Another Turn Around the SFR Galaxy

I'm back from our holiday hiatus and have been plunked down squarely in the coordinator's seat of something I really hadn't planned on. Because it's January, and that means...

The SFR Galaxy Awards are coming!

For the second year in a row (and probably my last), I've been asked to take the reins and shoulder the responsibilities so the awards can again be presented at the end of January. Although I hadn't planned on the added time commitment in my schedule, my deep-down gut feeling is that these awards are too important to the SFR community as a whole to abandon.

This will, after all, be the seventh successive year that the awards will be presented. In our rapidly changing industry, that's almost an era!

Here's an explanation of what these awards are all about from the SFR Galaxy Awards site.

_________________

What is the “SFR Galaxy Awards”?

The SFR Galaxy Awards is an annual, multi-award event for science fiction romance books. Launched in 2012 by bloggers Laurie A. Green of Spacefreighters Lounge and Heather Massey of The Galaxy Express, the goal of this event is to honor a variety of standout stories.

How is this award event different?

The theme of the SFR Galaxy Awards is inclusiveness. Instead of giving an award to a single book, this event will recognize the worth of multiple books and/or the standout elements they contain. The basic philosophy behind this approach is to help connect readers with books.

Authors of the winning books will be awarded the “SFR Galaxy Awards” graphic icon for their blogs or websites. Naturally, they are encouraged to share this news on their sites and/or social media venues.

How does it work?

A select group of science fiction romance readers and bloggers will each create unique awards for up to 5 books released in that year. Judges will create award categories based on criteria of their own choosing. The goal is to deliver a group of awards that are fun, unique, meaningful, and informative for readers.

The awards can range from serious to fun to quirky. Examples: "Best Interstellar Kiss;" "Most Plausible Use of Technology;" “Best Worldbuilding;” “Funniest Line of Dialogue Overheard in a Space Station Bar.”

On January 31st, the awards for the previous year will be posted on this blog. Additionally, the news will be shared on various social media sites.

Eligibility

Any science fiction romance book in any given year is eligible (published, self-published, print, digital; all lengths, subgenres, and heat levels). As long as there is a cover and a buy link available (including free or discounted books), a judge can consider a book for an award. Although current year book titles are the focus, the judges may also select a title from a prior year and may select a film, television series, video, graphic novel or game containing science fiction romance. 

Books released by any of the current judges or coordinators are ineligible.

_________________

One of things that makes the SFR Galaxy Awards so unique is that the authors don't submit their own books for consideration. Judges--who are book bloggers, avid readers and reviewers--make their selections from the books they've read that have made a lasting impression, so an author may be completely unaware that they are an award winner until it's announced on the site or they're contacted by the coordinator.

Please mark your calendars for Thursday, January 31st, and tune in to this year's award rounds, which normally begin at 8:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, followed by a new round posted every hour. You can also sign up to follow the SFR Galaxy Awards site, as shown on the right sidebar of that site.

Hope to see you there!

Our Thyme was not Endless - A Grateful Goodbye

As I've mentioned a few times on this blog, we had a very fun and exciting 2018 in our Thoroughbred endeavors after our trainer, Justin Evans, brought home a wonderful four-year-old race mare that he'd bought at the January Keeneland Sale in Kentucky.

Endless Thyme is the daughter of a champion sire and she'd already won a race at the iconic Churchill Downs, with two more back-to-back wins at Belterra Park a few months earlier in the summer of 2017. We were very excited to be offered half-ownership of this very promising mare.

Thyme ended 2018 with eight starts at four different tracks and never finished off the board, with two wins, three seconds and three thirds--a very impressive record! We had friends and family with us to celebrate when she won this race in August by a spectacular seven length margin!

Sadly, Thyme was entered in a claiming race on December 29th, and was promptly claimed by a new owner. We'll miss her very much, and we wish her every success with her new connections.

For us, 2018 will forever be the Year of Endless Thyme.

Just a few days ago, I was surprised to discover a video that my iPhone had spontaneously created that captured a few moments we shared with Thyme and watching the morning workouts at Albuquerque Downs on July 3rd, 2018. I had no idea my phone had created it--complete with a soundtrack--until I stumbled on it. It will forever be a very special keepsake for us.

