From the samples of Asmodean fiction which have made it to Planet-That-We-Live-Upon, Cheliax looks like a well-adjusted society that has managed to wrap their heads around the concept that fiction isn't real, and exposing people to stories with bad people or bad things in it will not cause total civilizational collapse. A surprising rarity in the domain of interdimensional fiction reviewers. On the other hand, it seems like this world can only be sent "romance novels"; Oh, well. Listeners can send romance novels. Probably.

A longer work depicting the internal politics of the cloistered harem of a Despot; The viewpoint starts out following a new inductee to the harem, who catches the Despot's eye and... plays board games with her? They sit down for long philosophy discussions together? Sex eventually happens, but it's not until the concubine is halfway through redesigning the city's aqueducts to support its growing population. (The concubine is not ready for sex yet, but knew this was a risk she was signing up for when she joined the harem) A few chapters later, the viewpoint starts to shift to depict the lives of the other concubines as well; many have romantic and sexual relationships among each other in addition to their rivalries and their relationships with the Despot. It does become clear over time that the Despot is not just turned on by civil engineering, though she is definitely turned on by civil engineering. Two thirds of the way through the Despot dies and is replaced by her son; Half of the viewpoint characters (the male half) are executed offscreen, and a third of the remainder are removed from the harem for being related to the new Despot. (They are implied to live comfortable lives elsewhere in the palace but are no longer the focus of the story.) The new Despot proceeds to not have sex with any of his concubines for ten whole chapters of poetry, engineering, politics, and math. At one point he has his soldiers undress a concubine and tie her to his bed, but then all he does is pace the bedroom while using her as a sounding board for whether or not he can afford to build a new bridge next summer, then untie her and send her back to her own chambers. He does eventually start hurting and fucking them, but it takes a while.

A story in which a mad genius has finally gotten fed up and vowed to push out the moon's orbit to realign "months" and "year-parts". The protagonist is an unrealistically-competent-crime-investigator who winds up responsible for auditing the mad genius' calculations to confirm that this won't kill everybody, and also has to prevent multiple assassination plots by concerned states and individuals. Many of the technical audits are depicted in detail, though an author's note explains that many of the technologies involved are either speculative or entirely fictional. This should be obvious to anyone who likes this genre of fiction, but apparently that doesn't hold across interdimensional cultural gaps. Over the course of the novel, the two develop both a friendship and a rivalry; There is no sex involved at any point, but the protagonist's complicated mix of admiration, anger, fear, and protectiveness towards his nemesis/ward/prey/friend is clearly setting up for a romantic arc in the sequel; There's a somewhat condescending author's note to this effect, though it is explicitly directed at the force preventing non-romances from being transmitted. In the end, the mad genius flees the country after being told that her plan will not be allowed because it will kill lots of people and upset the international order; The protagonist tracks her down to a remote desert and tries to arrest her, but she declares that no law will stop her from fulfilling her vow and escapes into space to try to enact her plan from Forlorn Sister, outside of any state's jurisdiction.

Another harem novel, this one flagged as somewhat-unrealistic pornography (Though it's not like the sex scenes in the last one weren't explicit.) Like the one before, this is told entirely from the perspective of various concubines. Unlike the one before, some of these concubines seem to be slaves rather than volunteers. Every so often, one will try to kill the Despot during sex, or escape to freedom, or poison the Despot's food, or kill themselves; These attempts always fail and those attempting are raped and killed, or tortured to death, or both, except for the suicide attempt who just gets raped. It's a lot shorter, and the Despot starts having sex with his concubines right out the bat, but despite this it seems to have the same or possibly even more civil engineering, proportionally.

From the samples of Asmodean fiction which have made it to Planet-That-We-Live-Upon, Cheliax looks like a well-adjusted society that has managed to wrap their heads around the concept that fiction isn't real, and exposing people to stories with bad people or bad things in it will not cause total civilizational collapse. A surprising rarity in the domain of interdimensional fiction reviewers. On the other hand, it seems like this world can only be sent "romance novels"; Oh, well. Listeners can send romance novels. Probably.

