Never will I think of pet ownership the same way. Just sayin'! ( )

This is difficult to review. It has things I absolutely hate to see with D/s, such as the submissive unable to function without a dominant and also the "weak submissive." This gives such a wrong message to the vanilla populace when reading (and ultimately results in such perverted things as "50 Shades of Grey" where BDSM is loathsome and awful as written by a clearly non-BDSM author). This is why this story has only 4 stars and not 5.

BUT, at the same time it also gets so much right, especially when compared to the average D/s story out there, even within m/f. Finally here the submissive is properly shown as wishing to submit and serve, completely without the drama-queeney put on act that qualifies so many other stories and which seems to derive in a beeline from online submission games rather than the lifestyle or the bratty subbiness which is the excuse for the SM some people can't directly own up to wanting. And we get a dominant the way I would like to see them more often, one who is happy with the obedience of his sub, who punishes only and exactly only when there is a behaviour he doesn't want to see and who is capable of being satisfied with a state of equilibrium.

The story is clean, it gets things right in a so short span of words that whole novels completely miss and it is a truly entertaining and thought-provoking read. I loved it. ( )

I love McGinley's Dr. Fell series - she is one of my preferred authors for M/M romance with BDSM. Plus, it has positive reviews from friends who have similar tastes to my own in this genre. So, I had high hopes for this story, but...I just did not like it. In fact, I wish I hadn't read it.

The description had me thinking of something along the lines of The Initiation of Pb500. More hardcore, absolute submission rather than contracts and "civilized" servitude. In PB500, Micah craved submission, even to the point of humiliation and severe pain. There were some scenes in the book that made me uncomfortable, or even squeamish. However, his alien master never leaves in doubt that he sees Micah as a sentient being. He even uses Micah as a spy. This story is told in first person by a human who also craves such submission. It begins with him captured on an alien planet and quickly "adopted" from a "pound."

He is quite literally a pet - the only difference, his master has sex with him. At the same time, it is inferred that the alien is almost ashamed of doing so because other aliens would frown upon it. The sex is frequent and explicit, with a BDSM nature. But, as odd as it sounds, it came to close too bestiality for me to enjoy it. The alien knows his pet is intelligent, yet does not see him as sentient. More like a trained monkey who can perform basic chores and be trained, but nothing more. Readers never learn his name, he is kept in a cage most of the day and taken out for walks, or sex with his master. No one speaks to him. He is not permitted to exercise his mind in any way. His master doesn't care if he orgasms (not that he uses it as control - he simply does not care). I think my main problem was, there was no romance. Readers looking for a hardcore slave story may find more to enjoy than I did. I need some kind of emotional connection between the characters, and it wasn't here. I was tempted to give this one star, but McGinley is a very good writer. I felt immersed in the tale; the world-building was amazing for only being a short novella and it was richly detailed. She conveyed a lot with no dialog (except for a bit and the beginning and end). Though I didn't like this story, I highly recommend her Dr. Fell series to those looking for BDSM romance. ( )

This is a very 'difficult' tale, if you have problem with D/S arguments or with pleasure/pain games you could miss it. But I pick it up cause I have a kink, I like to read of couple of different height tall (I know, it's a very lame reason to pick up a story, but guys, everyone has his kink!) and i read in the blurb that one of the main character is an alien of seven foot tall, so I was allured by that.

The story is a first person tale, so we never know the name of the human character. We only know that he is a submissive by nature, dumped by his former partner cause he is too submissive! and to forget he has joined a spaceship as cartographer. On an alien planet, they are captured by the aliens and he and another man were thrown in a cell together. After sometime our character is put in a cell alone and then 'bought' by an alien Master. He is treated like a pet by his new master, living in a cage or curling to his feet, but his nature craves sexual attention and one day he pass the boundaries between Master and pet and makes a move on his Master. The output of that move is that now our character is trained not only like pet companionship but also like sex toy. He will be no more for his Master than a pet, he even doesn't understand his words but only his hand signs, but he will grow fondl of his Master.

I have read other tales about Master/pet relationship between alien and human (Nix Winter and Illian Obsidian for example) but this is the first time that the author doesn't give us the sweetener of the alien who in the end behaves like a human and the happily ever after in 'human' way of think. And this is the force of this tale (very short, less than 35 pages but very original): here you will find the Master/pet relationship push to its limits and you will be not reassured by a top from the bottom victory... but if I can tell you that I was enthralled from the very first pages and read it in a flash and not be disppapointed at all when I reached the end.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001B8NVRE/?tag=elimyrevandra-20