Sci-Fi Book Recs!

This week we’re talking about one of my favorite subjects—let’s talk about books! 

It never fails to blow my mind when a writer mentions they don’t read. Maybe you’re one of them. But I firmly believe, and will continue to say,  that reading will improve your own writing. 

Yes, you can take classes and get degrees that will teach you how to write. But if you don’t read and absorb emotions from the page, it’s like following a recipe step by step but never stopping to taste what your cooking. 

Back to my favorite topic! Books! I write both fantasy and science fiction, and though I read basically all genres (sorry gridmark, you’re a touch too dark for me) I glom SFF reads. Recently I’ve devoured some excellent sci-fi! So, let me gush:

Re-Coil by J.T. Nicholas

Out on a salvage mission with a skeleton crew, Carter Langston is murdered by animated corpses left behind on this ship. Yet in this future, everyone’s consciousness backup can be safely downloaded into a brand-new body, and all you’d lose are the memories of what happened between your last backup and your death. But when Langston wakes up in his new body, he is immediately attacked in the medbay and has to fight once again for his life—and his immortality. Because this assassin aims to destroy his core forever.

Determined to find his shipmates and solve this evolving mystery, Langston locates their tech whiz Shay Chan, but two members are missing and perhaps permanently killed. Langston and Chan are soon running for their lives with the assassin and the corporation behind him in hot pursuit.

What Langston and Chan ultimately find would signal the end of humanity. What started as a salvage mission just might end up saving the world.

This futuristic, as opposed to near-future, sci-fi plays off the idea of our souls consisting of the neural pathways that we’ve been able to contain on a computer chip and when you die, you can be re-coiled into a new body. 

There’s quite a bit of repetition in describing how different people mentally handle being re-coiled into various bodies. Some readers/writers go the repetitive route, some, like me, avoid it. To each their own. But the plot line is tight, intriguing, and the emotional connection between Langston and his former crew mate is intense. 

I highly suggest this if you’re in the mood for a sci-fi with a heavy dose of mystery, tension, and a nice romance sub-plot.

The Blighted Stars by Megan E. O’Keefe

When a spy is stranded on a dead planet with her mortal enemy, she must first figure out how to survive before she can uncover the conspiracy that landed them both there in the first place.

She’s a revolutionary. Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they’re found and Naira Sharp knows the reason why. The all-powerful Mercator family has been controlling the exploration of the universe for decades, and exploiting any materials they find along the way under the guise of helping humanity’s expansion. But Naira knows the truth, and she plans to bring the whole family down from the inside.

He’s the heir to the dynasty. Tarquin Mercator never wanted to run a galaxy-spanning business empire. He just wanted to study rocks and read books. But Tarquin’s father has tasked him with monitoring the mining of a new planet, and he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.

Disguised as Tarquin’s new bodyguard, Naira plans to destroy his ship before it lands. But neither of them expects to end up stranded on a dead planet. To survive and keep her secret, Naira will have to join forces with the man she’s sworn to hate. And together they will uncover a plot that’s bigger than both of them.

This sci-fi follows off the same theory that our souls can be downloaded into new bodies, making us near immortal. And it’s immortality that’s driving a dirty hunt for an element that will enable us to live even longer. 

Filled with political intrigue, undercover spies, a young scientist, and tangled emotions, The Blighted Stars is a fantastic other-world read!

I know, the second blurb was short. They’re both fantastic reads, I’m just running out of time. I need to catch a plane! And yes, I’ve packed two paperback books and have two queued up on my kindle….I hope I don’t run out of things to read! 

What are you reading this week?

Writing What I Read

This week at the SFF Seven, we're asking: "Do you read in the genre you write?"

What's funny is that my answer is absolutely yes - but that I didn't always write in the genre I read. Does that make sense?

I have always read Fantasy and Science Fiction, since I was a little kid, and I've been reading Romance since I was old enough to walk to the used bookstore to buy my own books, as my mom wouldn't let me read "that trash." (Because she thought Romance was low-brow and anti-feminist, not because of the sex.) But when I started out as a writer, I wrote Creative Nonfiction.

