Dom Perignon Selections

I'm about to launch my Dom Perignon side bar for the Spacefreighters Lounge Best SFR of all time.

What does Dom Perignon have to do with great SFR? Here's my earlier article to explain:

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Tuesday, September 30, 2008
In Search of Dom Perignon

This is for all the Science Fiction Romance aficionados, and I’m addressing both writers and readers. We’re the mavericks of publishing world, brewers and consumers of a fiction hybrid that’s neither science fiction per se nor romance by definition. It’s both. It’s neither. And it’s something above and beyond.

You could think about it this way. Fine wine is blended from grapes and a few select ingredients. When it becomes wine it becomes something new. Something different. Something more sophisticated. The blending of elements turns it into a thing apart and removed from its origins. It has variety. It can be light, dark, subtle, bold, sweet, surprising.

Thus, my analogy: SciFiRom is a blend that takes romance to new heights and grounds science fiction in the dynamics of human emotion.

So taking my analogy a step further, today I begin my search for the Dom Perignon--the finest champagne--of Science Fiction Romance. I’m looking for novels that represents a perfect blend of sparkling technology, delicious world building and/or captivating human emotions. I have a couple of nominees in mind already, but I’d like to get recommendations from other SciFiRom fans.

So send me your nominations for the best Science Fiction Romance novels in the comments below or email Lgreen2162 AT aol DOT com. (Sorry for the encryption, but I’m on a crusade against spammers.) I’ll start building my Dom Perignon wine cellar of SciFiRom excellence soon.

To qualify, the stories must incorporate realistic scientific details along with imaginative world building and a wonderful romantic tale. These novels are recommended reading for anyone with a love of the genre as well as those who are new to it.

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My first three nominees to the Spacefreighters Lounge Dom Perignon Wine Cellar are:

THE OUTBACK STARS by Sandra McDonald

Compton Award finalist

A fascinating blend of military culture, realistic world-building, Australian mythology and characters in turmoil. Sergeant Terry Myell and Lieutenant JoDenny Scott are two battered survivors of their troubled pasts who meet aboard the Aral Sea, a massive ship that travels the mysterious Alcheringa system to other colonized planets. Doomed by the strict codes of military non-fraternization their attraction seems hopeless, until they step into an ancient alien artifact and trigger a transport system that will change the future of mankind.

GAMES OF COMMAND by Linnea Sinclair

2007 PEARL Award Winner and RITA Award finalist

Captain Tasha "Sass" Sebastian and human-cyborg Admiral Brandon Kel-Paten were once enemies and officers in rival fleets. They have crossed paths as adversaries many times before, but now are forced to serve together as part of a new and very fragile alliance. Sass fears for her career if the hardened and disapproving admiral discovers her secret past, but is shaken when she learns Kel-Paten has a secret of his own--he has overridden his emotional inhibitors and fallen in love with her.

BARRAYARAN by Lois McMaster Bujold

Hugo Award winner

Former Captain Cordelia Naismith set the market as a strong but very female heroine who has abandoned her world to become Lady Vorkosigan to a man from an enemy civilization who was once her captor. When her spouse is chosen as Regent to the next emperor, events take a hellish turn that will propell Cordelia on a dangerous quest against vicious enemies and that could threaten her life and the bonds of her marriage. (Also available as part of CORDELIA'S HONOR, which combines the beginning of Cordelia and Aral Vorkosigan's story in SHARDS OF HONOR with BARRAYAR in one book.)