Angel's Reading: Tracey St. John's Kalquorian Series

Something I haven't done in a while - plug other authors!  I know, I need to get better about that.  Right now I'm on a major sci-fi kick, especially aliens and alien abductions.  I recently starting reading Tracy St. John's Kalquorian series and man am I hooked... not just on this series, but overall her as an author.  I've read some of her other stuff as well, but I will admit it's the Kalquorians that really hold my attention.

It's not just the steamy scenes (of which there are plenty), or the hot alpha males (yummy), but it's also the amount of world-building and character building that goes into her books.  She does a fantastic job of creating more than one believable alien culture.  Not to mention, a frighteningly believable human culture of the future.  

Earth has progressed to space travel, but culturally it has regressed to some of the worst times in human history, especially for women.  St. John touches on themes already found in today's newspapers - blaming women for their own rapes, punishing both the aggressor and the victims, shaming people for any kind of sexual thinking, women as second class citizens, banning homosexuality, etc.  However, in her version of Earth's future, it goes way beyond that.  Crimes of a sexual nature are the worst thing possible, women who are found guilty of a sexual crime (including inciting a man to rape) are punished even worse then the men who are guilty of the same crime or who have raped them.  

Book 1 (Alien Embrace) is about an Earther woman, Amelia, visiting the planet of Plasius, where she's been invited to show off her art.  It's on Plasius that she meets her first Kalquorians.  Earth has already begun anti-Kalquorian propaganda.  Unknown to Amelia and most citizens on Earth, the Kalquorians had approached Earth's government (which is highly religious) to see about testing human females to discover if the two species are compatible, since Kalquorian women are becoming scarce and their race is dying out.  Earth freaks out and doesn't wants its women anywhere near these "lustful, raping beast."  So when Ameila meets them, she's pretty torn about how much to interact with them, since it could get her into major trouble back home.

Kalquorian "clans" are made up of four members to create one family unit.  The Dramok (the leader), the Nobek (the fighter), the Imdiko (the healer) and the Matara (the female and lifebringer).  Mataras have always been cherished, and are becoming even more so now that their numbers are dwindling.  When it's discovered that Amelia IS capable of breeding with the clan that's currently on Plasius, they basically kidnap her and things really start rolling from there, not just with the book, but with the entire series.

St. John not only delves into Kalquorian culture, but also Plasius, and we also meet a bunch of other alien species with their own separate cultures.  She does an incredible job of exploring the human psyche as well, especially when it comes to the women who have been living under Earth's patriarchal and religious rule which has done its best to crush them.  I absolutely love reading about the different clans and the way they woo their women, especially as Earth and Kalquor go to war after a human woman ends up being a Kalquorian empress.  

The best part is, she seems to write even faster than I do, so there's constantly something new to read, and she has an ongoing serial on her blog (although the serial has also been bundled into ebooks and is on sale for 99cents each book on Amazon.).  

If you like sci-fi, spankings, double penetration, menages, domination/submission, sexy alpha males with strong females, and lots of plot and character development, she's a great read.

In my own little writing world... well, busy season at my day job has started and I've already got a lot less time for writing than I usually do.  *sigh*  I have a feeling it's going to be a rough season!  On the upside, I am still managing to get a little bit done.  I might share a teaser for the Dark Angel book soon, see what people think =)  I'm also having a good time writing the next chapter of From Terra - there's going to be a surprise guest!  Looking forward to that.  Some of you will probably guess who it is, now that I've told you, but that's okay, that's half the fun =D  Only two chapters away from being done with that, and, while I'll miss Chryssa, I'm definitely looking forward to moving on to something new.