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genao

julio-alexi genao

My biggest passion is my passion. It's really big. Also my penis. Really big also. Like my passion.

The Only Way Out Is In - Lyn Gala refreshing, and flawed.After enduring a seemingly endless and aggressively wholesome parade of mewling twinks paired with growling musclebears, I relished the chance to read a story that featured two musclebears taking turns mewling and growling at one another, and getting charmingly flustered while they were at it.It felt male, even when it kinda wasn't.***I saw none of my beloved Firefly in this at all.I am pleased by this, regardless of the original prompt.Ms. Gala, as I discovered when I read [b:Claimings, Tails and Other Alien Artifacts|17304775|Claimings, Tails and Other Alien Artifacts|Lyn Gala|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1359491586s/17304775.jpg|23962861], is a wonderfully inspired author of clever twists on old chestnuts, and she cracks them open just fine without leaning too heavily on the original trope.***This one has its share of problems, however.Way too talky and static, this story would have benefitted from richer settings and developments that unfold outside of two or three locations on a ship Ms. Gala didn't trouble to describe very much beyond an overall sketch of dilapidation and battle-unreadiness.I think this flaw ironically stems from what is one of the author's chief strengths: character development. She's invested so much into crafting her human beings (and there are many fun archetypes represented herein) that she may have forgotten to apply the same attention to detail to her setting.As a result, an unfortunate amount of this story reads like a stage play, wherein the audience is expected to supply their own imaginations to fill in the blanks to a greater degree.Another example of this is the sexual classification scheme laid out in painful detail throughout. I can see there was some thought given to not barfing up an entire galactic wiki on the sexual diaspora of a starfaring human civilization, but it's been designed so well and so thoroughly—the sexual anthropology aspect—that there is no elegant way of introducing all those concepts at once, spread out a bit or no.It's dull, in other words—even though it's fascinating. Which is, I feel, a fair assessment of this aspect of the story, incoherence be damned.All those clever ideas just needed more room to filter through to the reader organically.***I felt cheated by the sex.I grumbled to myself about the ridiculous notion that a man who alters the parameters of his military command so as to permit the cheerfully relentless ensmuttification of his agreeable new boyfriend would somehow be content with a bit of heavy petting and some perfunctory necking the first time he is finally able to get his sweaty paws on the megapeen.I also grumbled to myself about the likelihood that a man pragmatic enough to completely overturn his previously firm conclusions about the nature of his sexuality would somehow stop short of fucking his bionic manwhore apart until there was little left but an exciting array of faintly steaming appendages scattered all over the cabin.I grumbled about these things even as I fumbled around on my bed with a sticky hand, intending to leave my DNA on the sleep shorts I'd momentarily removed in order to enthusiastically fap my dick off to what turned out to be an incredibly enjoyable sex scene all the same.It was too short, though. Had to read it twice.***Luckily, the baffling glossary—featuring words never used in the text—is a pretty solid indication that this story is a heavily stripped-down version of a longer work.*About which I can only say: hellfuckyes.______________________*helpfully confirmed by Loederkoningin in her review, here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/644920103