I'm happy to have this chance to share it with you.

Have a great week.

Boldly Going Fourth: An Unexpected Winner #SFRGalaxyAward #scifirom

Unexpected

A Scifi Romance Novella

Goodreads | Webpage

Amazon | Other Retailers

So Unexpected has lived up to its name yet again. Much to my amazement, it won a SFR Galaxy Award last week (my fourth now since the awards began), for one of the best and most interesting aliens. Of course I love my two MCs, but it's always great to learn someone else did too, and enough that they chose it as one of their standout SFR titles of the year. It's restored my faith that maybe my particular brand of SFR has an audience, albeit a small one. You can see judge Jo Jones' other selections HERE, and check out the rest of the winners and info on the awards themselves HERE.

Huge congrats also to fellow crew mate Greta on her first SFR Galaxy Award (and long overdue!), and my thanks to the judges for their time and consideration, and to the creators and organizers for their efforts. May the awards long continue!

Status Update
Brace yourselves but...I have actually finished the edits on Reunion! A shock, right? At least, I've done the sections my editor highlighted. I still need to do another full read through to be sure I'm happy (ha!), but the supposedly difficult bit is done.

Chook Update
We are about to embark on the Great Chicken Run Build this week! It's going to mean disruption for my girls, and rather cramped accommodation for them for a while, but hopefully by the end they'll appreciate it all. I know my back will be grateful at not having to crawl around to clean and restock their current run.
Kala and Phasma now seem fully settled though ranking bottom of the pile. Phasma is still very antisocial, while Kala is quite happy to get up close and investigate. Hopefully next week I'll have plenty of pics of them enjoying their new luxury run!

I'm totally, jaw-droppingly flabbergasted

I've won an SFR Galaxy award! Or maybe I should say Puss won a Galaxy award. Hey, I'm not complaining. I'm one of Puss's greatest fans. And if I ever had any qualms about writing a follow-up to her first adventure, that's gone by the wayside.

Hearty congratulations also to my fellow Spacefreighters blogger, Pippa Jay, for winning yet another Galaxy award for her latest release Unexpected. (You'll find it on the right sidebar).

On behalf of Puss I'd like to thank the organisers and judges for the SFR Galaxy awards. She's as pleased as I am with the recognition (but between you and me, she's totally unsurprised).

For those who haven't met Puss she's an alien feline with a few smarts. But she's still an awful lot like the Earth cats at your place.

You can read about her in For the Greater Good.

A Human settlement is destroyed and all signs point to an Yrmak raid as Imperial agents Tian Axmar and Brent Walker scour the site for clues. One thing they never expected to find was a survivor, a rare alien feline with unusual talents.

As tensions between Humans and Yrmaks ratchet to the point of no return, Tian and Brent must bring all their cyborg skills to bear as they follow a dangerous trail of deception and misdirection.

The feline, now dubbed Puss and strongly bonded to Tian, holds the key to many of the questions driving the investigation. Unfortunately, that bond drives a wedge between Brent and Tian’s working relationship, leaving Brent with second thoughts about his decision to become a cyborg.

As the evidence unfolds, it becomes clear that a devious plot to incite an interspecies war will strike at the very heart of the Empire. With lives at risk, there’s no time to waste. Racing against the clock, Brent, Tian, and Puss must stop the planned carnage, and this time for Brent and Tian… it’s personal.

Buy the book at Amazon B&N Kobo iBooks

On Writing -- Muse 0: Distractions 4

So, I did it. I opted out of the next Pets in Space collection...provided there even IS a next Pets in Space collection. For the last two years, I've invested a major chunk of my time in writing and revising two successive Pets in Space novellas, and in blogging, tweeting, FBing and promoting the collection. (A genuine and valuable learning experience!)

It was a very difficult decision to send an email to the organizers telling them in advance I was opting out, but my aim is to get back on my professional track and start kicking out more of my own titles next year. I planned to get right on it. I rolled up my sleeves to tackle my next two projects, and...

Well. Easier said than done, as it turns out. Distractions are the devil, and lately I've had my share of them.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi!

