Ice Planet Barbarians

Ice Planet Barbarians (2015) is an erotic science-fiction romance by American author Ruby Dixon. The work was originally published as a six-part series via Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited platform and subsequently combined into a single volume on Kindle Unlimited. In 2021, the novel was published in print by Berkley Books, with some graphic material omitted. The 2021 publication coincided with Ice Planet Barbarians becoming a popular phenomenon on “BookTok” on TikTok, which led it to top various bestseller lists more than five years after its initial publication.

Ice Planet Barbarians was followed by 21 other volumes in the series, which ran from 2015 to 2021. Beginning in 2017, Dixon also published the spin-off series Icehome, comprising an additional 16 novels that take place on the planet Not-Hoth. The chronology of the series is intertwined with the later Ice Planet Barbarians books; each series contains novellas in addition to their many full-length novels. In 2023, Dixon began Ice Planet Clones, a third series that takes place on Not-Hoth.

This guide refers to the 2015 Kindle edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The source material includes descriptions of abduction, human trafficking, sexual assault and coercion, forced termination of a pregnancy, and graphic sexual detail. This guide refers to all these topics.

Plot Summary

Georgie Carruthers wakes to find herself abducted by aliens. Another captive, Liz, has been there longer. She warns Georgie against screaming, as the captors rape those women who make noise. Another captive, Kira, has been forcibly fitted with a translation device. She tells Georgie that their captors appear to be traffickers who intend to sell the women. Tubes along the walls contain other captives who seem to be in stasis.

Georgie, Liz, and Kira hatch an escape plan, which they put into action when turbulence leads their captors to discuss “offloading” the women. Georgie attacks a guard and kills him as their ship crashes. Two captives die in the crash, but the remainder suffer only minor injuries. They have little in the way of food or warm clothing. Georgie, who has become the group’s de facto leader, takes the dead guard’s suit and explores the freezing atmosphere outside. Before leaving the ship, she likens the icy, barren landscape to that of the planet Hoth from the Star Wars franchise, which leads the women to dub the planet “Not-Hoth.” Georgie scouts, finding vicious fish that try to attack her, before she gets caught in a hunter’s snare. She faints as a figure approaches.

Vektal, a blue alien with glowing eyes and horns, is shocked to find that the strange creature in his hunting trap causes his “khui” to “resonate”— a khui is a symbiotic partner that all inhabitants of this planet take on to survive; resonance indicates that it has identified a “mate.” Vektal worries over Georgie’s lack of khui and her softness, though he finds her alluring. He performs cunnilingus on her, which causes her to wake. She is surprised to find herself enjoying this unexpected sexual encounter, though she pushes Vektal away when he shows interest in penetrative intercourse. Vektal is puzzled but retreats, noting Georgie’s fear. He is horrified by the idea that someone might have harmed her in the past. Using gestures, they exchange names.

Georgie worries over the material comforts that Vektal offers, like a fire and food. The rations he offers her, however, are too spicy for her to tolerate. She sleeps, enjoying the warmth of Vektal’s closeness and surprised by how comfortable and safe she feels with him. The next day, she attempts to urge him back toward the ship and the other captive women. Vektal, determined to care for her and worried over her increasing pallor, kills a “quilled beast” for her to eat. Georgie balks at eating raw meat but eventually gives in. He shows her how to banish the carnivorous fish so that they can bathe in a naturally warm stream. Georgie is compelled by Vektal’s body and makes advances, implying that she will have sex with him if he takes her back to the other women.

After they bathe, Vektal turns away from the mountain where the ship has landed. Irritated, Georgie tries to show him the direction but falls down a crevasse filled with creatures that Vektal will later identify as “metlaks.” They attack her, and Vektal drops into the crevasse to fight them off. Vektal again frets over Georgie’s vulnerability to the dangers of their world. He doesn’t understand why she wants to go up the mountain but promises to take her once the snow relents. They spend the afternoon learning words in Vektal’s language, which leads to the naming of body parts and then to sex. Unbeknownst to Georgie, who assumes that inter-species pregnancy is impossible, the calming of Vektal’s khui indicates that conception has occurred, something that makes Vektal optimistic for the future.

Vektal ventures out into the snow to check his hunting traps. He is horrified when he finds a dead human (one of the captives, Dominique, who ran out into the snow in a panic), and this makes him understand that Georgie is not alone on his planet. They hurry up to the ship, where the five remaining women are alive but ailing. Kira’s device can now translate, revealing that Vektal sees Georgie as his mate.

Vektal is excited by what these women mean for the future of his tribe, which has far more male members than female. He worries over how to best provide for the women. Vektal explains that he intends to seek help from his tribe but cannot take all the women with him. He will take Georgie only, as he is unwilling to leave her. He and Georgie hurry toward Vektal’s home, stopping at the “elders’ cave,” which Georgie realizes is a spaceship. The ship’s computer still has power; it reports that Vektal is a “modified sakh,” or “sa-khui.” His people crashed on the planet several centuries earlier. Those who adapted and took a khui lived; those who refused the symbiont died within eight days. The computer offers Georgie a “linguistic upload” that teaches her Vektal’s language. It knocks her unconscious, but when she wakes, she can speak the sa-khui dialect fluently.

Vektal is overjoyed that he can speak to Georgie though confused by her insistence that humans choose their own mates; in his culture, the khui chooses, and it always chooses correctly. He offers to accompany her if she tries to return to her own planet, although he is confused by this idea. Georgie insists that she and the other women must also make their own choices about taking a khui, even if the alternative is death.

They reach Vektal’s community in an interconnected group of caves. Georgie meets Raahosh, a hunter who is skeptical about the potential of human women as mates, and Maylak, the tribe’s healer. Vektal explains recent events to his community and then retires for the night in his private quarters with Georgie. She is shocked by his revelation to the group that she is pregnant but warms to the idea of having a child with Vektal.

The next day, Georgie, Vektal, and some of the sa-khui return to the ship. At the ship, Georgie takes pains not to encourage the women one way or another, but they all agree to take the khui and attempt survival on Not-Hoth. They wake the women in the pod. Raahosh resonates on meeting the women but refuses to reveal himself. Kira’s translator reveals the voices of returning captors, so the women hastily flee the ship. The group of sa-khui and humans journeys to a nearby “sa-kohtsk,” an enormous creature with many khui inside. The hunters work together to kill the beast, taking khui from its heart and attaching them to each woman. Georgie finds this process disturbing, as it involves putting a wormlike creature into a cut in her neck. She faints, but on waking, she feels much improved and resilient against the cold of Not-Hoth. All the other women seem likewise improved, but Liz has been kidnapped by Raahosh. Vektal reassures Georgie that Raahosh will not hurt Liz. Raahosh will seek time to get to know Liz and convince her to be his mate, as they are resonating for one another.

Georgie and Vektal watch as the captor’s ship reappears and then, finding the human women gone, leaves again. She looks forward to a lifetime spent with Vektal.