MarLau Publishing, $5.99, ISBN 978-87-939663-9-0
Sci-fi Romance, 2022 (Reissue)
According to the copyright notice, Meraki P Lyhne’s Roughnecks & Butterflies was first published by eXtasy Books, and this issue has “no major changes”. I guess this means that this is more of a reissue than a revised edition.
So, our hero Ethan has traveled a long, long way from Earth for a prestigious job at the planet Ore 5, only to be told that the company that hired him downsized while he was enjoying his cryo-sleep. Simply put, that job doesn’t exist anymore.
I’m sure that there should be some kind of safety net that Ethan could have negotiated earlier for traveling this far for a job, but then again, this is a romance story. Of course that fellow has no safety net.
At age twenty-seven—not counting the past two he’d spent cryo-sleeping—he’d graduated top of the class and been handed a contract with fine print and a bailout settlement just big enough for a return ticket. He’d end up back on Earth penniless and with all the best jobs occupied by the second-best graduates. And they’d have four years’ worth of experience he missed from traveling and time spent in cryo-sleep.
Mind you, he’s from a super wealthy family, and he just is too proud to go ask Daddy for money so yes, this is just like a billionaire’s son crying because his credit card is maxed out and he can’t buy that Jaguar anymore, oh cry me a river.
Still he toughs it out, so I suppose I have to respect that. Barely making enough money working the tables and what not at a strip club, living a lower class existence, almost getting raped in the shower… good times.
His boss, Ryder, is the predictable hot promiscuous ho-bag that is also a stripper, because every gay story needs one to be legit. So, yes, Ethan will get his night Ryder and they will then proceed to meh the meh up.
Yes, meh, because this story goes on for what seems like ten years, mostly because the author for some reason focuses on mundane happenings around the town. Now, I think I get what the author is trying to do here—this thing plays out like a workplace sitcom, so maybe that is the intention all along. Instead of flashy lights and alien fights, it’s all about off-planet humor and interplanetary boners.
However, the humor feels like it’s written by and aimed at teenagers that believe that all you need to do to appear intelligent and profound to be as sarcastic as possible 24/7. Sarcasm isn’t something that just about anyone can pull off successfully—there needs to be a certain kind of originality behind the barbs or a sense of outrageous audacity behind the delivery to pull this off. Here, everything just feels tired and done before, as if the author were just trying hard to follow the trend and echoing the tone and nature of sarcasm done many times already.
Also, it feels like a waste that the author has created this planet and then have all the characters speak like bratty teens from 21st-century Earth that believe that their sex lives and sarcasm will make them look grown-up. Really? Aliens telling one another to keep their panties on? Why set this story on another planet in another time, when the characters could have easily ditched their costumes and make-up to walk onto a sitcom set in the present day just fine?
To add to all these, Ethan is a relentlessly negative and bitchy character, so much so that he’s outstayed his welcome one-third into the story. Ryder’s entire character is sexy and one-note—his character exists to alternate between servicing Ethan and assuring that guy that he’s not the waste of space ahem, some people think he is.
So, humor that feels generic and out of place in the setting, characters that range from boring to cheese grater on one’s nerves, and a romance that just goes on and on without generating any chemistry or electricity… hey, where’s my ticket out of this dump?