In just four days! Definitely a major distraction! How is a writer supposed to write when the anticipation (and/or dread) is so high? Please, please, please, Hollywood, don't ruin a standard in storytelling that's stood for decades--most of my lifetime, in fact--by turning out yet another glib, depressing piece of motion picture garbage. Don't do that to my beloved Star Wars. Don't you dare!

The movie trailers and previews look promising...

 



But, well, we've seen that before only to have the film do a big, fat belly flop.

Again, I say, don't you do to Star Wars what you've done to so many great ideas. Ruin them. I'm holding you accountable, Hollywood. Me and millions of other fans. I hope you're shaking in your boots right now. You should be!

This latest installment better darn well live up to the bar that's been set.

And we'll find out in just four days!

Taking on the 2017 SFR Galaxy Awards

Several years ago Heather Massey had a wonderful idea to create an award program for Science Fiction Romance that focused on different stand-out aspects of different books (and the occasional movie, graphic novel or video game). The whole point behind the awards was to help readers find books they'd really enjoy reading. We teamed up together to launch the first SFR Galaxy Awards for 2011. This year marks the 6th anniversary of the awards.

Recently, Heather contacted me to see if I'd have any interest in hosting the awards for 2017, because life was just a little too full for her this year. I agreed to take the reins, at least for this next round. And so the awards will go on.

Look for the announcements to begin posting the morning of January 30th in their usually pattern--one round per hour. We also have a new judge this year, and you can meet her, as well as get re-acquainted with our returning judges, on the SFR Galaxy Awards site.

I hope you'll tune in for the festivities when they roll out in January.

The Holidays
 
Tralalalalala. It's almost Christmas! Seriously. How did that happen? Wasn't it January just last week?

I love the holidays, but they do bring their fair share of time-gobbling must-do's. Shopping, attending parties and events, decorating, wrapping, and writing out cards.

Now that I'm retired, I have no excuse not to slow down and smell the Poinsettias, so I have to allow myself the seasonal break even though it's going to cut into my writing time. After all, the holidays only come once a year, and each year, there are fewer ahead to look forward to.

Life's too short not to celebrate.

But then...

A Personal Loss

This was a very sad event indeed, so I won't go into detail and depress everyone, but suffice it to say we recently lost a long-time friend to ALS. Of all the things I'm juggling right now, this one has been the most difficult to deal with. No amount of organization or planning can "fix" the loss of a friend. No amount of holiday festivities can overcome the sadness. No recounting the memories or the good times can bring back the past.

Sometimes life is like a steamroller. It's going to flatten you as it rolls on toward the future.

There's a movie called The Village in which the residents of the small town often gather to share a big feast. Before they begin, they say a prayer.

It starts: "Thank you for the time we have been given..."

Yes. That.

Sorry to end my blog on such a somber note, but of all the setbacks mentioned, grief has packed the biggest wallop of them all.

Thanks for stopping by. And have a great week.

Stopping to Smell the Roses--Excerpt and More

While in the midst of revising, re-working and re-plotting my next full-length novel, The Outer Planets, I often had to look at a passage and ask, "But what about the roses?"

In what amounted to disassembling the entire story and then deciding which of Humpty Dumpty's pieces needed to be pieced back together again, it required writing some pretty major chunks of the manuscript from scratch to serve as the glue. And that led to some issues. The contrast between the original, highly-polished scenes and the newly penned material was "in-your-face" evident. The "roses" were missing.

"Stopping to smell the roses" is my analogy for layering-in sensory detail, emotions and mental processing to every scene. Being a total pantser, getting the bare bones down and then fleshing in these elements during a later pass seems to be the process that works best.

The subject of The Outer Planets and stopping to smell the roses makes a great segway into this excerpt, where the heroine taps into her deep appreciation for nature.

Imagine being aboard a planetary research vessel while orbiting Jupiter. The year is 2040 and more than a year has passed since you've enjoyed anything as sensory as a quiet walk in the park. You spend your days enclosed in a finite artificial environment of metals, carbons and plastics, breathing scrubbed oxygen and drinking recycled water. And then one day, you walk into the ship's Biodeck research lab...