Some of this was timing and coincidence. When I decided I wanted to be a writer instead of a scientist, one of the first classes I took was "Essays on Self and Place," from a visiting writer at the university. I fell easily into writing essays and had success with them. My first book was an essay collection. And, sure, I read some essays. I read a lot of essay collections and memoir. But I was always reading them as research and reciprocity.

All that time, what I read for pure enjoyment? Anything with a paranormal/SFF element and plenty of Romance.

It was only after my first book came out that a friend - a bookseller who knew my tastes and sold me hardcover releases of JD Robb, Laurell K. Hamilton, Stephenie Meyer, and Jaqueline Carey - asked me why I wasn't writing in the genres I so clearly loved to read.

Funny that. It simply hadn't occurred to me. But then I started to, I wrote this Fantasy Romance* (not a genre then, but what did I know??) that was SO MUCH FREAKING FUN TO WRITE. I couldn't believe how much more fun I had writing my crazy tale about a scientist who falls into Faerie, becomes a sorceress, and ends up in a bargain with a fae lord to bear his child. I even got a really nice rejection on the book from Stephenie Meyer's agent! (Though it took a long time for me to sell it, which is another tale.)

The rest is history. ~ Waves at catalogue of Epic Fantasy Romances ~ I haven't looked back. Writing what I love to read has absolutely been a great decision.

*The book that became ROGUE'S PAWN

 

Smash All the Things

I don't know that I've ever consciously set out to smash patriarchy in my fiction. I'd rather smash everything I can reach - the definition of family. The definition of worthy and even of human. For that reason, most of  my focus has instead been on what I wish the world could be. Now don't get me wrong. I am no fan of the patriarchy and if I thought I could do it lasting, meaningful damage, I'd sign right up. But I'd rather write about a world where gender or lack thereof matters not in the least. Your limits are your own - not imposed by external forces. 

If there's any patriarchy smashing going on it's in the fact that so many women and nonbinary people of all colors are writing. We may be mocked and our stories made fun of, but we're encroaching on what used to be the purview of white guys and white guys only. Think it's old news? How long ago was it that science fiction was rocked by a bunch of cranky dudes complaining that we'd 'ruined' the genre (I think they said *their* genre) by bringing our perspectives and stories to it? When the women and nonbinary people of all colors started winning awards, the cranky dudes' tiny minds exploded. THAT'S real patriarchy smashing, right there. And I am utterly delighted by it.

The Return of the Bug-Eyed Monster

Are any of you old enough to remember when aliens *weren't* cute-ish and semi-benevolent? 

SF in particular has been through a couple of stages, all of which reflect the fears of the era each of them represents. 

• Bug-eyed monsters
• Terror of Technology/Science
• Social Issues
• Nuclear Annihilation 
• What it means to be human

There are nuances and shadings to all of them, of course, but if the purpose of science fiction is to mirror the hopes and especially the fears of humanity, I suspect we can extrapolate the future of the genre from it.

Given the issues facing humanity as a whole - the rise of nationalism and the associated cruelty and violence, climate issues and the precipice humanity is fast approaching - we have a lot to process as a collective consciousness.

So yes. I expect more dystopian (think Fallout 4). I expect more utopian - and by utopian, I mean the stories people tell from the depths of their faith in humanity (Star Trek at its most idealistic.) I expect angry, murderous armies of aliens swarming humanity where ever we can be found. I expect stories of small bands facing overwhelming odds. Sure. I figure we'll all be slaying our Nazis in whatever cathartic form makes us froth in glee.

I'd like to think I'm seeing a glimmer of resurgence in interest in actual science. I'd like to think. If that's real, I'd expect to start seeing more stories about how science saves the not just the day  and our intrepid band of cyborg warriors, but the entire world (which is *kinda* what SF is supposed to be - science saving or destroying the day, but I digress and it's possible that's far too narrow a definition of an entire genre.)

