entführt - ebenso zahlreiche andere Studentinnen. Sie sollen auf geheimer Mission einen fremden Planeten erforschen, mit den Einheimischen in Kontakt treten und Ressourcen sammeln. Und hier beginnen schon die fragwürdigen Erklärungen. Denn es werden nur Frauen auf den Planeten geschickt, da männliche Forscher vermutlich sofort von den Aliens getötet werden. Und Frauen könnten schlimme Dinge auf einem fremden Planeten widerfahren, aber man würde sie sicher nicht als Bedrohung einstufen und töten. Ich finde es interessant, dass man bei einer Spezies, über die man NICHTS weiß, davon ausgeht, dass sie genauso patriarchalisch ist und in Männlein und Weiblein unterteilt wie die Menschheit 🙍🏼♀️🙍🏼♂️ Aber nicht nur das. Zudem ist es ja auch fragwürdig, warum nur Studentinnen auf einen fremden Planeten geschickt werden. Die Fauna und Flora ist absolut unbekannt, die Genetik der Aliens ist unbekannt, die Sprache ist unbekannt. Sie wissen absolut nichts und schicken Studentinnen, um mit den Aliens Kontakt aufzunehmen. Weil die entbehrlich sind. Aber sie können halt auch nichts, also logisch betrachtet wären sie absolut keine Hilfe bei der Erkundung dieses Planeten. Fail. ▶️ Aber eigentlich ist das total egal, denn schon kurz nach der Landung wird das Raumschiff von irgendwelchen Krabbentieren angegriffen und alle Soldaten sterben. Nur die Frauen bleiben übrig. Während Cece, die Protagonistin, vom Love Interest gerettet wird, werden die anderen Frauen von Jägern eines anderen Stammes eingesammelt. Es geht also erst einmal nur um Cece und Buroudai, die zu seinem Stamm zurückkehren und trotz Sprachschwierigkeiten versuchen wollen, die anderen Frauen zu retten. Das ist die Handlung, mehr gibt es nicht. Das Buch ist extrem kurz, weil auch wirklich nicht mehr passiert. Ich fand es ehrlich gesagt ziemlich langweilig. Es gab auch kaum süße oder romantische Szenen, bei denen man mit Herzchen-Augen “Haaach” seufzen muss. Und genau darauf kommt es mir bei Romance doch an. ▶️ Der letzte Punkt, warum ich das Buch nicht empfehlen kann: Die Aliens an sich. No shame, falls das euren geheimen Fantasien entspricht, dann go for it. Für mich war es nur einfach nichts. Denn die Aliens sind laut Illustrationen echsenähnliche, große Männer. Eigentlich eher riesige Männer. Sie haben eine dreigeteilte Zunge und einen dreigeteilten 🍆 Das ist mir echt ein bisschen zu abgespaced. Es ist auch so, dass die weiblichen Aliens keine 🍈🍈 haben. Die wachsen ihnen erst in der Schwangerschaft und verschwinden wieder, nachdem sie abgestillt haben. Ihr könnt euch sicher vorstellen, wie die Aliens da auf die menschlichen 🍈🍈 reagieren. Obwohl die das absolut nur mit der Nahrungsaufnahme verbinden, werden die 🍈🍈 extrem se*ualisiert.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I’m not usually one to read sci-fi/alien based books but tiktok made me pick this one up and I’m so glad that I did. I loved the overall story. The girls being abducted, not by who you might think, and dropped on a hostile alien planet. Once there they are expected to make contact and study the beings living on the planet. Of course, life doesn’t always go as planned and a whirlwind of events leaves our FMC (Cece) in the hands of a broody alien that she can’t understand (Buroudei). I loved the internal monologues of the two characters when they were trying to interpret what the other was saying and Buroudei’s declarations of love an adoration should be something all guys strive to accomplish. Overall, Cece and Buroudei’s story was funny, sexy and absolutely amazing to read about. I can’t wait to see where Ursa takes this series and I am excited to read more from her.
❌ CW: violence, abduction, death of loved ones 🌶 spice: 2.75/5
saw amanda from @books_ergo_sum reading this series so decided to give it a shot - very quick alien x human woman romances... pretty classic tropes - i understand that the language barrier thing is ya know A THING but at the same time, if they don't know how to communicate majority of the book, it's sort of like ???? and then they do (magically) and then the book is basically over 🤷🏽♀️ i feel like it could've been better fleshed out fs but i was just here for a quick fun time and that's what i got - definitely makes you want to binge all of the books lol
The h is supposedly a linguistics PHD student, but she has poor communication skills. So I knew what I was prepared for the plot, which had common and boring-to-me tropes. I didn't enjoy it but others might.
There was so much to love about this. Was it perfect, absolutely not. do I care, HELL no. 🥸
Be prepared to suspend disbelief, as their are so many holes, and incomplete’s. [Never mind the total and easy acceptance of ‘aliens who fall from the sky’…] A complete lack of realistic detail. … No toilet paper, no need to discuss how to overcome. No water source beyond the bottles they have, ehh. No way to wash clothes, who can smell through pages. No veggies…🤷♀️ Apparently no vegetarians in this group, so why else would you need em 🥱. The sun is beyond dangerous to humans, but they have the sunscreen they brought with em, it’ll last. Cancer only exists on Earth right? Everybody loves the girls, cause why would Aliens be seen as a threat…]
I really like the characters and the overall plot. 😬 The women are smart, quirky, interesting. The males are adorable, cinnamon roll alphas. Just ignore the feet issue. Apparently they have Roo feet, but are described as walking. All I can picture is clown feet. Roos can’t walk for good reasons. I saw a drawing of the MMC’s, it’s feet looked more like a wolf’s or cat’s. That would work. So, I’ve been picturing brown-mix Avatar like aliens, with werewolf feet.
