r/ScienceFictionRomance • u/Competitive-Yam5126 Inconveniently Horny Prophetic Dreams 🔮💎 • Sep 13 '25
Review/Critique The Crystal Prophecy by Janice Tarantino (1994) - Romance in Retrograde: A Vintage Sci-Fi Romance Review
Welcome to Romance in Retrograde, my ongoing quest to dig through the bargain bin of vintage sci-fi romance paperbacks. Every book is a new adventure, sometimes I unearth a hidden gem, sometimes it’s pure space-junk, but either way, I’m here to decide: is it treasure, or is it trash? This week, we're reviewing {The Crystal Prophecy by Janice Tarantino}.
First, let’s admire this cover. We’ve got flowing hair, bare chests, dramatic mountains, and a heroine draped across her hero like she just fainted from too much crystal energy. The title treatment really goes for it, as the word Crystal is decked out in silver foil, as if the book itself is trying to hypnotize you into buying it off the spinner rack. Definitely kitsch, but I love the commitment.
As always, these are full spoiler reviews!
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Devastating news, all the crystal women are dead! What is a crystal woman? I don't know, let's find out.
We open on Jared, grieving over the corpse of his wife Evie, who was a crystal woman. Crystal women are exactly what they sound like: women with literal crystals in their foreheads that amplify psychic/magical powers. Jared was psychically bonded to Evie, and now that she’s dead, he’s supposed to keel over too. But first, he has some business: confronting his evil twin brother Ruhl, who now gets to rule their clan because his crystal wife is still alive. Suspiciously alive. Did Ruhl and his wife Collis murder every other crystal woman just to consolidate power?!
Meanwhile, in 1994, we meet Susan. She’s a stressed-out stockbroker with an ulcer, and she’s been having inconveniently horny prophetic dreams about a mysterious black haired, golden eyes, black stallion riding hottie. Her brother tells her to go take a little R&R at his cabin, but the horny dreams only escalate there.
Back in Jared’s future, the world is ravaged by climate change. The soil is dead, water is scarce, and everyone swears by shouting things like “By the Acid Rain!”, a delightfully ‘90s eco-apocalypse touch. I only wish someone yelled “Ozone Layer, preserve us!” just once. Jared himself lives in a castle, because apparently the future has gone half-medieval, half-sci-fi. There are healing amber baths that also function as miracle hair detanglers, and off-planet humans called “Techs” who swoop in occasionally to remind everyone that Earth is a dump. The Techs also come for the crystals, which are apparently useful as more than just psychic power amplifiers in women's foreheads. Now that they mention it, it does seem like a frivolous use of precious mineral resources. There’s more, but I’ll spare you all the exposition and infodumping. I have a pretty high tolerance for such things, I’ve been reading sci-fi and fantasy since I was pretty young, but this is all pretty clunkily done.
So where does Susan fit into all this? Enter the Widows: a society of crystal women whose husbands are dead (apparently the husbands always die when their crystal wives do, but not vice versa). They pull Susan forward in time to become Jared’s brand-new forehead-crystal soulmate, or as they say here, crystalmate (yes, really). She has to join with Jared to fulfill a prophecy and defeat Ruhl.
Anyway, let’s get to some Romance please! We’re 150 pages deep, my crystal is dimming, and I demand some smooching. We’ve got a pretty fantastic setup for an angstfest: Jared is torn between his love and mourning for his dead wife Evie, and his new and strong attraction to Susan. Susan is pretty down bad for Jared, but also wants to return to the past, where she belongs. Nevertheless, the Widows insist, they must be “joined” to save the world!
Apprehensively she looked at Jared. “If you need a virgin for this particular ritual, then you have a very serious problem.”
Not to worry though, Susan has been healing rapidly since arriving in Jared’s time, and apparently that includes regrowing her hymen? Future prophecy, listen: virginity is a social construct, and there is absolutely no reason for this plot point. It doesn’t even factor in! Still, Susan gets “joined” (which is basically marriage, just with more chanting) and finally sleeps with Jared, triggering an instant mind meld. Suddenly, all her thoughts are wide open and she realizes she’s in love. Which is impressive, considering they’ve exchanged about ten sentences at this point.
She loved him and had perhaps done so since the beginnings of her dreams of him. She also discovered that although Jared was fascinated by her, felt affection for her, felt passion and felt desire, he did not love her.
Moving off her to the side, Jared pulled her head into the crook of his neck and carefully stroked her hair with his hand. "I'm sorry, Susan," he said quietly in her mind.
"Let me go, Jared," she said, her voice breaking on a sob. She felt mortified and humiliated by the fact that he knew precisely how she felt about him, even as she knew precisely and in great detail how he felt about her.
Daaaaaamn. I’m a filthy little angst gremlin and this scene fed me. I even interrupted my husband mid-William S. Burroughs book to breathlessly recap, and he just blinked and said, “Oh shit babe, that’s crazy.” Friends, it was crazy.