Personally, I long for the stories of oppressed populations (human, nonhuman, cyborgs, robots, aliens, what have you) using the power of science and intellect to throw off chains - whether those chains are physical, emotional, mental, or environmental. Rising by the power of thought rather than sheer physical might (though there's fun in that, too) feels super empowering to me. Even though I be no great wit. :) I'm certainly no great physical power, either, so maybe there's that.

Where will the genre go? Where ever our fears and our hopes and our dreams as a species go, that's where.

What World May Be

In no way can I tell you where I got the bug put into my author brain, but here it is. We can dissect it if you wish.

The bug has many legs. It's tiny and hard to see, but it likes to talk. It says that the way to build a believable world/universe/magic system is to limit your change to one major concept. In UF that's easy. Magic happens. The details of how/why/consequences are where the interesting stuff comes in. In SF(R) the major accepted thing is generally space flight. Then it's a matter of what happens when our heroes encounter aliens or aliens encounter them or what happens when the onboard computer says, "I'm sorry, Dave. I afraid I can't do that."

For the most part, the broad strokes don't need a lot of research in my experience. It's the details that do. Take the space flight thing. We're in a space ship! We're getting away from the bad guys! Until they blow out our engine (right before you take the shot that destroys them - thanks for that.) And now we're adrift. We're inside a solar system. So hey! Solar sail! No problem! Uh. Wait. So. Exactly WHAT can I use as a solar sail? Oh hey look. NASA has a position paper out about a theoretical new kind of sail called an e-sail. Hey. That looks cool! So. How fast could we go with that? How far?

Funny. That summary white paper can't answer those questions. And neither can I. So off to ask people with actual training. You do know there are Reddits and forums and message boards where actual rocket scientists hang out? There're even a bunch on Facebook. A few of them will point and laugh when I ask newbie questions, but 99% of the folks really want the rest of us to be science-literate and will offer encyclopedic answers to questions about what kind of acceleration can I expect a ship to put on with a sail blah, blah, red giant, post helium flash, blah. 

Jeffe saw that question go up in one forum and can attest to the awesome answers I got from a handful of really bright people. Made me wish the solar sail figured into more of the story, but alas. We have aliens to vanquish yet. 

Yes. Searching the interwebs for stuff first is the right thing to do - I do find that I can usually garner a broad base understanding of something like nano - technology, but when it comes to how someone would harness nanotech to weaponize it, I didn't have anyone to ask. I had to read and read and then make some guesses. Guesses that I might have gotten dead wrong (though no one has said anything about it yet if I did.) 

And there's the other thing the bug likes to whisper. Don't get so caught up in the research and in being RIGHT that you sacrifice story. Readers will forgive a lot if they're shown a good time inside a story. 

So sure. Research. But make sure you get out there after those villians at great cost to your heroes and heroines. 

Researching the Future - How Do You Do It?

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "doing the research" - and what that means for building new fantasy or alien cultures.

I'm at a weekend conference sponsored by my local RWA chapter LERA. We brought in Michael Hauge to teach his Story Mastery. Great stuff. Yesterday was his general seminar, and today a dozen of us are doing an intensive advanced story mastery session where we workshop our concepts with him. I'm super excited because I'm working on SOMETHING TOTALLY NEW.

So new that it's science fiction.

Agent Sarah has already seen the concept and given it the thumbs up, so now I'm just working up the details. With my COLLABORATOR.

There are so many new and exciting things here that I can't wait to share.

At any rate, being science fiction, in a universe we're basically creating whole hog, albeit on the foundation of our own, there's a lot of worldbuilding involved. One interesting challenge is that my heroine is a scientist, but obviously operating at a much more sophisticated level technologically.

I know she's made a mistake in her past. I know the results of the mistake and that it has to do with genetic manipulation. I just need to figure out HOW she might have done it. This will require beefing up my current understanding of genetics and how genes are spliced using modern technology, then extrapolating that to a possible future.

