Ethan X. Thomas

Crimson is an alternative reality story from all the possible perspectives you look at it. First of all, the prejudice here is not given by the fact that Benjamin is g ay, but by the fact that Adam, his partner is of a different breed.

Benjamin and Adam are different in all possible aspects other than one, their s ex, and this is the only thing that seems to not arising trouble. Benjamin is 44 years old and still mourning the betrayal of his former lover; he is an high level police officer, he should be always the leader and responsible for the good being of his men, but in his private life he craves to be mastered. Benjamin is a submissive and he did the unthinkable, he killed his previous master; for this reason, since he was forced to kill the one man in the world he swore to always obey, he now has made his special mission to hunt down Tazu, the man who forced him to do that.

Adam is not a Terran like Ben, he is a mix of human and bird, instead of hair he has feathers, and his skin is deep blue. You can't possible not notice it, and that is the reason why he is ostracized. Actually Adam is not even g ay, but truth be told, in this futuristic tale, the preference in s ex seems to not be important; it not defines who you are or why you are a misfit. Other than being of a lesser breed, Adam is also a lot younger than Ben, 28 years old, so he doesn't fit at all the role of Master, and Ben craves for a Master. Adam and Ben are totally mismatched, and so it's quite difficult for them to go undercover as a married couple in a exclusive resort. More Ben has to play the role of Master, something he totally doesn't feel in him, and Adam the one of the slave, something he totally hates since his people has always fought to come out from slavery.

I had some trouble to mentally enter in the story since the authors don't give you background notion, you are plunged directly into the story and have to pick up clues here and there to understand the whole. It's something that I find quite often in futuristic tales, actually there are two opposite ways to tell a story: or the author gives full details, even too much, sometime overloading so much the story to boring the reader, or the author only hints to the alternative reality, letting the reader to fill the voids with his own imagination. Probably I prefer the second way, and it's the one chosen for Crimson, just enough details to allow understanding the surroundings, and then, you are free to build the reality as much as you like.

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