A longer work depicting the internal politics of the cloistered harem of a Despot; The viewpoint starts out following a new inductee to the harem, who catches the Despot's eye and... plays board games with her? They sit down for long philosophy discussions together? Sex eventually happens, but it's not until the concubine is halfway through redesigning the city's aqueducts to support its growing population. (The concubine is not ready for sex yet, but knew this was a risk she was signing up for when she joined the harem) A few chapters later, the viewpoint starts to shift to depict the lives of the other concubines as well; many have romantic and sexual relationships among each other in addition to their rivalries and their relationships with the Despot. It does become clear over time that the Despot is not just turned on by civil engineering, though she is definitely turned on by civil engineering. Two thirds of the way through the Despot dies and is replaced by her son; Half of the viewpoint characters (the male half) are executed offscreen, and a third of the remainder are removed from the harem for being related to the new Despot. (They are implied to live comfortable lives elsewhere in the palace but are no longer the focus of the story.) The new Despot proceeds to not have sex with any of his concubines for ten whole chapters of poetry, engineering, politics, and math. At one point he has his soldiers undress a concubine and tie her to his bed, but then all he does is pace the bedroom while using her as a sounding board for whether or not he can afford to build a new bridge next summer, then untie her and send her back to her own chambers. He does eventually start hurting and fucking them, but it takes a while.

A story in which a mad genius has finally gotten fed up and vowed to push out the moon's orbit to realign "months" and "year-parts". The protagonist is an unrealistically-competent-crime-investigator who winds up responsible for auditing the mad genius' calculations to confirm that this won't kill everybody, and also has to prevent multiple assassination plots by concerned states and individuals. Many of the technical audits are depicted in detail, though an author's note explains that many of the technologies involved are either speculative or entirely fictional. This should be obvious to anyone who likes this genre of fiction, but apparently that doesn't hold across interdimensional cultural gaps. Over the course of the novel, the two develop both a friendship and a rivalry; There is no sex involved at any point, but the protagonist's complicated mix of admiration, anger, fear, and protectiveness towards his nemesis/ward/prey/friend is clearly setting up for a romantic arc in the sequel; There's a somewhat condescending author's note to this effect, though it is explicitly directed at the force preventing non-romances from being transmitted. In the end, the mad genius flees the country after being told that her plan will not be allowed because it will kill lots of people and upset the international order; The protagonist tracks her down to a remote desert and tries to arrest her, but she declares that no law will stop her from fulfilling her vow and escapes into space to try to enact her plan from Forlorn Sister, outside of any state's jurisdiction.

Another harem novel, this one flagged as somewhat-unrealistic pornography (Though it's not like the sex scenes in the last one weren't explicit.) Like the one before, this is told entirely from the perspective of various concubines. Unlike the one before, some of these concubines seem to be slaves rather than volunteers. Every so often, one will try to kill the Despot during sex, or escape to freedom, or poison the Despot's food, or kill themselves; These attempts always fail and those attempting are raped and killed, or tortured to death, or both, except for the suicide attempt who just gets raped. It's a lot shorter, and the Despot starts having sex with his concubines right out the bat, but despite this it seems to have the same or possibly even more civil engineering, proportionally.

From the samples of Asmodean fiction which have made it to Planet-That-We-Live-Upon, Cheliax looks like a well-adjusted society that has managed to wrap their heads around the concept that fiction isn't real, and exposing people to stories with bad people or bad things in it will not cause total civilizational collapse. A surprising rarity in the domain of interdimensional fiction reviewers. On the other hand, it seems like this world can only be sent "romance novels"; Oh, well. Listeners can send romance novels. Probably.

A longer work depicting the internal politics of the cloistered harem of a Despot; The viewpoint starts out following a new inductee to the harem, who catches the Despot's eye and... plays board games with her? They sit down for long philosophy discussions together? Sex eventually happens, but it's not until the concubine is halfway through redesigning the city's aqueducts to support its growing population. (The concubine is not ready for sex yet, but knew this was a risk she was signing up for when she joined the harem) A few chapters later, the viewpoint starts to shift to depict the lives of the other concubines as well; many have romantic and sexual relationships among each other in addition to their rivalries and their relationships with the Despot. It does become clear over time that the Despot is not just turned on by civil engineering, though she is definitely turned on by civil engineering. Two thirds of the way through the Despot dies and is replaced by her son; Half of the viewpoint characters (the male half) are executed offscreen, and a third of the remainder are removed from the harem for being related to the new Despot. (They are implied to live comfortable lives elsewhere in the palace but are no longer the focus of the story.) The new Despot proceeds to not have sex with any of his concubines for ten whole chapters of poetry, engineering, politics, and math. At one point he has his soldiers undress a concubine and tie her to his bed, but then all he does is pace the bedroom while using her as a sounding board for whether or not he can afford to build a new bridge next summer, then untie her and send her back to her own chambers. He does eventually start hurting and fucking them, but it takes a while.

