I haven't been exposed to an intergalactic romance since Star Wars, so when Alliance: Galactic Affairs landed in my mailbox I was in for an education. I never knew casual sex, including the occasional threesome, was so common in space. I know that cute Luke Skywalker would never do such a thing, but Lyndi Lamont's characters certainly do and what a fun time it is!

In Alliance: Galactic Affairs, the universe is awash with underground encampments and bands of raiding ships, but that doesn't stop Erok from trying to turn a pretty penny by stealing anthropological artifacts. Unfortunately, his antique spaceship falls prey to the destructive whims of Maradon, who renders him helpless in mid-space. Lesson learned. Never piss off a goddess.

SF erotica and genetic engineering are in fiction a happy combination, like coffee and cream, like peanut butter and jelly, like lobster and lemon butter. You find the combination in older works like Philip José Farmer's Flesh and Robert Silverberg's Tower of Glass, and currently here, in Reese Gabriel's fifth entry in her "More than Male" series, where the reader will find "primales who are designed with superhuman mental and physical strength, natural dominants meant to mate with a submissive" and "obedients" who are genetically wired to be what they are.

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.

Lorie O' Clare ends Book 1 of the Sex Slave series with a note on her philosophy of writing. "The characters in my books, " she says," are destined to stray down a different path..." I don't know about the path's end, but the path's beginning in this case is an environment that differs as much as possible from our own. But one of the conflicts is sd traditional as it gets, similar to that of the classic Romeo and Juliet. Picture two warring houses, and the children thereof. This pair, however, is not set in Verona, but in another world, with a

One law of fiction is that there's going to be some object between your protagonist and his goal. The path to true fiction never does run smooth, and the longer the path, the bumper it gets. The barrier can be internal, or external, imaginary or corporal--but in one form or another, it exists. In more complex stories, the object is further entangled by complications that multiply, modify or evolve, or, like the proverbial carrot dangling before the frustrated donkey's nose, resolution is teasingly just out of reach. In the Comet Coalition, the complication is of the former kind.

The log line on Christine Warren's web page is "Home of sex with fangs and romance in restraints" and she is known for werewolves, werecats and witches, but in The Bargaining there's nary a fang in sight. There are restraints though. The Bargaining follows up a short story entitled The Offering which Ellora's Cave first published in the Pleasure Quest anthology.

Whenever you picture your most noble protagonist, he's shoving everyone else through the door and taking on the bad guys so that the rest of the crew can get away. He's the one with the hero hat, willing to give his life for his companions. In The Bargaining, he's Rebel leader Eric Deacon, making sure his teammate Eve Cartwright and team leader Michael Taggart escape the Protectorate soldiers and royal guards. After fighting like a demon against impossible odds, he ends up in a cell somewhere inside a Protectorate prison, and in true hero fashion, rather than succumbing to the impossible odds, he goes into scheming mode. Luckily for him, he has a potential ally in the palace--Kishantiana, one of the Prince's stable of nitara (sex slaves.)

The only reason "Mac" MacDougal was alive was that his little sister Amareth had forced the medical team to download his mind into a prototype droid that hadn't been tested for this kind of use. No one expected the droid to come conscious halfway through a defrag process, and go steal a ship, zipping off to who-knows-where, all the while believing he was The MacDougal. All the droid knew was that he had to seek out Elyiana. The big problem with the really sophisticated droid brain was that it was only fully functional in one area: sex. So it could process the sexual information, but could not make sense of the rest of what had been uploaded to it.

Badly defended by her two-headed lawyer (one of whose heads happened to be asleep), wealthy and beautiful Siobhan Mallory, falsely accused of heinous crimes against "humanoidanity and the galaxy" had been sentenced to be hanged. Despite the irrefutable DNA evidence, she was innocent. In the not-so-charming accommodations where she was to be held until her execution, she met wickedly engaging Jeremy Kincaid, pirate. When his appeal came through--i.e., his personal cavalry--Caid bypassed her offering of riches and suggested to trade her sexual favors for his taking her with him. Then his partner Vizzy, a green-furred orange/black-eyed reptilian-headed Shellik blasted in, and swooped them off to Caid's ship. Not that it started.