Lissa took the TL lift to main deck and walked to the Biodeck entrance, stepping through the huge, transparent doors into the botanical realm. It took time for her eyes and senses to adjust to the dense mist and high humidity. She drew in a deep, invigorating breath. The air hung heavy with oxygen and the heady smells of nature.

Brushing droplets of water from the surface of a heart-shaped leaf, Lissa rubbed the moisture between her fingers. Cool. Wet. Organic. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, absorbing the garden through her pores. Nowhere else on the Bradley could she feel so near to Earth, so close to the memory of nature. Nowhere else could she delight in the aroma of blossoms and pungent tang of herbal perfumes.

 

She walked between the stark hydroponic cubes of vegetables growing in rock wool and past the hazy green of algae tanks to stare spellbound at the jungle ecosystem that occupied one section of the huge lab. Tall trees stretched toward the high ceiling, clothed in vines and slippered with ferns and creepers. Vibrant red and orange blooms exploded in the dense green backdrop.

Heaven. Lissa sighed. Heaven in space.

The characters in The Outer Planets develop a deep appreciation for Earth and nature during their long voyage, but these sentiments also have a much darker side--and that behavior is expressed through the villain's POV.

Inherit the Stars to be featured on Backlist to the Future

Ever wonder if there are some really great SFR books out there that you may have missed in the years and months gone by? That became the basis for bestselling author Cara Bristol's new Thursday blog series, Backlist to the Future.

Each week, Cara will highlight a SFR book that has been out for at least six months. The blog includes the usual content like blurb, excerpt, author bio and sales links, but it will also have a special section written by the author where they talk a little about the book's background, backstory or special notes about the story.

You can read more on Cara Bristol's Backlist to the Future info page.

Catching you up to date, featured books have included:

Prophecy by Lea Kirk (Feb 2) where Lea reveals the double double trouble that pushed back the debut of her author career by many years.

Cerelia's Choice by D.A. Hill (Jan 26) where the author dishes on why they wrote the book without even realizing sci-fi romance was a genre.

On Thursday, February 9th, my 2015 novel, Inherit the Stars will be featured, and in the author's section I describe two of the things that make this novel a little different from other science fiction romance stories. Cara created a beautiful graphic for my book's appearance, and here it is:

Pets in Space Wins Two SFR Galaxy Awards

As Donna mentioned in her blog on Friday, we had four--count 'em, four!--SFR Galaxy Award winners associated with Spacefreighters Lounge.

Wow! What an honor. It was especially cool to have winners because this is the 5th Anniversary of the awards. (Check out the special banner below that was created by my--and Pippa's-- fabulous cover artist, Danielle Fine, for the occasion.

Donna's Fools Rush In and Pippa's Quickshot both scored an award, and the Pets in Space collection (which includes my story StarDog) pulled in two more--for Best Anthology and Best Interstellar Menagerie.

Pets in Space has had a wonderful run since its debut in October, previously being named one of the Best Books of 2016 in E-Originals Fiction by LibraryJournal.com.

Here's what the SFR Galaxy Award judges had to say about Pets in Space:

Here's a reminder that this collection of terrific science fiction romance stories -- *with pets* -- will only be available as a complete set until April and then the book will go out of e-print forever. You can read more on Amazon > Pets in Space.

Have a great week!

Breaking the Habit

Last year I achieved a total of 100K words. I would have loved that to have been one novel. It wasn't. I had a batch of novellas and shorts stories, written from scratch or finished off from the previous year. That's okay. Right now, I want to have several things out to increase my visibility. I plan to go back to writing novels next year.

But one of the longest projects from last year is also the freakiest. Freaky because it's a genre I'd never written and rarely read, with a paranormal creature I said I'd never write, and written in first person POV which in general I dislike reading. (The moral of this story is never say never, BTW). As if that wasn't enough reason for a meltdown, it also has a request on it from a publisher.

