In most erotica, while you're reading it--or afterwards if it is really good--you realize that any plot that happens along the way only exists to support the sex. With some erotica, you have to search to find a plot at all. It's amazing how much erotica is sex sex sex without much of a premise beyond getting the participants into the same general unzip code. However, coming up with plot is NOT Morgan Hawke's problem; nor is coming up with unusual sex. In fact, I doubt she has an erotica-writing-related problem at all.

When I read Morgan Hawke's first book in the Interstellar Service & Discipline series, I was impressed. Not many erotica authors actually have so much potent sex interworking so well with so much plot. I mean, there is actually a SF story going on. Like Victorious Star, Fallen Star has an actual SF story too. But I don't think I should give it away. There's plenty to talk about without ever mentioning the galactic thriller/mystery elements.

In Fallen Star, there are three main players involved: Fallon, who begins the story as a human thief living hand to mouth in pipes and gutters under the guidance of the station manager Peter; Sobehk the Skeldhi enforcer who captures Fallon and begins Fallon's alteration into a non-human Skeldhi rehkyt, a sexual slave; and Kahn, the dark and mysterious Skeldhi whose life becomes inescapably intertwined with Fallon and Sobehk.

One of Hawke's more interesting innovations is the Skeldhi rehkyt, a creature who begins life as a human whose body is altered to become an entirely non-human gold-skinned fanged biped who is, among other things, a sexual pet to the Skeldhi, a body guard prone to uncontrolled rahyt (rage) if its imprinted Master is threatened.

The Skeldhi masters,who control their pets with psychic pain/pleasure collars, are interesting as well. Fair-haired, fair-skinned, two-pronged. Yes, ladies, these males are double-equipped. So the menage a trois which brings a whole new meaning to the concept of menage occurs when two of three are Skeldhi, which means we're talking about four (count 'em, four) "prongs." All things considered, it boggles the mind. Be prepared for scorching imaginative sex, and quite a story. Definitely not a book for the faint-hearted, and a blazing hot read.

Reviewed By Maitresse
© 2005