A story in which a mad genius has finally gotten fed up and vowed to push out the moon's orbit to realign "months" and "year-parts". The protagonist is an unrealistically-competent-crime-investigator who winds up responsible for auditing the mad genius' calculations to confirm that this won't kill everybody, and also has to prevent multiple assassination plots by concerned states and individuals. Many of the technical audits are depicted in detail, though an author's note explains that many of the technologies involved are either speculative or entirely fictional. This should be obvious to anyone who likes this genre of fiction, but apparently that doesn't hold across interdimensional cultural gaps. Over the course of the novel, the two develop both a friendship and a rivalry; There is no sex involved at any point, but the protagonist's complicated mix of admiration, anger, fear, and protectiveness towards his nemesis/ward/prey/friend is clearly setting up for a romantic arc in the sequel; There's a somewhat condescending author's note to this effect, though it is explicitly directed at the force preventing non-romances from being transmitted. In the end, the mad genius flees the country after being told that her plan will not be allowed because it will kill lots of people and upset the international order; The protagonist tracks her down to a remote desert and tries to arrest her, but she declares that no law will stop her from fulfilling her vow and escapes into space to try to enact her plan from Forlorn Sister, outside of any state's jurisdiction.

Another harem novel, this one flagged as somewhat-unrealistic pornography (Though it's not like the sex scenes in the last one weren't explicit.) Like the one before, this is told entirely from the perspective of various concubines. Unlike the one before, some of these concubines seem to be slaves rather than volunteers. Every so often, one will try to kill the Despot during sex, or escape to freedom, or poison the Despot's food, or kill themselves; These attempts always fail and those attempting are raped and killed, or tortured to death, or both, except for the suicide attempt who just gets raped. It's a lot shorter, and the Despot starts having sex with his concubines right out the bat, but despite this it seems to have the same or possibly even more civil engineering, proportionally.

From the samples of Asmodean fiction which have made it to Planet-That-We-Live-Upon, Cheliax looks like a well-adjusted society that has managed to wrap their heads around the concept that fiction isn't real, and exposing people to stories with bad people or bad things in it will not cause total civilizational collapse. A surprising rarity in the domain of interdimensional fiction reviewers. On the other hand, it seems like this world can only be sent "romance novels"; Oh, well. Listeners can send romance novels. Probably.

A longer work depicting the internal politics of the cloistered harem of a Despot; The viewpoint starts out following a new inductee to the harem, who catches the Despot's eye and... plays board games with her? They sit down for long philosophy discussions together? Sex eventually happens, but it's not until the concubine is halfway through redesigning the city's aqueducts to support its growing population. (The concubine is not ready for sex yet, but knew this was a risk she was signing up for when she joined the harem) A few chapters later, the viewpoint starts to shift to depict the lives of the other concubines as well; many have romantic and sexual relationships among each other in addition to their rivalries and their relationships with the Despot. It does become clear over time that the Despot is not just turned on by civil engineering, though she is definitely turned on by civil engineering. Two thirds of the way through the Despot dies and is replaced by her son; Half of the viewpoint characters (the male half) are executed offscreen, and a third of the remainder are removed from the harem for being related to the new Despot. (They are implied to live comfortable lives elsewhere in the palace but are no longer the focus of the story.) The new Despot proceeds to not have sex with any of his concubines for ten whole chapters of poetry, engineering, politics, and math. At one point he has his soldiers undress a concubine and tie her to his bed, but then all he does is pace the bedroom while using her as a sounding board for whether or not he can afford to build a new bridge next summer, then untie her and send her back to her own chambers. He does eventually start hurting and fucking them, but it takes a while.