But aside from all that, the thing that bothers me most is the time scale. Now, I would love to write and publish more than I currently do. I try. But it never works out. Generally it takes me a year to eighteen months from the moment I put down the first words until I consider the work ready for submission (short stories being the exception - that's usually three months tops). The recent freaky WIP was written as part of NaNoWriMo, though that finished with the story at around 36K. As of last Friday, it's 46K. But because it had a request on it, rather than setting it aside once the original draft was complete and coming back to it, I've pushed ahead nonstop. Apart from working on a couple of short stories and finishing off an older project, I've been revising, editing, researching and rewriting this since November. That isn't how I normally work. And once I got close to submission, I freaked out. Because even though I've probably put as much, if not more effort and hours into this, it still feels I haven't spent enough time and love on it compared to all the others. Submitting a novella after just three months?! Inconceivable! Lol.

I *could* have spent another month on it. I'm not convinced that it would have been any more ready. On Friday I hit send, just three and a bit months after starting the story in November. The problem is I feel like I've now set myself a precedent. If I can produce one 46K novella in three months, then I should be able to do four a year. Or two 90K novels. I'd love to do that. However, with other things that are currently going on behind the scenes, I can't commit to that. Not this year. And it feels like I've done NaNoWriMo all over again by working solidly and intensely on the same piece all this time. I'm exhausted! Hence the lack of blogging (sorry!)
So now the freaky story has gone, I feel relieved instead of the usual anxiety over submissions. It's been such an obsession over the past few weeks to hone this story and have it right and out that now it's like I've been released, lol.

Have you ever had a project that was totally out of your comfort zone? One that made you question your sanity?

Pippa's Journal

Gethyon was accorded Most Awesome Psychic Talent in the recent SFR Galaxy Awards! Woot! With Keir winning Best May to September Romance last year, I'm proud to call myself a double SFR Galaxy Award winner. :) To check out the other awesome winners, please visit the awards site HERE.

 Also this month I have set a new record for myself. I currently have four different pieces out on submission. FOUR! I've had the same piece subbed out to two or three different places before, but never different works. Admittedly one is a novella to my editor for her professional opinion on whether it's worthy to self publish, but still. That's just as nerve-wracking. I also have two shorts scheduled for self publishing in October and November. The PNR is with my editor, while the SFR is due for completion this month alongside another I plan to release next year. Potentially I could have six pieces out over the next year. That's pretty mind-blowing. Of course, most of those I have no control over. Watch this space! (Update - actually, I got a rejection yesterday. But within a few hours I'd had a request on something else, so I am STILL on four submissions. Publishing is just crazy!).

Happenings
Keir is still currently unavailable as I wait for the new contract from Kensington, but you still have until the 14th February to enter the giveaways for either a now rare print edition or my one remaining digital version HERE. There's also an ultra-rare print edition of Tales from the SFR Brigade to be won. In fact, right now you could win my entire backlist in one format or another. My YA SciFi Gethyon is part of a huge giveaway sponsored by Champagne Books HERE, and it comes as one of forty titles with a Kindle paperwhite. Plus you have one more day to enter a SciFi romance giveaway run by Lyn Brittan which includes my short story Terms & Conditions Apply HERE.

Breathless Press are running a critique session from the 14th-16th February. Feedback is always helpful, and the freaky story I submitted got a full request as part of a similar event they ran for NaNoWriMo.

The SFR Galaxy Award winners were announced at the end of January, and you can check them all out HERE.

You still have until the 14th February to submit to the special Women Destroy SF edition of Lightspeed Magazine. Go HERE for details. C'mon girls, let's blow them away!

Ping Pong
Bad Boys and Redeemable Heroes. Laurie and Donna, I'm with you. Even the most evil of villains has to have a shot of redemption, even if they prove their villainy by refusing to take it. A non-redeemable hero? No. To me, that's a contradiction. And it does entirely depend on the story and circumstances as to whether I forgive infidelity. I can't explain that without giving away one of my own upcoming plots. I'm anxious to see how people take it because I struggled with it myself. How much are people willing to forgive in a certain situation?

Watching Star Wars Revenge of the Sith made me change my feelings over Darth Vader as a redeemed character. When we only had the original trilogy we knew he was evil, and although I always felt he was a bit slow in leaping to Luke's defence at the end of ROTJ, I felt he'd earned his salvation. However, after knowing he killed younglings in the Jedi temple through the prequels, I now can't forgive him. That was one step too far for me (I still don't buy his reason for turning to the Dark Side anyhow, but that's another discussion).