Mandy Roth's books abound with the supernatural: faerae, lycans, werewolves, vampyres, ghost cats, demons, gypsies, curses and sirens, to name a few of her not-so-ordinary characters. So when she adds a little note to her title page saying that Cyber Sex : Prepared To Please is a departure for her, a "bit of a stretch," one really does not know what to expect.

Expect this: a futuristic space fantasy of unrequited lovers who have their wires crossed. Destiny and Roman. Fortunately, they love each other. Unfortunately, they don't know it and aren't likely to find out. A bit more drama and conflict would have earned this little story another half-quill, but let's be clear: even as is, this story does what it does quite well.

Anthropologist Dr Tessa Bergin was aboard the Meadowlark on a mission to make contact with a civilization light years away from earth, but between the time they left earth and arrived at their destination, something had happened to that civilization which decimated it. After the first shuttle had gone down and not returned, and those remaining had opted to abandon the mission, Tessa took the second lander to locate and rescue the first crew. As she was about to land, she saw bodies and tried to climb, but it was too late; and then these red devil-like creatures attacked the craft. With the help of her own lasers, her attackers were vanquished by one of their own-taller, stronger with a mane of long black hair, this red horned winged creature looked just like the traditional renditions of Satan. This last one spoke to her in English-he called it Saitren-and said he had come to help her. The next thing she knew, he had swooped her up in his arms and flown away. There was something about him-a chemical attraction from his skin-that calmed her, even though she was shocked to be in the arms of a flying devil.

In this time and place, Jewel lived in the safety of the Castle M'Cee, as did most of the few surviving women. She felt some discontent in her life of chores for the sisterhood, but relief that she did not again have to go through the time of favor, a ritual where women were given to the fiercest men in order to bear children. Castle Bloomingdell had a problem though: no children were being born. It was decided to send the healer Jewel, disguised as a boy, to Castle Bloomingdell to see if she could determine the problem with fertility. But just as she had snuck out of the castle walls, she was caught by a crippled man called Mio. Then there was Ara who rejected the tournament winner Ulrich and was given to Quinn, the runner up. And Maryam, at thirty-seven considered too old to breed, was given anyway to the too-large warrior Ulrich.

For three years, Ranger Lana Eloy of the United Confederation of Planet's Intergalactic Rangers had been tracking the murderous predator of women, Sadin Quyz, and when she finally caught up with him on the planet Ata Prime, she knew she was in for trouble. Because of her sex, the male dominant barbarians would not allow her to personally collar her villain, but instead selected a male ranger of their own to track down the serial killer for her.

With her busy routine and writing scheduled during her daughter's naptime, Arianna Hart's bio reads more like that of a kindergarten teacher than a writer of sensual romances. With books published by New Concepts Publishing, eXtasy Books, Triskelion Publishing and Ellora's cave, she does not focus in a single genre but writes romantic suspense (paranormal or contemporary), futuristics and erotica. In Lucy's Lover, she tackles futuristic romance.

Corrinne Dunn, captain of the starship the Avery McKenna, was sent to Adhara VII to support Dr James Winston, archaeologist, in the search for evidence of previous intelligent inhabitants. Five years ago she walked out on fellow pilot Devin Tremaine--who was picked out of the gutter at age ten by philanthropist Carlton Starkey--choosing her career over him. Curious as to why Dr Winston was going there, Carlton sent a reluctant Devin to Adhara VII ahead of Corri. Devin hated that Carlton was withholding information, and that Corri Dunn would be right there behind him.

Aisling Antwyn was a Timewalker like her mother and grandmother before her. She was a woman charged with the burden of saving the world. Aisling's assignment was to stop the "Red Death" which would wipe out mankind on Earth 8 in the year 2006. As if the task wasn't hard enough, the Shen on her chest--a birthmark that identified her as a Timewalker--was burning. That could only mean one thing: her mate was here in this time on this planet.