A story in which a mad genius has finally gotten fed up and vowed to push out the moon's orbit to realign "months" and "year-parts". The protagonist is an unrealistically-competent-crime-investigator who winds up responsible for auditing the mad genius' calculations to confirm that this won't kill everybody, and also has to prevent multiple assassination plots by concerned states and individuals. Many of the technical audits are depicted in detail, though an author's note explains that many of the technologies involved are either speculative or entirely fictional. This should be obvious to anyone who likes this genre of fiction, but apparently that doesn't hold across interdimensional cultural gaps. Over the course of the novel, the two develop both a friendship and a rivalry; There is no sex involved at any point, but the protagonist's complicated mix of admiration, anger, fear, and protectiveness towards his nemesis/ward/prey/friend is clearly setting up for a romantic arc in the sequel; There's a somewhat condescending author's note to this effect, though it is explicitly directed at the force preventing non-romances from being transmitted. In the end, the mad genius flees the country after being told that her plan will not be allowed because it will kill lots of people and upset the international order; The protagonist tracks her down to a remote desert and tries to arrest her, but she declares that no law will stop her from fulfilling her vow and escapes into space to try to enact her plan from Forlorn Sister, outside of any state's jurisdiction.

Another harem novel, this one flagged as somewhat-unrealistic pornography (Though it's not like the sex scenes in the last one weren't explicit.) Like the one before, this is told entirely from the perspective of various concubines. Unlike the one before, some of these concubines seem to be slaves rather than volunteers. Every so often, one will try to kill the Despot during sex, or escape to freedom, or poison the Despot's food, or kill themselves; These attempts always fail and those attempting are raped and killed, or tortured to death, or both, except for the suicide attempt who just gets raped. It's a lot shorter, and the Despot starts having sex with his concubines right out the bat, but despite this it seems to have the same or possibly even more civil engineering, proportionally.

From the samples of Asmodean fiction which have made it to Planet-That-We-Live-Upon, Cheliax looks like a well-adjusted society that has managed to wrap their heads around the concept that fiction isn't real, and exposing people to stories with bad people or bad things in it will not cause total civilizational collapse. A surprising rarity in the domain of interdimensional fiction reviewers. On the other hand, it seems like this world can only be sent "romance novels"; Oh, well. Listeners can send romance novels. Probably.

A longer work depicting the internal politics of the cloistered harem of a Despot; The viewpoint starts out following a new inductee to the harem, who catches the Despot's eye and... plays board games with her? They sit down for long philosophy discussions together? Sex eventually happens, but it's not until the concubine is halfway through redesigning the city's aqueducts to support its growing population. (The concubine is not ready for sex yet, but knew this was a risk she was signing up for when she joined the harem) A few chapters later, the viewpoint starts to shift to depict the lives of the other concubines as well; many have romantic and sexual relationships among each other in addition to their rivalries and their relationships with the Despot. It does become clear over time that the Despot is not just turned on by civil engineering, though she is definitely turned on by civil engineering. Two thirds of the way through the Despot dies and is replaced by her son; Half of the viewpoint characters (the male half) are executed offscreen, and a third of the remainder are removed from the harem for being related to the new Despot. (They are implied to live comfortable lives elsewhere in the palace but are no longer the focus of the story.) The new Despot proceeds to not have sex with any of his concubines for ten whole chapters of poetry, engineering, politics, and math. At one point he has his soldiers undress a concubine and tie her to his bed, but then all he does is pace the bedroom while using her as a sounding board for whether or not he can afford to build a new bridge next summer, then untie her and send her back to her own chambers. He does eventually start hurting and fucking them, but it takes a while.

A story in which a mad genius has finally gotten fed up and vowed to push out the moon's orbit to realign "months" and "year-parts". The protagonist is an unrealistically-competent-crime-investigator who winds up responsible for auditing the mad genius' calculations to confirm that this won't kill everybody, and also has to prevent multiple assassination plots by concerned states and individuals. Many of the technical audits are depicted in detail, though an author's note explains that many of the technologies involved are either speculative or entirely fictional. This should be obvious to anyone who likes this genre of fiction, but apparently that doesn't hold across interdimensional cultural gaps. Over the course of the novel, the two develop both a friendship and a rivalry; There is no sex involved at any point, but the protagonist's complicated mix of admiration, anger, fear, and protectiveness towards his nemesis/ward/prey/friend is clearly setting up for a romantic arc in the sequel; There's a somewhat condescending author's note to this effect, though it is explicitly directed at the force preventing non-romances from being transmitted. In the end, the mad genius flees the country after being told that her plan will not be allowed because it will kill lots of people and upset the international order; The protagonist tracks her down to a remote desert and tries to arrest her, but she declares that no law will stop her from fulfilling her vow and escapes into space to try to enact her plan from Forlorn Sister, outside of any state's jurisdiction.