I'll likely do this by going to the current scientific literature, but not the hard core stuff. I'll look for cutting edge research as explained in journals intended for broader consumption, like Nature, Science, or Scientific American. I have an advantage that I'm trained as a scientist, so I know how to read and assimilate that kind of information - but I also know that I'm pretty stale, and I never was an expert in genetics. I won't attempt to read the stuff intended for working scientists because I doubt I could keep up. Certainly not without devoting a lot of attention to it and... I probably don't want to do that.

My favorite way to tackle this sort of thing - the ideal shortcut - is to find someone who is a current expert and picking THEIR brain. There's still no search engine that compares to finding a smart person who knows their field really well and getting them to think about the answer.

So, if anyone knows a cutting-edge genetics researcher... :D

Politics Optional

When two unrelated factions meet, the thing that keeps everyone alive to go home at the end of the day is politics. Unless you're George R. R. Martin.

Case in point: This photo is politics in action. Two felines, both alike in dignity, on the sunny dock, where we lay our scene. (With apologies to Shakespeare) Max (the boy facing the camera) is a neighbor who desperately wants to be accepted by my cats. He is particularly taken with Hatshepsut (foreground). She, being a decade older and wiser than he, has been known to shove him in the water. True story. This moment of détente brought to you by catnip. I'd make a joke about US politics needing some weed, but frankly, I think maybe anti-psychotics are called for at this point.

So there you have it. Do I include politics in my SFF? Absolutely. I contend that it's impossible to avoid

Humans are social animals, which naturally sort themselves into hierarchies as a matter of survival - this is the stuff hardwired into the oldest parts of our brains. When we were still cheetah-snacks wandering the savannahs, the social hierarchy determined who led a group. Who ate first. Who reproduced. Who lived. Who didn't. Jockeying for position within a given social structure is part of being human.

Since Science Fiction is as a genre, one big, open ended 'what comes next?' there's really no way to avoid politics. Which isn't to say that an authors personal political views ought to intrude. They shouldn't, however, I admit that my voice, my experiences and my world view are so colored by my beliefs/thoughts/ideals that I suspect it all bleeds through. If my characters hold political convictions, I want them to belong to those characters, not to me. I'm not writing to make my characters a megaphone for my own views.

That said. I have a fondness for shining light on certain marginalized populations. As a result, many of my characters hold alternative religious views, or are other-abled, or are non-hetero. In all those cases, there are politics surrounding the issues those characters face. And because I'm usually writing romance where HEAs are the expectation, my politics DO slip into the story - I'm going for acceptance and equality. Some days, like today, after more men were killed by police (and I freely admit I will never have the full story on those incidents, but the mounting death toll of young black men in this country is unacceptable) I wonder if inserting politics into writing isn't a duty - a way of saying something, as Elie Wiesel urged - a way of sounding the alarm at enough of a remove that the message of and for compassion slips in beneath a reader's skin and takes root.

I don't know yet how to respond to something that bothers me so deeply about my society. Maybe it requires someone more skilled than I. All I know is that I grew up on the golden-eyed optimism of Star Trek. Apparently, some of that optimism rubbed off on me. Because I do think politics end up in fiction anytime there's more than one character on a page. What I don't know is where the line in the sand lies. At what point does a socially conscious scifi story turn into a morality tale? I'd prefer to stand firmly on SFF side of that equation.

Lady of the Star Wind Flash Fiction



For my cover translation flash fiction, I have the great good fortune of pulling Veronica Scott's cover for LADY OF THE STAR WIND

 

 

Someone groaned. His vocal chords burned, leading him to believe he'd uttered the sound. Good sign. He wasn't sucking vacuum. Yet. Forcing his eyes open cost him what felt like a laser cannon blast to the head, but when his vision twisted into focus, the worst of the pain retreated to a sullen, persistent thump in his left temple.

