Trapped in the Forbidden Zone with a Dangerous Aphrodisiac Overdose
Sybil from Planet Valkyrie carries a risky amount of Gravitas, a top secret aphrodisiac, embedded in the Ritual Jewelry around her neck. Before she can trade it, she is attacked by an angry warrior from slave-holding Planet Roggr. Sybil lands on Earth--in the Forbidden Zone. Rescue is impossible, all portals are sealed.
Can Sybil protect herself, shield her hazardous cargo and find a way home before the Gravitas destroys her?
Excerpt
I landed, naked, on the highway with a lust-crazed Roggarian warrior trying to scramble on top of me. Heavy, wheeled machinery thundered past. I could hardly breathe. I shoved Gelbrave off and struggled to my feet. I’d been alone in my room at the Conference meditating when he attacked. By the Triple Goddess, how had we ended up here?
Horns blared all around us and squealing sounds as hulking, metal vehicles skidded and swerved around us.
I threw a curse over my shoulder as I scrambled to the side of the roadway.
Gelbrave followed. We made it onto a dirt surface beyond the traffic. The ground wasn’t as hot as the roadway, but rocks cut my bare feet.
I was nude, as is customary in our meditation, but Gelbrave wore full Roggarian courting gear including the thick boots that now protected his feet from the roadside rocks. He also carried a whip and dangling handcuffs strapped to his waist. Roggarians prefer unwilling victims. I expanded my curse to include Gelbrave’s entire planet.
I looked around and green road signs sprang into focus. As an avid student of Earth culture I could tell we had dropped through an unmarked portal into the Forbidden Zone, out of range of tracking and rescue of any kind. We might die here before anyone found us, assuming they tried.
Professional Reviews
Val-Sybilla's adventures as she makes her way through The Forbidden Zone in search of a way home are fun and deftly written
The novel's heroine is one of the "broad-framed and powerfully built" citizens of the matriarchal planet nicknamed Valkyrie. Valkyrian women are expected to have many husbands to help them stabilize their Gravitas, a pheromone so potent it could be used as a weapon. The planet secretly exports excess Gravitas for use in a powerful aphrodisiac. Heroine Val-Sybilla is carrying excess Gravitas to market when she accidentally falls through a portal onto Earth, which has been declared off-limits to extraterrestrials because of humans' tendency to deify and worship visitors from other planets. As another reviewer has noted, Murray's take on the origin of Earth religions is quite amusing. Val-Sybilla's adventures as she makes her way through The Forbidden Zone in search of a way home are fun and deftly written, as are the glimpses of other planets and cultures.
Realize once again the redemptive power of the best science fiction/fantasy
This book is too much fun to miss. I've read all of this wonderful author's earlier books and was happy to find a new one. Lynne Murray is skilled at creating gripping stories in multiple genres -- science fiction, fantasy, mystery/detective, romance, etc. As is true in all of her work, Gravitas is filled jokes that do literally make me laugh out loud and call people so I can read them the jokes so we can laugh together. As funny as Murray is, she is also brilliant and I am delighted by the evidence of her wide ranging intellect. In Gravitas Murray takes on the human tendency to create religions and deify weirdness when they don't destroy it. She creates in just a few strokes a variety of planetary societies that place in perspective various human habits and peculiarities. She creates a profession -- the xenopsychologists -- whose practitioners figure out the human species' deification preoccupation and understand why it is such a problem for the human inhabitants of our planet. In explaining this all, Murray takes us on a tour of historically and geographically based religious ideas and establishments. What a delightful take on religions. I am moved, amazed, and inspired by the number of social justice issues Murray includes in this short novel and the interconnectedness of those issues -- slavery, sexism, sexual expression, body image bigotry, peace, income distribution, and others. Not the positions she takes (I agree with her on all those issues) but the clarity and ease with which she interweaves them makes the reader (me, the reader) realize once again the redemptive power of the best science fiction/fantasy whether utopian or dystopian. I hope lots of people read this book and enjoy it as much as I did.
Lynne Murray's
Lynne Murray's "Gravitas" is a fun spacefaring ride which has plenty of surprises to keep you guessing. The notion of a matriarchal culture of empowered females is quite fun, and twists and turns abound. World come alive in this work, and it is far from the ordinary "Shoot em up" style of most sci-fi stories. It's a fun, fast read which will keep science fiction geeks and novice readers engaged and entertained right to the very end. I'm looking forward to more from this writer.
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