Sunday 23 July 2017

Of Pulp, Porn and Perfect Shadows

The Manuscript Has Landed!

The complete Pocket Rockets collection is with my wonderful publisher at Uruk Press as we speak -- pre-orders are available now -- and the freebie editions of the stories have either come down or are coming down as we prepare for release. I'm looking forward to getting the full collection out there, and I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. 

The final story in the first Pocket Rockets series is "Perfect Shadows," a prequel adventure featuring the Thalian sex priestess who will later become Commander Oona of the S.S. Ecstasy. Set more than a decade before Space Princess Season One, it introduces us to a young Oona whose planet and society are still healing from the events of a galactic war that forced them to face the ordeal of occupation by an alien species. The Thalians are a prolifically polyamorous people, especially the class of hetaerae to which Oona belongs, but that's not to say they don't have particular attachments that go especially deep: Oona's first love and first husband, Airoh, was a hero of a quietist resistance during the dark days of the war, and never fully healed from his experiences. We find her mourning his recent death and trying to find peace on an isolated beach where an encounter with a group of strangers -- among them three Terran beauties belonging to an organisation called Space Princess -- will change the course of her life.

It might be heavy-ish sounding material -- one of my favourite things to do with Space Princess is to juxtapose silly bikini-girl sexuality, action and hardcore smut with more serious themes -- but not to worry, there is action, adventure and graphic sex aplenty to be had along the way as Oona both wrestles with her own personal demons and deals with a villainous smugglers' plot. (The story's title, in case you're wondering, comes from a monologue in the play "Edward II" by Christopher Marlowe: "[What] are kings, when regiment is gone, / But perfect shadows in a sunshine day?")

I thought I'd celebrate this milestone with a couple of reviews, covering both erotic and (for the first time here, I think) non-erotic titles. Have a look-see after the jump. (Warning for NSFW images.)