Ice Planet Barbarians – Ruby Dixon

Where do I even begin? I have so many thoughts about this book and its very… odd storyline. This book has been incredibly popular on booktok and bookstagram recently, and I figured I’d give it a go. I didn’t have super high expectations, especially after seeing a few reviews being pretty negative, however, I did go into the book with an open mind, which probably boosted my rating a little bit. Anyways, enjoy!

Plot

Georgie is a twenty-two year old female and she has just been abducted from her bed on Earth and is being held in a small cargo ship where little green aliens are having technical difficulties. If that doesn’t make matters worse, she is stranded with many other girls, all waiting to crash down onto a snowy planet that will probably kill them.

When Georgie and the girls wake up on a crashed ship with no aliens in sight, they decide that Georgie is their leader and she must seek help on this foreign planet. Georgie sets out on a long and treacherous journey to find help or something to survive when she finds Vektal, a big, horned, blue alien that seems to believe she is his mate. 

Georgie and Vektal come to communicate using hand gestures and as many signals as they can. Georgie’s goal is to save her girls, Vektals’ is to save his mate. 

Will Georgie and Vektal protect their people or will the planet that they have crashed down on, take it all from them?

Characters

Okay so I’ll start with Georgie. She seems like an averagely decent girl who pretty much just wants to go home and be safe (which is reasonable since she’s been abducted by freaking aliens). I found that out of the majority of the girls, she was the most interesting and seemed to have the most leadership or survival skills. Along with that, her thoughts were super funny and she kept me engaged in the book. Following Georgie was relatable and easy to do, however, I did find myself constantly checking her bad decisions and weird thoughts while she got together with a big blue alien. 

“And then I want to weep. To think I haven’t dressed properly for alien abduction.”

Vektal was actually a decent character considering he’s a huge blue alien (ribbed for your pleasure). He was definitely in love with Georgie (in his own way) and as I continued the book, I found myself enjoying him and what he had to offer. He seemed like a good guy, despite the fact that he’s a massive alien dude. 

Georgie and Vektal’s relationship was sort of weird. At first, Vektals point of view gave me insta-love. He immediately looked at Georgie and she was his mate, and that was it for him. For Georgie, she came to love Vektal in another sort of way. I feel like their relationship needed more depth than just smut, but that’s what I read it for so I guess I’m not complaining!

Setting

Throughout the book, the girls continuously made references to Star Wars and the planet “Hoth”, later naming this weird snowy, alien planet, “Not-Hoth”. While I’m not completely sure how I feel about all the references (although I’m a huge fan of the franchise), it did give me more of a visualization and I pictured a snowy planet with pretty much nothing else around. Of course, since it’s an alien planet, there were weird creatures and trees, but it was pretty much just snowy land that fit the plotline perfectly. 

“You ever see Star Wars? The original ones?” “Don’t tell me—” “Yep. It looks like we landed on fucking Hoth. Except I see two itty bitty suns and a huge-ass moon.” “Not Hoth,” Liz yells. “It was the sixth planet from its sun, and I don’t recall it having a moon.” “Okay, nerd,”

Writing

Since this book is pretty short, I wasn’t expecting much from the relationships and world-building, but the author gave me as much attention to detail as possible within 300 or so words. I found myself properly engaged and interested in this sci-fi romance and I wanted to continue reading. Dixon brought me into a world that I hadn’t really explored before and I was excited to learn more about the characters and how their relationships would develop. 

In Conclusion… 

I did enjoy this book but I definitely didn’t love it. I could have used a lot more story and plot in there when the relationships were developing, I wanted more of everything really. It was overall a decent read and I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy it. 

Rating: 2.5/5⭐