You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
Bitchery reader Pancha writes:
I read this book years ago and remember it as being really good, but the
title and author continually escape me.A space princess is kidnapped by her planet’s enemies (or something) and
ends up in a horrible penal colony/mine where everyone is so downtrodden
that they don’t even bother talking anymore. She’s in danger of being
raped or perhaps eaten by some of the other prisoners when the hero
rescues her. He takes care of her and they get it on, until she is
rescued by her people, and is forced to leave him behind. She ends up
pregnant with his kid, and he eventually escapes (along with a
psuedo-romantic rival whom he views as a sister but is there for some
added tension), and shows up at her home planet. And she’s some kind of
psychic. There might have been dolphins?Not much to go on, but hopefully someone with a better memory than I has
read it as well.
Space princess potentially raped or eaten? Someone HAS to remember THAT book. Wow.
Duke, I am your father!
Eaten in a good way or eaten in a bad way?
I dunno, but I love the “she may get eaten” part. You don’t see that everyday!
Could it be Lord of the Dark Sun by Stobie Piel? I read this years ago but it went along a similar theme.
She said “penal.”
::laughs like Beavis and Butthead:::
I have no clue, but I want to know now too! (Oh, and for some reason I read that she was sent to a mime. Now THAT is torture.)
I ‘specially like how there may or may not be dolphins.
WHICH IS IT?!
The Stobie Piel book sounds right…although it’s also been a while since I’ve read it. As rare as these plots are, I remember reading a couple of them at that time.
I’d agree with Heather and Jackie, that does sound like Lord of the Dark Sun by Stobie Piel.
So, inquiring minds want to know… if it *is* Lord of the Dark Suns, are there dolphins?
Hmmm. That’s where it comes unstuck. I don’t remember any dolphins in Lord of the Dark Sun. Mind you I was much more fond of the first part of the book in the penal colony then the second part of the book.
Princesses with dolphins?
The only books I’ve read with dolphins are the Bio Rescue books by S.L.Viehl. In the first book Bio Rescue, the heroine is kind of half dolphin. And the second book follows her cousin, who is a full (kind of) dolphin. The second book doesn’t involve a penal colony, but it does involve the kidnapped daughter of a visiting ambassador. Not quite a princess though.
I don’t remember the dolphins either. But I want to say there were dolphins in one of the previous books. So it is possible.
It’s hippos (hyppos) in Lord of the Dark Sun. Probably some other “terran” animals too. The humans working the mines were killed by lava after they reached a certain age (and had reproduced and had the kids taken away) to prevent uprising. Or something. I don’t remember the possible cannibalism, just the threatened rape.
I think some of the people were psychic, not the hyppos.
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Okay, that made me laugh. Not the rape, but the eaten part. lol
Perhaps “raped or eaten” should’ve given me pause, but it was the dolphins that got me. DOLPHINS IN SPACE?! What kind of Hitchhiker-esque madness is this?
::walks off whistling “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”::
Lava and dolphins and psychic hyppos, oh my!
I have got to get this book.
This sounds sorta like a sci/fi book I read years ago…
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t dolphins – apart from humans – the only animals who get it on just because it’s, y’know, FUN? Surely that’s of some significance. Maybe there’s a whole genre of randy dolphin romances out there that I’ve just blithely missed out on!
I think this is all a fabrication, written to drive the bitches mad trying to come up with a real title…
Betina Krahn’s The Mermaid had dolphins who were definitely in favor of “sex for fun,” but no space princess. Only space princess I know of is from Nighthawk, by Kristen Kyle, but though she did get kidnapped, she promptly took her captor prisoner herself and they traded prisoner status back and forth for the rest of the book inbetween hot sexings.
Baboons and some other primates get it on for fun, too. In fact, they make Anita Blake look like a nun.
I’ve worked in a primate research center for a short time and had a view over the baboon area. The naughty little buggers even masturbate. 🙂
Carl Hiaasen has a novel that takes place in a cut-rate theme park, and one of the villains is raped and drowned by a randy male dolphin in an exhibit there. It’s the freakiest thing I ever read. Sadly, the swiss-cheese brain has lost the title.
Not to mention Bonobos – those little dudes have sex *all the time* with *everyone* (and, interestingly, it’s them and chimpanzees to whom we’re most closely related).
We didn’t have bonobos, but I’ve heard about them. 😉
They even have gay and lesbian sex.
Y’all have made my morning.
“May or may not get eaten, and the dolphin thing, and now the monkeys.
Thanks, bitches!!!
Never read this book, but I intend to now.
Bailey
I think it’s the last Elizabeth MacPherson book that Sharyn McCrumb wrote that has a woman obsessed with a dolphin suing to get a marriage license. And it was written almost 10 years ago…
It sounds like Lord of the Dark Sun, by Stobie Piel. Love that book. It’s on my keeper shelf.
I think it is Lord of the Dark Sun. I didn’t much like the book, though, but it’s not nearly as bad as her website. Music loads on the main page AND it restarts every time you navigate back to the page…argh…
It oughta be against the law…
Yep, dolphins- and sea lions, for that matter- definitely mastubate. I used to work at an aquarium where there was this camera in one of the tanks that formed exactly the right angle for, er, friction. Made for some very odd porn films.
For dolphins in space, I recommend David Brinn’s STARTIDE RISING (Hugo and Nebula Award winner). His point was that dolphins would make the best wormhole pilots becuase they naturally think in three dimensions. Makes sense, really. . .
Yes! Thank you all, it is Lord of the Dark Sun. I’ll have to re-read it to figure out if there are dolphins. Or what my fevered mind thought were dolphins (read while sick the first time around).
Ohmigod, I love this book. I’ve read it way too many times, and every time- I end up bawling! Seriously, it gets pretty ugly- tears, red splotchy face, incoherent babbling to anyone wanting an explanation . . . It’s not a perfect book, but I just think the romance is so sweet.
as one who likes to mix her escapist genres, I bring this from from the hard core sci-fi corner: David Brin has done dolphins in space in total seriousness.
Humans are not alone in the universe and other aliens give them the power to “uplift” species on earth – make them to sentient talking beings. We pick dolphins and chimps and then we all sally forth into the wide unknown to discover whats out there.
Another Dolphins in Space book: Tom Paine Maru by L. Neil Smith (Author). A fairly good romance in it as well. No cannibalism but still—a good SF novel
I was just saying there needs to be more cannibalism in Romance.
Ew, no thanks. I usually love Carla Kelly, but her latest book included cannibalism, and it creeped me the hell out.
So, am I the only one who originally read it as “spare” princess, went immediately into medieval romance mode and ended up terribly confused by the whole thing?