The 2012 SFR Galaxy Awards

About the 2012 SFR Galaxy Awards

The SFR Galaxy Awards is an annual, multi-award event for science fiction romance launched in 2012 to honor a variety of standout stories.

The theme of the SFR Galaxy Awards is inclusiveness. Instead of giving an award to a single book, this event recognizes the worth of multiple books and/or the standout elements they contain. The basic philosophy behind this approach is to help connect readers with books.

Judges create award categories based on criteria of their own choosing. The goal is to deliver a group of awards that are fun, unique, meaningful, and informative for readers.

Below is a list of awards, books and authors (or producer, director, actors in the case of films). A "++" denotes books that are multiple category winners. An "aa" denotes authors with multiple category wins. Presenter names are linked to the announcements on the SFR Galaxy Awards web site with details on why the book was chosen for the award.

Announcing the 2012 SFR Galaxy Awards Winners


Best Alien Fertility Festival
Refugees on Urloon by Melisse Aires  aa
Presented by Anna McLain

Best Alien Hero
Alien ‘N’ Outlaw by KC Burn
Presented by Charlee Allden

Best BSG Inspired SFR
Cold Warriors by Clare Dargin
Presented by Rae Lori

Best Channeling of Django Unchained In A Steampunk Romance
Nights of Steel by Nico Rosso
Presented by Heather Massey

Best Depiction of Reality Entertainment in the Future
Alien Blood by Melisse Aires  aa
Presented by Charlee Allden

Best Disaster Re-Write
Wreck of the Nebula Dream by Veronica Scott
Presented by Marlene Harris

Best Enemies to Lovers Story
Fortune’s Hero by Jenna Bennett
Presented by Charlee Allden

Best Excuse for a Re-read
Break Out (revised and expanded edition) by Nina Croft
Presented by Marlene Harris

Best Heavyset Hero
A Gift For Boggle by PJ Schnyder
Presented by Heather Massey

Best How Was I To Know It Was an Alien Baby
Mothership by Martin Leicht
Presented by Jo Jones

Best I Will Remember You Even If I Forget You
Balance of Terror by K.S. Augustin ++
Presented by Jo Jones

Best I Wish I Had One of my Own
Stud by Cheryl Brooks
Presented by Jo Jones

Best May-December Romance
Keir by Pippa Jay
Presented by Anna McLain

Best Misdirection by a Shape Shifter
The Royal Scam - The Martian Alliance #1 by Gini Koch
Presented by Jo Jones

Best New Arrival From Another Genre Award
Dragonfly by Erica Hayes
Presented by Laurie A. Green

Best Non-Traditional Romance
Stellarnet Rebel by J.L. Hilton
Presented by Heather Massey

Best On-The-Edge-of-My-Seat Premise
Ghost Planet by Sharon Lynn Fisher ++
Presented by Heather Massey

Best Recursion
Kicking Ashe by Pauline Baird Jones ++
Presented by Anna McLain

Best Repercussions of Living Off-Planet
Mako's Bounty by Diane Dooley +++
Presented by Anna McLain

Best Sci-Fi Romance Film Discovery of 2012
Happy Accidents 
Presented by Heather Massey

Best SFR Adaptation from An Unrelated Genre Classic
Romeo and Juliet: The War by Max Work, Skan Srisuwan, Stan Lee, Terry Douglas
Presented by Rae Lori

Best SFR Film of the Year
Looper
Written and directed by Rian Johnson, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blount
Presented by Donna S. Frelick

Best Subgenre Mash-Up
Kilts and Kraken (The Gaslight Chronicles) by Cindy Spencer Pape
Presented by Donna S. Frelick

Best Time-Travel Romance
The Mine by John A. Heldt
Presented by Marlene Harris

Best Use of a Historic Monument in A Future Setting
Bitter Harvest by Kim Knox
Presented by Charlee Allden

Best When a Space Pirate Is Not a Space Pirate
Mako’s Bounty by Diane Dooley +++
Presented by Jo Jones

