The Backlot Gay Book Forum discussion

River (Ambassador book 1)
By C.J. Dragon
Published by the author, 2024
Four stars

River Carteret is a young man and a career diplomat. Nearing thirty, with red hair and blue eyes, he has followed the rules, done his job, and climbed as high as he can. He has a comfortable life and loves his work. Why, then, is he somehow dissatisfied?

This sci-fi fantasy isn’t quite a post-apocalyptic story. An alien race called the Guardians prevented the apocalypse. Humanity was saved. Nuclear weapons, crime and poverty were eliminated: but at a price. That’s where this book veers into the uncanny valley.

Centuries in the future, Earth has become a welcoming home to plenty of non-human species. As long as you toe the line and get along with your neighbors, it’s all good.

But, possibly, not quite good enough. River Carteret flies west to meet with his Guardian supervisor, and expresses his wish to do something off-planet, to expand his diplomatic skillset. What he gets is a life-changing offer.

The planet Drakonis is populated by two species: the Drakos, and the Draas. Simplified, the Drakos are the rulers and the Draas their serfs—with the additional twist that the aristocratic Drakos feed off the Draas’s blood. Yep, it’s what you think.

Unrest among the Draas population threatens to tip into civil war on Drakonis, and River is charged with negotiating a lasting, and culture-changing, peace between the two factions. The Drakonis emissary is Prince Eris, eldest son of the Drakos king. He and River strike up an immediate friendship at the beginning of River’s one-year mission.

Then River finds out what’s really going on.

For all its initial shock factor, the whole vampire thing becomes essentially secondary to the larger story—River’s efforts to bring the people of Drakonis into some sort of peaceful union. We see the story through the newly-minted ambassador’s eyes, as he begins to understand the culture of Drakonis, and also to reflect on the culture of his home planet under Guardian rule.

The book is ultimately a love story, but also the start of an adventure that is the set-up for the next book in the series. The plot structure is elegant, but River’s character is somehow a bit of a cipher. This is no fault of the author, but the revealing truth about human civilization itself as the Guardians have reshaped it. For all his diplomatic skill, River learns his own truth as he attempts to change the culture of Drakonis for its own good.

I have to read the next books in the series.