Another harem novel, this one flagged as somewhat-unrealistic pornography (Though it's not like the sex scenes in the last one weren't explicit.) Like the one before, this is told entirely from the perspective of various concubines. Unlike the one before, some of these concubines seem to be slaves rather than volunteers. Every so often, one will try to kill the Despot during sex, or escape to freedom, or poison the Despot's food, or kill themselves; These attempts always fail and those attempting are raped and killed, or tortured to death, or both, except for the suicide attempt who just gets raped. It's a lot shorter, and the Despot starts having sex with his concubines right out the bat, but despite this it seems to have the same or possibly even more civil engineering, proportionally.

From the samples of Asmodean fiction which have made it to Planet-That-We-Live-Upon, Cheliax looks like a well-adjusted society that has managed to wrap their heads around the concept that fiction isn't real, and exposing people to stories with bad people or bad things in it will not cause total civilizational collapse. A surprising rarity in the domain of interdimensional fiction reviewers. On the other hand, it seems like this world can only be sent "romance novels"; Oh, well. Listeners can send romance novels. Probably.

A longer work depicting the internal politics of the cloistered harem of a Despot; The viewpoint starts out following a new inductee to the harem, who catches the Despot's eye and... plays board games with her? They sit down for long philosophy discussions together? Sex eventually happens, but it's not until the concubine is halfway through redesigning the city's aqueducts to support its growing population. (The concubine is not ready for sex yet, but knew this was a risk she was signing up for when she joined the harem) A few chapters later, the viewpoint starts to shift to depict the lives of the other concubines as well; many have romantic and sexual relationships among each other in addition to their rivalries and their relationships with the Despot. It does become clear over time that the Despot is not just turned on by civil engineering, though she is definitely turned on by civil engineering. Two thirds of the way through the Despot dies and is replaced by her son; Half of the viewpoint characters (the male half) are executed offscreen, and a third of the remainder are removed from the harem for being related to the new Despot. (They are implied to live comfortable lives elsewhere in the palace but are no longer the focus of the story.) The new Despot proceeds to not have sex with any of his concubines for ten whole chapters of poetry, engineering, politics, and math. At one point he has his soldiers undress a concubine and tie her to his bed, but then all he does is pace the bedroom while using her as a sounding board for whether or not he can afford to build a new bridge next summer, then untie her and send her back to her own chambers. He does eventually start hurting and fucking them, but it takes a while.

A story in which a mad genius has finally gotten fed up and vowed to push out the moon's orbit to realign "months" and "year-parts". The protagonist is an unrealistically-competent-crime-investigator who winds up responsible for auditing the mad genius' calculations to confirm that this won't kill everybody, and also has to prevent multiple assassination plots by concerned states and individuals. Many of the technical audits are depicted in detail, though an author's note explains that many of the technologies involved are either speculative or entirely fictional. This should be obvious to anyone who likes this genre of fiction, but apparently that doesn't hold across interdimensional cultural gaps. Over the course of the novel, the two develop both a friendship and a rivalry; There is no sex involved at any point, but the protagonist's complicated mix of admiration, anger, fear, and protectiveness towards his nemesis/ward/prey/friend is clearly setting up for a romantic arc in the sequel; There's a somewhat condescending author's note to this effect, though it is explicitly directed at the force preventing non-romances from being transmitted. In the end, the mad genius flees the country after being told that her plan will not be allowed because it will kill lots of people and upset the international order; The protagonist tracks her down to a remote desert and tries to arrest her, but she declares that no law will stop her from fulfilling her vow and escapes into space to try to enact her plan from Forlorn Sister, outside of any state's jurisdiction.

Another harem novel, this one flagged as somewhat-unrealistic pornography (Though it's not like the sex scenes in the last one weren't explicit.) Like the one before, this is told entirely from the perspective of various concubines. Unlike the one before, some of these concubines seem to be slaves rather than volunteers. Every so often, one will try to kill the Despot during sex, or escape to freedom, or poison the Despot's food, or kill themselves; These attempts always fail and those attempting are raped and killed, or tortured to death, or both, except for the suicide attempt who just gets raped. It's a lot shorter, and the Despot starts having sex with his concubines right out the bat, but despite this it seems to have the same or possibly even more civil engineering, proportionally.