Blue-gray bulkheads surrounded him. Centuries of space travel and no one had found a way to create space-worthy building materials in anything other than grim. The depressing bit was that it wasn't his grim, blue-gray bulkheads.

"Oh good," a feminine voice said. "You lived." She'd propped a shoulder against the door frame. Lush. Blonde.

He shook off his body's interest. More pressing concerns. "Where am I?"

"Aboard the cruiser Star Wind."

"Star Wind. Solar wind," he said. What the hell had happened to his brain that he tripped over translating a poetic ship's name?

She smiled. "Something like."

Focusing on the weapons strapped to her waist, he said, "A destructive force of nature."

"Unless you're armored." She looked him up a down, brows slanted in amusement. "Very few are."

Star Wind. Destructive. He frowned. "My patrol skiff was under attack."

She nodded.

"You rescued me."

"Of course I did," she crooned. "Because the great big payday tucked away in the piece of space debris you patrol goons were guarding isn't the least bit necessary to keep the Star Wind competitive in this cruel universe."

He clenched his fists. "Pirates."

"I prefer 'force of nature.'"

"So I'm a prisoner."

She snorted and straightened. Stepping back, she tapped the doorframe. The distortion of a force field splintered her features. But not her words laced with bloodthirsty amusement. "Oh no captain. We don't take prisoners. We procure entertainment."

Take A Pinch of This Genre and A Spoonful of That Genre

I don't really give much time or thought to the intricacies of genre, except when I'm trying to pick the best  classification codes and key words for my book at a vendor. I want to help the readers find my book and have a fairly good mutual expectation going on as to what they'll be reading from me. I hope they'll enjoy the story and not be disappointed.

I think I write science fiction romance with adventure.  Or maybe it's space opera with space marines and romantic elements... Or else ancient Egyptian paranormal fantasy romance with adventure. Unless we're calling it Ancient World Romance with fantasy elements. Luckily I guess, no one is trying to slot my books on any shelves at their local bookstore! The world doesn't have nice, neat boundaries any more, if indeed it ever did. I usually have some mythical, mystical or fantastical elements in my scifi romances. While there's no science fiction in my ancient Egyptian tales, they sure can't be classified as 'historical romance" because I take a lot of liberties with details (but backed with in-depth research so I know what I'm changing) and proudly so state ahead of time. Fantasy! Or maybe Paranormal....

I'm livin' in the wide open frontier of book genre classification and loving it! (Except for certain vendors/promo sites/contests who stubbornly do not have a science fiction romance or romance=> science fiction category. I mean, how hard IS that???)

Here's my latest new release, Hostage To The Stars, just out this past week, primarily scifi romance/adventure/suspense with a touch of mystical at one point.

He rescued her from space pirates … but can he keep them both safe from the far greater evil stalking a deserted planet?

Space travel without Kidnap & Ransom insurance? Not a good idea. University instructor and researcher Sara Bridges can’t afford it, so when pirates board her cruise liner, she’s taken captive along with the mistress of a wealthy man, and brought to a deserted planet. When a military extraction team sent to rescue the mistress refuses to take Sara too, she’s left to the mercies of a retired Special Forces soldier, along as consultant.

Reluctantly reactivated and coerced into signing up for the rescue operation to the planet Farduccir where he once was deployed,  Sgt. Johnny Danver just wants to get the job done. But when the team leader leaves one captured woman behind, he breaks away to rescue her himself.

As Johnny and Sara traverse the barren landscape, heading for an abandoned base where they hope to call Sectors Command for help, they find villages destroyed by battle and stripped of all inhabitants. A lone survivor tells a horrific tale of the Sectors’ alien enemy, the Mawreg, returning after being pushed out …

Searching for evidence to give the military, Johnny is captured. He regains consciousness in a Mawreg cage–with Sara next to him. Death is preferable to what the aliens will do to them… And even if they do escape their captors, can they alert the military in time to prevent another invasion of the Sectors?

Standalone sequel to Mission To Mahjundar (mild spoilers for Mahjundar in this story.)

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