However, not looking forward to B2,
But, they seem to be linked and provide an overarching plot… so, I can grit my teeth and endure…right?
The story is interesting enough. The world-building is basic and a little uninspired. Not really into a human-looking man with a kangaroo tail, Doberman ears, and a flat nose with three tongues. The final image is strange and not examples sexy to me.
I like the MCs, but there’s not a lot of depth to them. The MMC is a leader of his tribe, and the FMC is a stubborn human who only cares about getting back to her human friends that she crash-landed with. This is a fated mates story, so obviously, there is an immediate pull between the two, but there's not much else going on with them.
Writing is fine but doesn’t quite hold my interest- either some things are redundant or not explained in a concise way that allows me to remember or care.
Overall, not my favorite story but I am interested enough to read one more to see how the series' plot progresses.
If you've read alien/sci-fi romance before, the basics of Alien Tyrant will be pretty familiar to you. Women are kidnapped and sent to an alien planet (but this time, they're kidnapped by Earth governments). It's a Mars Needs Women situation, where the alien planet is severely lacking women and the aliens see the women as hope for the future of their people. There's fated mates and alien warriors and some steam thrown in.
There were a lot of familiar beats but it still felt pretty fresh to me. I especially liked the getting to know one another phase between Cece and Buroudei as they navigated the language barrier between them. And I was intrigued by the larger storyline that looks like it'll thread throughout the series, featuring politicking between different alien tribes and saving the planet from future calamity.
I was disappointed by the ending, because it felt pretty abrupt. I got the sense that Dax purposefully wrote it to keep the reader hooked, to entice them to want to buy/rent more books in the series. That's not inherently bad - I recognize that it's something that something all probably authors want to do. But at the same time, I'd hope that the main story in the particular book would be wrapped up.
And I feel like the main story in this book wasn't. I think the book could have used a few more scenes at the end to further establish the relationship between Cece and Buroudei in this book, not in future books in the series. I left the book feeling a bit incomplete, and I don't think I should have to read more in the series to feel a sense of completeness with their relationship.
I'd personally leave content warnings for the abduction scene at the beginning of the book, violence (not between the MMC and FMC), and some scenes that potentially could be read as dub-con seeing the language barrier between the two.
Oh yeah, this series feels like it’ll be addictive.
This book just had that alien romance secret sauce. That ‘human women crash landing on a planet with tall, big-donged, super earnest, and intensely into their fated mate alien guys’ secret sauce 😆
A read-in-one-day KU alien romance? I’m being so picky by not giving this one five stars. A super intense barbarian alien guy who fell so hard, more language barrier silliness than I’ve ever read before, fun adventure stuff on a harsh planet. And this was a good couple to introduce the series, their empathy and level-headedness balanced the craziness of the situation they were in. Plus, it was hot—the planet and the smüt 🥵
The only thing that brought my rating down was how the first little part occurred on earth and on the spaceship (and I was starting this a tad sceptical because this was a new-to-me author). As much as I love a show-don’t-tell moment, I’m also getting to the point where I just want the shipload of double-digit human ladies to crash-land on an alien planet in the first chapter. Explain the backstory to me later, you know? Get me to the bonkers alien meet-cute/meet-disaster ASAP 😂
***** Rating: 3 stars Steam: 2 flames Genre: Alien Romance / Communication Issues / Slow burn ***** I liked this book. The characters were likable and the story was good. What I missed a little was more world-building and a little more description. When I finished this book, I couldn't really picture the planet, besides sand... I really couldn't picture the alien species, and I still don't think I fully understand what Buroudie looks like. The images in my head just weren't clear...and it could totally be a me issue...
The storyline was interesting, the characters likeable, and the issues between the two MCs trying to communicate was spot on and I will keep reading this series.
DNF 50%. This book was alright but nothing I hadn’t seen before. A lot of wasted potential with the backstory of the FMC who didn’t get to use any of her PhD language skills. More wasted space with the first 50 pages being largely irrelevant. The earth government had space tech and all this is a moot point because all military personnel on the ship don’t make it to the planet. She might as well have the women get kidnapped by aliens instead and free up the 50 pages to more relationship development.
The first few chapters are from the heroines perspective and sets up the story. It did take me a while to fall into this novel but once the hero came storming into the fray I was all in. There is plenty of action and spice to keep things interesting.
The hero is the star of this novel, he is adorably sweet! His dedication to his mate was beautiful.
Some typos and repeating of words that are slightly distracting at times.
A quick and enjoyable read overall.
*************** Dual POV Fated Mates Spicy and descriptive - no virgins - consensual No cheating or sharing - no ow/om drama Violence/Battle - Coarse language
A super fun read about humans crashing down on a different planet. These aliens are big, hot, three forked tongue, giant peened, warriors yet… sweethearts.
Oh course, these humans are fated mates to different aliens. Language barrier. Sexy times. Laugh out loud moments. Alpha male who worships his sassy little human mate.
It was a fun book as a plate cleanser before I dive into deeper books. 🥰