Reviewed by Vicki
TITLE: Serge & Een
SERIES: Storming Love: Meteor Strike book 4
AUTHOR: Angel Martinez
PUBLISHER: MLR Press
LENGTH: 66 pages
RELEASE DATE: March 21st, 2016
BLURB:
While driving home during a snowstorm, Serge Kosygin witnesses a meteor plummeting to Earth. When he reaches the strike location, he finds a horrific crash site instead of a meteor crater, with two aliens dead and one survivor barely alive. His deeply ingrained mistrust of the government prompts him to rescue the alien before the authorities arrive.
Een has lost his life mates in a desperate effort to reach safety. With their deaths, he may be the last Aalana in the galaxy. He finds himself in the care of a strange alien being, which both frightens and intrigues him. Though communication issues, biology, and grief impede him, Een is determined to learn all he can about this new world and his rescuer.
Music and the natural world bring them together, creating a bond stronger than culture shock, but government interference and Een’s failing health threaten their budding relationship. Only their combined ingenuity and their determination to stay together will give them any chance of saving the last living Aalana.
REVIEW:
Wow.
This was just an amazing little story. I have read several of the Storming Love stories over the last couple of years, and a whole lot of them were ok, but not great. Some were pretty cheesy. Then I saw there was a new collection coming out, with meteors. Huh. Then I saw Angel Martinez, my all time favorite m/m sci-fi writer (and Urban Fantasy) was doing one. Huh again. So…. I thought I’d give it a try. Holy crap. I’m not sure I will ever read an m/m sci-fi story from any one else. I swear every time I read one by Angel I think that’s the best she can ever do, the most creative thing she can ever write, but then she writes this story.
It’s short, so I’m going to be light on plot details, and the blurb does a pretty good job. But it doesn’t portray the emotions this book displays. The heartbreak both of these beings suffer. Serge as a human has suffered a tragic loss, and is not recovered. Een has suffered an even greater loss, not only his mates but potentially his entire race. They can’t communicate at first, and Een isn’t convinced that the human caring for him isn’t planning on eating him at some point. Serge isn’t sure if the alien he has rescued is peaceful, harmful, or even a being and not a plant. But somehow they figure it out. Even saving Een’s life through creativity and some help.
I loved it. I cried at the first page, I cried at the last page, and I cried a bit in between. At one point I had to get reassurance that this would have a good ending! And I will spoil it enough to say that it does in fact have a happy ending. I should have trusted Angel, but I questioned it…
Everything about this book is perfect. It’s so creative, there is a lot in what is only a 66 page story. We get a whole new world, one with alien refugees landing in crashing ships on earth. We get a cool new character, an Aalana, with different body parts, different methods of communicating, procreating, receiving nourishment, yet feeling love just the same as humans. Angel made shit up. This is not just using existing humans and writing a story. She made up a thing! A whole race of them. With a life, and history, and, and stuff on his head! This book is further proof I will never attempt to write a book. There is no way in hell I could ever do what Angel does. Why would I when she writes like this?
Buy this book. Spend an hour and a half or so reading it. Even if you have never had any interest in reading a sci-fi book before. It’s so much more than that. All in a short story. I want to read it again, and I just finished it!
RATING: 
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