Between Worlds (The Occupation Saga Book 1)

It has been a long time since I read John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War but I’m still pretty sure it wasn’t as sexed up as this book. I mention this because the book’s product description mentions that it was inspired by Old Man’s War, which might put some people off because this book isn’t as deep or philosophical.

In this book, Earth has been conquered by an alien species who are humanoid and whose male/female ratio is something like 1:7. So the female aliens act like human males, horny all the time, obsessed about breast size (instead of dick size), and lacking emotional intelligence (when compared to the other sex). The book doesn’t go into the biology or the evolutionary psychology behind this, so I wondered if this setup would even work, but this isn’t a hard-scifi book and I found it best to just leave my brain at the door and just enjoy the ride.

And it really is an enjoyable ride. While the situation seems pornographic, what with being the lone man sent to boot camp filled with alien women who all look like amazon goddesses and want to have sex, there is also some limited and I think shallow exploration of the gender roles being reversed. As I continued to read, I found myself looking forward to the climax of the character relationships more than the military sci-fi stuff, which doesn’t really make sense at times (why would an entire species be claustrophobic?)

I think this is pretty good for what it is; a light, fun, sexy, sci-fi romp.

★★★★✰