VS Note: This post first appeared in the Roswell Daily Record, in conjunction with their annual UFO Festival. 

Depositphotos

We never got to find out what kind of romantic partners the famous Roswell Grey aliens might have been (or at least not as of this writing) but the description was a bit underwhelming for a scifi romance author in search of a hunky new Main Male Character. Short and frail in stature, with an enlarged head and apparent lack of the vital appendages one might need to be an MMC in a spicy romance, these visitors from the purported 1947 Roswell Incident won’t heat up the pages unless they have hidden talents.

SFR authors are undaunted – it’s a big galaxy and we haven’t begun to see it all – so the genre has let its imagination take the reins and created series upon series with everything from big blue buff barbarians (say that three times!) to alien spidermen with tender hearts. The key is that all of these fictional spacemen are unable to resist the one human woman who can stir his heart or hearts and move him to make declarations of love he probably never dreamt he’d utter. And then the action moves to the bedroom, whether with a closed door or in great spicy, imaginative detail. Always a Happy Ever After ending, which sadly the Roswell Greys don’t appear to have achieved in 1947.

Ruby Dixon’s well known series gives the reader everything one could desire in an alien mate if she’s going to be stranded on an ice planet for the rest of her life. The barbarians (some of whom are actually quite sensitive and understanding) are blue, with horns and flowing hair, well equipped to satisfy a human woman, and there’s a parasite involved which acts as a translator, adapts the humans to the harsh planet and can put together the right fated mates to ensure the HEA.

The husband-and-wife duo of Tiffany Roberts has created all kinds of aliens in their SFR quest, from the four armed green man in Claimed by an Alien Warrior to the various denizens of The Infinite City series to half man/half kraken in The Kraken Series. I’d never really cared for tentacles before reading Treasure of the Abyss, book one in the series, but then I was hooked and had to read the entire series. Tentacles can come in very handy during those intimate moments apparently. Who knew? The authors’ crowning achievement (so far) are the Vrix, large spider aliens. The authors create beautiful language of love to go along with their unlikely pairing – the FMC becomes his ‘heartsthread’ and the blurb declares their webs are entangled and “no one will ever sever the threads”. Turns out those sticky webs have a lot of uses as well. If you’re an arachnophobe this might not be the series for you but the creativity and imagination on display is amazing.

Regine Abel is a nonstop creator of fascinating alien MMC’s. Her I Married A… Series offers up a wide range of possibilities from a lizardman to a birdman, from an alien minotaur to a dragon, even a dryad and a mothman. All the couples are brought together by the Prime Mating Agency which appears to be dedicated to spreading love and happiness throughout the galaxy. I bet they could even find suitable partners for the Roswell Greys if they’d just sign up on the dotted line.

Naomi Lucas has created a race of Naga aliens (half very muscular snake, and half man) of whom she says, “With the charm of a snake, and the wiles of a devil, these males will do anything, and I mean anything, for their females.” Who could resist? I guess I could, since I have a deathly fear of snakes but the author writes her MMC’s so well I might be able to overcome my phobia. I’ve certainly enjoyed the books! A number of other authors have written Naga aliens in various scenarios, including Celia Kyle with her Nagas of Nirum series.

Strange Love: An Alien Abduction romance (Galactic Love Book 1) by Ann Aguirre has remained in my memory for years because of the terrific job she did creating an extremely nonhuman MMC and inhabiting his mind. As the blurb states: “He’s awkward. He’s adorable. He’s alien as hell. Zylar of Kith B’alak is a four-time loser in the annual Choosing. If he fails to find a nest guardian this time, he’ll lose his chance to have a mate for all time. Desperation drives him to try a matching service but due to a freak solar flare and a severely malfunctioning ship AI, things go way off course. This ‘human being’ is not the Tiralan match he was looking for.”  His human match currently works at a daycare on Earth and so she’s perfect to become a “nest guardian,” right? Except for the challenges posed at the Choosing, which turn out to be grueling and life threatening and none of them are first date material. The author does a skillful job of getting these two wildly disparate beings to understand each other and fall in love for their HEA.

I personally have never written a non-humanoid alien MMC to the extent discussed above. My most “alien” alien appears in Breaking the Alien Love Curse, and is a green humanoid, has scales and a tail. It was fun writing the tail into various scenes. He hatched from an egg but assures the FMC there’s modern tech available to help humans and his people have babies. He broke his engagement, which was arranged in the egg by his parents and the jilted fiancée launches an interstellar curse at him and the human co-worker to whom he’s attracted.

Of course there’s a huge spectrum of scifi romance out there for your reading pleasure and I could only scratch the surface here but I can pretty much guarantee you’ll find your match in the pages, unless of course you’re set on dating a Roswell Grey. Good luck with that!