Stranded By Lies

Hey people,

Sorry for the radio silence, but I wanted to finish Love’s Landscapes before posting. Also, I got lazy.

There were only four stories left worth reading (was I at seven? the others failed hard), so I decided to give each one its own entry. So the next four posts will be individual stories.

And if there was something in Love’s Landscapes that you thought I should have read, but I didn’t review it, you can shoot me a note, and I’ll look into it. Most of what I skipped was terrible, but I’d give it another go on request. My eventual review might be rather scathing, though.

Anyway, here’s the first of the last stories:

Stranded By Lies by Finn Marlowe is another Love’s Landscape story.

It is set-up as a sci-fi/paranormal story with BDSM elements (though more to the SM end of that, if I understand correctly). Basically there’s a guy, and there’s a bunch of aliens that secretly live on earth, and the guy is wanted by the aliens because Reasons, some of which are not really his fault. The Love Interest is one of the aliens–or a half-alien, technically. Oh, and the aliens are stuck on Earth unless this guy helps them.

The story began with a sex-scene, which was discouraging. And the characters took plenty of breaks for plenty of sex, which is not my favorite, but at least it was never at those crucial We’re being chased by three different monsters with only seven minutes to save the world moments. And there wasn’t really a deadline, so we could meander and read about the sex and I wasn’t ready to stab anyone. So it wasn’t that much of a detraction, but there was a lot of sex.

And there were other things–like handy descriptions–that were just about missing. Yes, we got almost all the information needed by the end, and I could puzzle out (or not worry about) the rest of it. And also, yes, I’d rather things be under-explained than over-explained, but there were times when I wanted to shake the info-hoarding characters (who were probably about to go have sex) and get them to explain a few things to each other so I could perv on that, instead of them having sex again.But, overall, the plot was plotted decently. Perhaps even remarkably well, given the amount of smut. And there was a set-up for a sequel. Will I read the sequel? Time will tell, but chances are it will have to find me, rather than the other way ’round.