A Weird Alien Romance Recap: Surviving Skaar

So, recently I did a video on the Ice Planet Barbarian series which was essentially a crash course (pun intended) on Ruby Dixon’s unhinged and extensive alien romance world. That video forced me to re-immerse myself in the land of blue aliens with cocks like cookie dough rolls if cookie dough rolls had ridges and a little clit teasing spur.

And… that re-immersion made me wonder. Has Ruby Dixon added to this beloved series? I already knew the answer. Yes. Ruby wrote the Icehome series as a continuation to the IPB series and there was yet 3 more books in the Icehome series I had not read, so I decided to pick up a Ruby book for the first time in 2 years.

It was all really the same song and game (more pun intended) which I think is really why people love her books so much. We know they’re going to be cute. We know they’re going to be cheesy as all get out and smutty and they’re all going to end with everyone being happier than happy can be.

So, I was prepared for same-old-same-old.

But then I remembered that Ruby started yet ANOTHER continuation series called Ice Planet Clones. Today, I’m not going to get into the backstory of Ruby-verse in its entirety because… well… it’s like 30 books long. We’re just going to start with the foundation.

You have this ice planet. Yes, it’s a planet of ice. It’s cold. So cold. Anything living on it must acquire what is called khui in order to survive. A khui is a parasite that lives in all things on this planet and for a non-native to get one, one must hunt an animal and take theirs. Now, this little worm thing has its perks. Mainly, it keeps you alive. Not only does it keep lifeforms warmer on this very inhospitable planet, but it also accelerates healing and for people who arrive on the planet with chronic illnesses or something else, it can also work to fix that.

But the real kicker here is that a khui is focused on survival of the species, as in it really wants its host to mate. This little parasite can recognize the perfect match for its host and when it does, the khuis of said pair will begin to hum or vibrate, letting the two parties know they’re matched. This is called resonance and the people of this planet take it very seriously.

Resonance is for mating purposes and will drive two individuals together very aggressively until they are so consumed by their need to bone, that they eventually give in. This overwhelming urge won’t really dissipate until the woman gets pregnant.

Sometimes matched pairs won’t like the idea of resonating if they had some kind of previous dislike for each other, but eventually, when they’re forced to get closer, they find that they actually are good for each other and they fall in love. For other couples, it’s easy. It’s like love at first sight.

But, now that we have a little background here, let’s talk about the book in question.

I read book one in Ice Planet Clones and sure, it was satisfying. One of our blue, horned hunks who has been yearning for a mate for ages finally finds his mate when he was kidnapped and put in a cage with her. This woman has no idea how she got to that icy planet and barely has any idea who she is. Why? Because she’s a clone.

There’s a happily ever after, but now we find that this random human woman is not the only clone. In fact, there are quite a few clones in pods who have not woken up yet, essentially telling us readers that there are many more characters and many more books to come in this series.

Woo!

Somewhere, somehow, someone made a bunch of clones, likely for nefarious purposes, but then someone else decided they didn’t deserve whatever fate they were being sent into and decided to steal them and dump them on a very inhospitable ice planet where survival is unlikely in order to let them spread their wings and be free.

So, we have many people just waking up, thinking they’ve been abducted from Earth only to find they are clones. Whatever memories they have, which isn’t many, are not necessarily their own, which can send someone into a spiral. Add on the fact that they’re on a planet that can kill them and surrounded by aliens AND have to willingly put a parasite in their body to survive and you’ve got a SITUATION.

In all CAPS. It’s a SITUATION.

The story starts with Vivi. That’s not her name but she can’t remember her name, so one of the other veteran characters names her Vivian. Vivi has a huge issue with this because Vivian is the name of the main character from Pretty Woman and she thinks she is anything BUT pretty. She’s described as tall and bland.

So… me… thank you, Ruby.

Flor, our veteran character who’s trying to help ease these clones into reality with her big blue mate, also explains to the newcomers that they all need a wormy parasite to survive the intense cold. That news is jarring enough, but add on the fact that the khui will also inevitably choose a mate for everyone and the amount of human men on this planet is exactly ONE as of this book. Because one of the pods did indeed have a human man in it.

Very interesting. I feel like this is the first time I have ever seen a human man in Ruby’s books, but I could be wrong. I’ve only read like 40 of them.

Now we get to meet our boy, Skaar. He’s the BEST.

Literally, he can’t stop talking about it.

Skaar is a gladiator. He’s what’s called a splice, which is a being made from the genetics of more than one alien. He is some kind of lizard-like splice so he’s actually cold blooded, which does not bode well for him on a planet made of ice.

