Veronica Dean, $2.99, ISBN 978-0463174302
Sci-fi Romance, 2022
Veronica Dean’s Claimed by the Warrior Prince is part of a series called Rulers of the Gok’han Empire. Oh let me guess, the rulers are going to be the heroes?
This one begins with our heroine Elya being crabbier than a Karen with lice problems, because she has to attend an old friend’s bachelorette party in Vegas and it’s, like, so exhausting and superficial because, you know, she’s a brain and good student. Then she and her friends get UFO’ed up to some spaceship and oh, no, they are going to be sold as slaves.
Two of the revolting orcs, clamp them in shackles as they struggle and panic, but it is futile, they are pulled onto the stage.
Oh no! According to the persons of hair color on social media, orcs are black people, so does this mean that the author is racist? It’s a good thing that the BLM has transformed itself into a real estate investment organization, or else things could get ugly for the author.
Back to the ladies, fortunately, they are saved by hard-bodied, hot alpha males and one of them, Prince Proing the Phallificent, soon falls in love with her.
Wait, didn’t I just read another story with a similar premise? What, did these authors go to the same school or something?
He wastes no time in ripping off my fur exposing my whole body to him. He admires my supple breasts and runs his hands all over my body before flipping me on to the soft jungle bed that nature has provided for us. He unties his belt and inches his chainmail off of his body, revealing his massive hard penis in the process.
Ah yes, the heroine can’t resist telling me that she has perkier breasts than me.
It looked exactly like that of a human’s, not that I had seen too many. In all honesty, I had actually never gone the whole way with a guy, I had always been waiting for the right one, and did not really consider anyone worthy, but now, things were different.
Oh, shut up. We all know she wants to swallow that thing like some black hole gobbling down the Death Star, so she can stop pretending that she’s some chaste virgin.
The heroine maintains the same annoying sarcastic Whedon-speak throughout the entire story, displaying zero emotion aside from that nyuk-nyuk-nyuk so-much-better-than-everyone attitude regardless of whether she’s about to die or be impaled by a sixty-foot alien peen. This makes her seem like a robot programmed only to churn out one-liners and sarcastic retorts 24/7 when she’s not flailing like some chicken on LSD after being stuffed with alien dong.
Readers that can overlook this distracting aspect of the story may find that Proing the Phallificent is actually quite adorable as a grouchy action hero rather than an alpha mule, and the action-heavier aspects of the story are pretty nicely done. The atmosphere reminds me of the campy settings of pulp fantasy and sci-fi, and I’m actually having a good time whenever the heroine isn’t trying so hard to annoy me with her constant Whedon-speak.
Unfortunately, because this story is from Elya’s point of view, the moments when she’s tolerable are far fewer than when she’s the creation of an author that seems to have taken the Joss Whedon school of writing too much to heart and believed that it ain’t hopping unless the heroine is popping off 24/7. It’s hard to take the story seriously when the lead character treats everything like she’s so above it all.
Still, it’s perhaps a testament to the author’s ability that I still manage to warm up to this story in spite of the heroine trying too hard to be funny. There’s something about this one that reminds me of old-school Dara Joy—hmm, Veronica Dean isn’t her new pen name, is it?—so folks as ancient as me that remember that author may want to take a peek at this one.
Just be careful about the heroine’s terminal try-hard attitude. Don’t blame me if anyone gets hurt—I’ve already warned everyone!
