So, while waiting for Amazon to sort it’s shit out with Michael-Scott Earle, and we can finally get some new Star Justice and Tamer books, I’ve continued reading a bunch of other novels, and I came across one I really like. I’ve been kind of sheepish about recommending it because… well, it’s “erotica.” At least that’s the category it’s listed under at Amazon, but quite frankly, calling it erotica is underselling it a bit. There’s a lot of sex in this book. Like, a lot. So if that doesn’t interest you, you’re just not going to enjoy it. You’d be skimming through… quite a bit of text to get to the rest of the story.

Unlike a lot of other harem novels, however, the sex actually factors heavily into the actual plot. Yes, it’s almost like the author came up with a reason for the characters to have a lot of sex, beyond them being horny for the usual reasons, and then wrote a story about it.

If the sex doesn’t turn you off, or, if in fact you don’t mind some sex (or a lot) in your harem books, there’s a shockingly good space opera to be had here. I would actually put it on par with Star Justice, which is something I never thought I’d say, as it’s one of my favorite series of all time. Another thing I like about Three Square Meals is that there’s a lot of it. The story is over 2 million words long and counting. By the time you get through the first three books, the overarching plot is only barely starting to reveal itself. What can I say? I enjoy it when there’s a lot of something I enjoy. In a shorter story, you get to see the characters interact with one group or another, but then that’s usually it. In this longer format, you get to revisit those groups and see the sometimes empire shifting consequences of their interactions with the MCs. Plus, IMO, the story keeps getting stronger as the cast expands and the momentum of the story builds.

Another thing I like about the story is that it does OP right. The main character, (and the women in the harem) get really powerful. (Something I like in my harem novels is when the women are really awesome too, go figure.) The story keeps escalating so that they have significant challenges, but importantly, there are a lot of great scenes where the MCs have awesome moments of OP-ness* and are able to wow their allies, and/or crush their enemies, and see them driven before them, etc. That balance is important IMO, and a lot of books don’t get it right.

So here are some links;

• The first 4 books are available on Amazon.
• Nearly the entirety of the story is available on Literotica. There’s a bit of a delay for the most recent chapters. If you’re unsure about diving in, you can start here, then if you like it, you can support the author at Amazon or his Patreon. The Kindle versions have had an additional editing pass, with some extra scenes thrown in for good measure.
• And the author has a Patreon, if you get caught up with all 2 million+ words and can’t wait for the next chapter to come out on Literotica.

*Hur hur, I said penis.

Ok, first off, apologies for letting the last one linger for three months. I’ve had this picture ready for a bit, but I felt a little guilty about posting it because it’s not Grrl Power related. It’s another cover mockup where I can practice both my painting and layout skills. But it’s the only other piece of art I’ve worked on besides the comic, and I draw Sydney, Max, Dabbler, and crew every day, so it’s fun to do some other stuff as well. I could practice composition with any of them, they each do present some challenges when it comes to painting. Sydney has such a distorted anime face that it’s hard to practice good facial anatomy, which is something I feel I’m quite weak with after several decades of drawing in an anime style. Maxima has her own challenges. I’ve never felt like I’ve drawn her as shiny as I imagine her, and even if I ignore that stuff, it’s not like I can practice flesh tones on her. Her skin doesn’t do subsurface scattering after all. Dabbler isn’t so hard to paint, but again, I feel like I should get better with human flesh tones before I stray into other parts of the rainbow. Of course I could paint Anvil or Harem or Jabberwokky or Varia or a dozen other characters, and eventually I will, but at the moment I’m having fun with these cover mockups, and I think that this one is a pretty good improvement over the previous one, and that’s what I’m really going for. There’s plenty more detail work I could continue to do on this piece, but I learned some stuff from working on it, and that’s the goal.

I decided to make a stand-alone post about this so people can comment on it if they get around to reading it. Please use the spoiler tag for anything remotely spoilery. Just wrap your comment with [spoiler]Your comment[/spoiler]

I’ve found a new book series I’m enjoying immensely. Star Justice. The short version is; Space Marine gets experimented on and essentially turned into a were-tiger. Hilarity ensues. Actually mostly violence… and technically it’s a harem setup, in the sense that the main character is male and nearly every other significant character he meets is female, many of whom join him on his adventures, and most of whom express sexual interest in him to some degree. Well, okay, that doesn’t sound like I should be saying “technically” at all. That’s flat out a harem setup, but I feel like there should be some sort of asterisk on “harem” because the female characters are significant and important parts of the story, not just notches on his bedpost – and they’re all likeable (IMO) either straight away or after some initial antagonism is resolved. The sex scenes are terse and non-graphic which is really my preference in novels. I like it when characters I like hook up, but I don’t really need the gory details.

I won’t spoil anything, but one night I went to bed planning on reading a few chapters, and I got to a point where there is a rather significant turn of events, and I wound up finishing the book and reading like 30% of the next one before I had to quit because it was 5 in the morning. :P

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed it a lot, maybe you will too.