Splices are created solely to fight for the entertainment of others. Skaar is very aware that he’s a clone or a splice so waking up in a pod doesn’t really affect him like it does the humans, nor does it affect the other splices who woke up in the same position. His earliest memories are just basically being a clone. And because he’s created to be a fighter, it’s quite literally all he knows. He and the other gladiators do not know how to function in a situation where they are not being told to fight or compete.

This makes him completely intolerable.

Skaar hears this whole explanation with the Khui and finding a mate and immediately decides he’s going to be the first to find a mate because he’s the best and obviously his khui is the best and will choose the best mate.

Fighting is immediately forbidden by the locals and again, Skaar doesn’t understand since everything in his life up until this point has been brutal competition and flaunting himself in front of cheering crowds. In order to speed up the whole resonance thing and find himself a mate, he coaxes another splice into a fight in front of the ladies, who are all huddled next to a fire being traumatized. He has convinced this other splice that whoever wins will be the BEST and their khui will immediately reward them with resonance.

As expected, the ladies are horrified to see two big alien men fighting. One screams. I think one starts crying. And the boys? They’re completely oblivious. The fight gets broken up but not before Skaar lands one last blow on his opponent, drawing blood and winning the fight. He parades himself around, posturing and telling everyone how amazing he is and one person who wants nothing to do with it is plain old Vivi. She’s very shy and introverted so she’s kind of always watching but doesn’t talk to anyone. And she does not care for Skaar at all. No one does.

Skaar waits for his khui to start humming and, through some miracle that feeds the ever-living fuck out of his ego, it does.

He starts looking around to find which woman is his and… our poor Vivi realizes that she, too, is humming. And she is absolutely appalled. So much so that she runs off while Skaar is busy posturing even harder and claiming to everyone that Vivi MUST be the best because his Khui would only choose the best for him.

Flor decides she needs to go talk to Vivi but her mate advises against it and says the new couple need to hash things out on their own.

So Skaar goes after Vivi and spews a bunch of words that makes her want to punch him in the face.  She gets very offended by the fact that he views her as an object and that he doesn’t even know what she looks like because they hadn’t even interacted before resonance. So, Skaar stands proud and tells her to look at him. She does and the whole time he’s talking so much about how awesome he is and how awesome she must be if his Khui chose her and she tells him to shut the hell up for two seconds. Then, she lets him get a good look at her and he circles her like he’s buying a car and she still hates him for it.

The group eventually has to make their trip to the village where they’ll be staying for the rest of their lives and on their journey, Skaar has to learn how to get Vivi to be his mate.

Despite resonance making them both very horny for each other, Vivi is distressed over recurring memories of her father and the fact that they’re not even her memories. She is the “suffer in silence type” because she’s not great in social situations and not as open with emotions as the other humans in their party.

Meanwhile, Skaar is kind of giving her space and in doing so, he is able to study her. Except, Skaar puts his own spin on things. Because Vivi is quiet and doesn’t talk much, he takes this as a fighter gathering intelligence to strategically conquer her situation. The fact that she learns to tend fires and do things around camp while the other humans sulk and cry tells him she is a strong warrior. So he begins building her up in his head despite the fact that she’s hurting in her own way. Because she also won’t give him the time of day, he tries consulting others to figure out how to get him to accept him as a mate.

But don’t feel sorry for the guy. He’s still insufferable, but he GREATLY enjoys the challenge of getting Vivi to surrender to him so her rejections just kind of excite him.

I’rec, Flor’s mate, tries to give him advice and tells him he needs to give Vivi gifts and show her he cares. Skaar has no concept of how this works and states that no one should get gifts if they did not win them in a competition. So that shit goes right over his head. Then I’rec tries to explain that she is not a breeding tool or a mate he can command but she should be an equal partner. This also goes over Skaar’s head because a partner to him is a partner in a fight and Vivi is too weak to be a partner.

So, Skaar needs some work.

Eventually, Skaar gives Vivi her first gift while the group camps for the night. A tiny scale from his lizardy back so she can think of him… which she tosses in the fire. Thankfully, Skaar doesn’t care. I was kind of scared he’d be devastated that she just dismissed his gift, but I don’t think he understood what a gift was anyways, so it didn’t matter.

From then on, he tries very hard to be around Vivi and she is very disinterested. Slowly, however, her khui starts making her have wet dreams about Skaar, which upsets her a lot. Because he’s so insufferable and unpopular among the others, she’s also a little embarrassed that she’s been paired with him. And because she’s on the introverted side, the fact that he goes around constantly telling everyone how great she is brings her unwanted attention and she dislikes him even more.

While the group is traveling, Skaar does try to walk with her and finds her crying. This is something he doesn’t understand and he immediately thinks she’s broken and wants to fix her. She states she is crying because she has memories of a father who isn’t hers and it’s very upsetting. Skaar explains he has no family and that his earliest memories are of being a clone and Vivi kind of hurts over this and explains what friends are and that not everyone is an opponent.

