CLAIMING JILL

In an alternate near future, a ferocious young human militia fighter grapples with her desire for her hard-bodied alien comrade in arms in this erotic SF adventure.

Mars continues the seriocomic series Love Wars, which began with Moving Jack (2019). Here, the plot, set in 2025, connects two frenemies from previous volumes. One is soldier Jill, who explains herself in profanity-laden diary entries; they’re set in the context of a contentious relationship between endangered humanity and the Staraban, a species of golden-skinned, twin-hearted alien humanoids. Jill grew up within Make Aliens Dead, a militia/survivalist cult of alien-hating renegades in California’s Pinnacles National Park. Indeed, she’s the daughter of the top MAD man—a brutal leader who calls himself Bulldog. However, she’s joined the Staraban and their diverse human allies, which include supernatural beings such as vampires and people who can shape-shift into animals (particularly bears). Jill’s self-described “defection” earned her a death sentence from her pitiless parent, who moves MAD toward terrorist tactics, including kidnapping and threatening Staraban and humans alike. Jill must return from her deep-space capers to fight MAD, which may mean killing her own father, whom she despises. The spaceship journey puts her in close quarters with Nial, a Staraban warrior with whom she has a lust-hate relationship, and sparks fly. Over the course of this wild novel, readers will quickly get the sense that the prime directive of the series is to present events that intimately pair infinitely diverse characters in infinite combinations. Sinewy Nial treats Jill condescendingly, although she secretly fascinates him, and their erotic relationship effectively results in lots of steamy fan service; one passage, for instance, describes Jill’s thighs as “a masterpiece of muscular definition,” and her genitalia’s scent causes Nial’s mouth to water. In comparison to this lustful relationship, the quasi-military intrigues and raids back on Earth seem rather perfunctory, with a finale that offers readers a literal deus ex machina climax.

An often lively space romp with touches of comedy and kink.