da lama ao caos

I was in a vibe of reading monster erotica romances with very badly edited covers and admittedly cliche and horny story lines. While searching for new recs, a name kept repeating. "Claimings, tails and other alien artifacts" by Lyn Gala. Looked up the cover -- definitely has buff men edited to have purple skin and a tail. It's a MM book, with themes of BDSM/sub/dom AND written in 2013. That's a lot of red flags waving pointing to a kinda problematic book, but that's what I've been reading, so I dig in...

AND WHY HAS THIS BOOK BEEN THE BEST SCI-FI IVE READ THIS YEAR???

There's linguistics and its influence on culture, theres differing (and disturbing!) mentalities for alien species. There's a lack of fear of presenting alien species as alien and odd and ugly. There's deep discussions of human nature and connection, of sexuality, attraction, love, romance. There's a lack of human centrism.

It's a fucking romance erotica novel with an alien species that has no concept of romance or sex for pleasure. Like, their sex is actively uncomfortable for the males, its a sacrifice for reproduction and doesn't give pleasure. But still, the alien protagonist doesn't end up being "converted" by the human ideals. The alien way isn't judged as less OR as a perfect ideal. The whole point ofthe book is navigating the relationship while having different biological and cultural premises.

AND STILL, THE COVER IS A BUFF DUDE PAINTED PURPLE WITH A TAIL