And this is the first bit of real bonding that happens between these two.

When the group finally arrives at their new forever home, there is a welcome feast around a fire and everyone gets to know each other, but Vivi being the introvert that she is kind of sits on her own. Skaar continues to gather advice from others, including a gladiator who’s been at Icehome for some time and has himself a mate, and our human clone, Jason. Eventually, he sits with Vivi and gives her food, realizing she’s not keen on going and getting food on her own because of her shyness.

He also brings a sweet fruity drink that is alcoholic and the two share in food and drink. Vivi then says she’s full and offers Skaar the rest of the food and he insists that she is deserving of the food and should eat more. He tells her that she is strong and perfect and that she is worth as much food as everyone else.

Which is super sweet.

The two get a little tipsy and Skaar, knowing she’s not comfortable in social situations, decides to take her to the beach where it’s quiet. They loosen up a bit and Vivi decides she is going to teach him how to kiss because it’s something he’s never done. They make out a bit and then Vivi, in her half-drunk state, touches his downstairs and finds him flat like a ken doll.

That’s because the lizard-like species Skaar is spliced with keeps his manhood inside until he is aroused. Of course, he gets aroused when she’s touching him and she is shocked to find that not one, but TWO appendages make a very sudden appearance.

She… runs away.

For Vivi, she’s just surprised he has two dicks and she starts thinking about how she’s supposed to mate with a guy who has two of them and she’s overwhelmed. To Skaar, it means she’s disgusted by him and he spirals a little.

While he’s giving her space because he thinks she’s grossed out by him, he decides to recruit the help of the human, Jason, and one of the other veteran characters from Icehome to build Vivi a hut of her own where she can retreat if she’s getting socially overwhelmed.

Also really sweet.

But in the time that he’s focused on building this hut, Vivi think s he is avoiding her. Every time he comes back to the fire at night, she leaves, hoping he’ll follow her and they can talk privately, but he takes this as HER avoiding HIM, so for a while, they don’t see much of each other.

But then, one night, he decides he’s going to show her something. They communicate that neither of them wanted as much space as the other was giving and Skaar reveals he has a gift for her. He takes her to the finished hut and says it’s hers to go to when she needs time alone. He even built the door, which is just leather flaps, on the back of the hut so she had more privacy and felt safer.

So… sweet.

She tells him she would like him to stay with her and he agrees. They hole up through a blizzard that drops temperatures even more. She wakes and realizes that Skaar is practically dead. She panics and strips down and crawls under the furs with him, remembering that he is cold-blooded and that the chill of this planet is very bad for him.

He warms up and the two snuggle, having a little intimate moment. The next day, Vivi tells Skaar it’s too dangerous for him to go out and she decides to take care of him. He HATES this idea because he fears it will make him look weak and vulnerable to any opponents that might decide to fight him. She re-explains that there will be no fighting and proceeds to take care of him, telling him she will lie to the village so they think they’re only holing up in her hut to fulfill resonance, not because he’s a lizard popsicle.

In their alone time together, however, they do get to exploring and Vivi learns he’s very good at using his forked tongue. He’s also very good at taking instructions and gives her one of the best times of her life. They also discuss the double dick situation and try to figure out how that will work (But we all know how that will work).

Unsurprisingly, when Vivi is exploring Skaar’s body, we find out that our boy has a praise kink and gets incredibly turned on when she tells him he’s the best. His cock is the biggest. He’s the best at sex. All that. She also gains a little perspective on why he’s constantly saying he’s the best. See, Skaar was not born the greatest gladiator that ever was. In fact, the species he is spliced with aren’t the strongest, so he more or less started at the bottom and had to train to be the best fighter. He also explains that being the best is what won crowds and that’s how he stayed alive, so his obsession with it is rooted mostly in survival.

Vivi, being a woman, takes that to heart and decides she loves feeding his praise kink and it actually gets kind of… hot.

When the time comes to fulfil resonance, it’s great, but one appendage is always left out. So upon the next time they mate, Vivi gets very bold, greases our boy up and tells him she wants to be a double-stuffed Oreo. At first, it’s both eels in the same hole, but that doesn’t get far since two cookie dough rolls in the same space is a death sentence. So the eels part ways and find their own burrows because human women are indeed blessed with two.

And so, a new couple on this icy planet is officially established. And they’re the best.

I hope you all enjoyed this incredibly strange little journey through Surviving Skaar. I genuinely thought I would not like this book. I am not a fan of lizard men when it comes to alien romance, but I don’t think I stopped smiling once when I read this story. Skaar is over the top like pretty much everything Ruby writes. It was so ridiculous and I knew it was ridiculous and I kept reading. I have no regrets.

#RubyDixon #iceplanetbarbarians #alienromancebooks #survivingskaar