2 out of 4 stars
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Did someone say space? Did someone say… sex in space? Alright, you’ve got me. Welcome to my review of The Bonding by Imogen Keeper.
The plot revolves around the Argenti alien man Tam and the princess of the Trianni people, Nissa. Tam finds her floating in cryostasis in a pod in space hundreds of years after she entered it, and essentially has to have sex with her or she will die. Yes, it is the plot many who may have perused the saucier sections of fanfiction sites may have seen: screw or die. We even have, you guessed it, life-saving ejaculate! We’ll throw in an addictive chemical property to it as a bonus for free.
The rest of the book involves a lot of sex and a lot of Nissa worrying about how to save the rest of her people while also dealing with the turmoil of being a princess to a planet that may very well be dead. A princess does not choose who she can be with, yet she had (unwillingly at first) given herself over to a man sexually and, putting it bruntly, is addicted to his "serum" - in this case, referring to his ejaculate.
Now, erotica is something of a guilty pleasure for me because I love to read it and laugh. I don’t get any kicks out of it other than pure amusement. As far as a typical smutty novel goes, this is about par for the course. The writing is mostly simplistic with some questionable use of words. Please do not subject me to seeing the words “turgid peaks” in reference to nipples again, thank you! It’s not attractive!
As far as the sci-fi genre, well... Aliens definitely count as science fiction, regardless of how much they are 100% humans in everything but name. I kind of loved how alien Trianni as a planet was: all the plants were red with green seas. Definitely not my idea of a good color scheme, but interesting nonetheless. The lack of originality in some things like drinks being called “eeffoc” and “akdov” was slightly odd, considering some of the originality in the other bits.
One part was particularly weird to me. Tam meeting with Nissa’s father was kind of weird. He felt jealousy over Nissa’s father hugging her and petting her hair. I suppose the emotion I felt could be described as slight disgust over that reaction. There are also minor typos littered throughout the book which do not particularly bother me, but may be an annoyance to those who purchase the title.
Overall, The Bonding was not a thoroughly bad novel but nothing impressive or standout in any sense of the word. It’s another piece of erotica floating amongst the countless other titles that I will likely soon forget, so I rate it 2 out of 4.
******
The Bonding
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