Review: Lame Rehash of the Same Old Sci Fi Romance Plots
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 04 12, 2013
A Queen from another world sends her twins to safety by separating them and hiding them on other planets.  Sound familiar?According to the note at the end of this book, "Taken by Storm" was named Best Fantasy/Science Fiction Romance of the year by Romance Reviews Today.  That's sad proof that most of the genre is poorly written and unoriginal.  I love both science fiction and romance, but it pains me to admit that most of these books are substandard.SPOILER ALERT!This book starts out as an overly complex "Star Wars" clone, then switches to the worn out "Mars Needs Women" plot about halfway through. The ending was just plain ridiculous.  Essentially, the heroine ends a bitter multi-generational conflict by telling both sides they have valid points and they need to compromise, and everybody just accepts her decree.  It would be nice if life worked that way, but let's get real--murdering fanatics aren't likely to see reason that easily.The first half of the book features the hero explaining his world and society to the heroine.  The main action takes place behind the scenes, and the reader learns about it when the hero tells the heroine the story.  Apparently, nobody ever told this author the well-known axiom, "Show, don't tell."The heroine has no real motivation and waffles between trying to escape the hero and falling madly into his embrace.  If an obvious alien took me captive and told me he'd die unless I willingly allowed him to play with my naked body, he'd be a dead man.  At best, I'd offer him a ride to the nearest bar and give him a few bucks to pick up a prostitute, but it struck me as totally unrealistic that this woman agrees--especially on the first anniversary of the death of her family.  And if someone burnt down my beloved mountain cabin and offered me a locket with a picture of my dead family as compensation, there's no way in hell I'd say, "Aw, that's really sweet and thoughtful of you," which is basically the heroine's reaction to this scenario.The sex scenes were frequent and detailed, which might explain why it won an award, but since I thought the heroine was a stupid wimp, those scenes didn't really strike me as all that hot.  To me, these characters were like puppets being moved around at the author's whim: "Oh, it's time for a sex scene."  The entire plot was too contrived, and the characters were bland stereotypes who didn't react like real people.Much of the plot made no sense.  The heroine is told she has to choose a man to avoid being claimed by some random guy because there are 200 men to every women, yet another woman character is completely ignored by the men.  The bad guy has an entire collection of pregnant women in his dungeon, so they couldn't have been all THAT scarce.  Also, only boys are trained as mages, even though most of the women portrayed seemed to have a variety of powers.  Yet the heroine is immediately accepted as a mage-in-training, and rises to a position of authority within an extremely short time.The author robs her tale of all suspense by revealing the heroine's parentage in the prologue.  I guess she figures suspense is created by telling the reader what's going to happen, and then making them wait for it.The heroine is supposed to be grieving over the loss of her family, but almost the only time she thinks about her dead husband is when she's having sex with the hero, when she compares his stellar lovemaking to her husband's prim, lackluster efforts.  She never seems to miss her baby at all.  I got no sense that this woman was suffering a major loss at all.  It seemed like the author had read somewhere that making the characters suffer would win the reader's sympathy, so she tells us they'd lost loved ones, but she didn't have a clue how to actually SHOW it.  There was just no depth whatsoever to any of the characters.Frankly, I probably won't bother reading another book by this author ever again.  If you have nothing else to read and you're completely desperate, then I recommend this book.  It's better than the ingredient list on a box of cereal, but just barely.  The sex scenes were okay if you're just into gratuitous sex, but if you want true romance, realistic characters, and a plot that makes sense--keep looking.