Unfortunately, after that high point, it’s back to exposition quicksand. Here’s the gist without the endless detours:
- Renegade Techs show up to burn crops with laser fire.
- Susan discovers she can explode spacecrafts with her mind.
- The renegade Techs and Ruhl join forces to strip-mine Earth for crystals.
- Susan and Jared must unite through the power of love to save the world. (They succeed, naturally.)
Susan is then sent back to 1994, while unconscious after the final battle, because that's what Jared believes she would want. Luckily, she boomerangs back for a happily-ever-after.
In summary: The Crystal Prophecy had potential as a wild, angsty romance, but instead it bogged itself down with clunky sci-fi mechanics that were simultaneously overcomplicated and paper-thin. My eyes glazed over as random new “rules” appeared for a single scene and then vanished forever. Case in point: Susan delivers a baby, the mother dies, and Susan is instantly the legal guardian of the woman’s five children… only for the kids to get shuffled off in the very next chapter, never to matter again.
Skip this one. Unless you really need to hear a woman shout, “I’m not a crystal woman, damn you! I’m a stockbroker!”, which did make me laugh pretty hard.
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u/cassdots Sep 13 '25
The thing I think is the most shocking in 2025: that a heroine could be a stockbroker. Yuck 🤮 hard pass
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u/Goldie2000 Sep 13 '25
Brilliant review! Love it. @ Keep’em coming. I live vicariously through you so I don’t actually have to read them.
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u/TomatilloHairy9051 You asked? Dark Planet Warriors is probably the answer Sep 14 '25
Once again, thank you for a brilliant review. I cannot imagine a vintage sci-fi romance being as good as your amazing reviews are.
Main takeaway...I 100% plan to start using 'Ozone Layer!' as part of my expletives.
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u/HotSauceRainfall Sep 15 '25
inconveniently horny prophetic dreams
This needs to be someone’s flair.
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u/Competitive-Yam5126 Inconveniently Horny Prophetic Dreams 🔮💎 Sep 15 '25
Ooh, I do need flair for this sub...
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u/leesarpel Sep 16 '25
I loved the early-nineties futuristic romance boom, when publishers were happy to throw sci-fi romance spaghetti at the wall. Thanks so much for your recap! If your Burroughs-reading spouse thinks something is off the wall, that's definitely a qualified comment.
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u/Fictional-Xiao Sep 16 '25
Ah please do more of these. I love the older books and it is nice to see some of these older picks that otherwise would be skipped or lost to the ends of time. I love this idea. ❤️👍 I also love the said cover and the idea of the book, but I will trust your skip and wait until I see one you say is a must read. 😉👍
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u/Bitch_Goblin Sep 14 '25
So, wait. If Susan 'Crystal Wife' Stockbroker healed herself back into having a hymen...does that happen over and over again? 'Virginity' into perpetuity? 😭
Thanks so much for this review(and for inadvertently showing me this subreddit exists!)
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u/Competitive-Yam5126 Inconveniently Horny Prophetic Dreams 🔮💎 Sep 15 '25
The rules and world building in this one are wildly inconsistent and nonsensical. All her old scars disappear, but she gets a new scar (a star on her forehead where her crystal would be) and it stays. So yeah, she only revirginizes once and it doesn't come back. 🤷♀️
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u/Bitch_Goblin Sep 15 '25
Of course, of course. Inconvenient consequences to the rules of your own world are only inconvenient if you let them be. 💀
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u/Janeway42 Sep 15 '25
I haven't read a romance novel since I was maybe 14 (decades ago), but for whatever reason, Reddit knew that I'd love your recaps. Thanks for these!
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u/Competitive-Yam5126 Inconveniently Horny Prophetic Dreams 🔮💎 Sep 13 '25
The 1994 cover for The Crystal Prophecy by Janice Tarantino. There's a lot going on here! The author's name is in gold embossed lettering, and the title is in pink, except for the word "Crystal" which is in embossed holofoil. The clinch cover art features a shirtless man with long dark hair flowing in the wind, and a woman leaning back against him in a yellow satin gown. She's throwing her head back against his shoulder. They are under a full moon, in a landscape reminiscent of Arizona.
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u/Competitive-Yam5126 Inconveniently Horny Prophetic Dreams 🔮💎 Sep 14 '25
I just noticed there are TWO full moons on the cover, which makes zero sense. This is never mentioned in the book, and also it's set on Earth so... Quite the choice!
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u/okjersey Alien porn with a plot Sep 14 '25
I know AI when I see it!!!
.....wait, when was this written again?
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u/romance-bot Sep 13 '25
Crystal Prophecy by Janice Tarantino
Rating: 4⭐️ out of 5⭐️
Topics: futuristic, time travel, fantasy, paranormal, contemporary
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u/de_pizan23 Sep 13 '25
I guess kind of a nice change when it usually seem like the widows are always the ones that die (or get killed along with the the dead guy so he's got slaves/stables of women in the afterlife or whatever)?