Best Worldbuilding in a Novel or Series
The Psy-Changling series by Nalini Singh
Presented by Donna S. Frelick

Closest Experience to "Boldly Going"
Isolation by A. B. Gayle
Presented by Marlene Harris

Couple That Worked Hardest For Happily Ever After
Moon and Srin from Balance of Terror by KS Augustin ++
Presented by Heather Massey

Cutest Android (also Best Use of the Winter Solstice)
How the Glitch Saved Christmas by Stacy Gail
Presented by Marlene Harris

Dale Carnegie Prize for Novel or Series Most Likely to Win Friends and Influence People 
Born to Darkness (first in the Fighting Destiny SFR series) by Suzanne Brockmann
Presented by Donna S. Frelick

First Runner-Up/Most Ambitious SFR Film of the Year 
Cloud Atlas
Written by  David Mitchell, Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski; directed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis; starring Tom Hanks, Halle Barry and others
Presented by Donna S. Frelick

Hottest Sizzle/Best Couple of the Year
Man O’ War Christopher Redmond and Naval Intelligence agent Louise Shaw
Skies of Fire: The Ether Chronicles by Zoe Archer
Presented by Donna S. Frelick

Most Eclectic Collection of Lesbian Speculative Stories
Adventuresses by Angelia Sparrow
Presented by Heather Massey

Most Entertaining Sidekick
Kicking Ashe by Pauline Baird Jones ++
Presented by Laurie A. Green

Most Fascinating Hero
Mako's Bounty by Diane Dooley +++
Presented by Laurie A. Green

Most Out of This World Couples Book Cover for 2012
Assassins in Love by Kris DeLake
Presented by Rae Lori

Most Romantic Moment
Ghost Planet by Sharon Lynn Fisher ++
Presented by Charlee Allden

Runner-Up/Novel Most Likely to Appeal to Hard-Core SF Fans
Synthetic Dreams by Kim Knox
Presented by Donna S. Frelick

Yummiest Use of Nerd Reference Overload
Geek Love by Mechele Armstrong
Presented by Rae Lori

The SFR Galaxy Awards Are Coming!

Time is getting close, and although the first quiet rumblings of the First Annual SFR Galaxy Awards has begun, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know the deets about this fun fiesta celebration of Science Fiction Romance!

What Are the SFR Galaxy Awards?

The SFR Galaxy Awards is an annual, multi-award event for science fiction romance releases. Launched in 2012, the goal of this event is to honor a variety of standout stories.

What's Unique About the Awards?

The theme of the SFR Galaxy Awards is inclusiveness. Instead of giving an award to a single release, this event will recognize the worth of multiple books and/or the standout elements they contain. The basic philosophy behind this approach is to help connect readers with books.

How Do the Awards Work?

A select group of science fiction romance readers and bloggers will each create unique awards for up to five releases in that year. Judges will create award categories based on criteria of their own choosing. The goal is to deliver a group of awards that are fun, unique, meaningful, and informative for readers. The awards can range from serious to fun to quirky.

Here's just a taste of a few of the many awards that will be bestowed this year:

Best Alien Fertility Festival

Best Alien Hero

Best Depiction of Reality Entertainment in the Future

Best Subgenre Mash-Up

Closest Experience to Boldly Going

Novel Most Likely to Appeal to Hard-Core Science Fiction Fans

Who Created the Awards and Who are the Judges?

The SFR Galaxy Awards are the brainstorm of outstanding SFR champion, supporter and author, Heather Massey, with collaboration by Laurie A. Green.

The eight award judges are well-known SFR reviewers, bloggers, authors and supporters including:

Anna McLain, renown SFR reviewer and supporter
Charlee Allden of Smart Girls Sci-Fi
Donna S. Frelick of Spacefreighters Lounge
Heather Massey of The Galaxy Express
Jo Jones of Mixed Book Bag
Laurie A. Green of SFR Brigade
Marlene Harris of Reading Reality
Rae Lori of the SFR Readers Challenge

When Will the Awards be Announced?

On January 31st the awards will be posted on the SFR Galaxy Awards site. Additionally, the news will be shared on various social media sites.

Who Created the SFR Galaxy Awards Badge?

The awards badge was created and donated by fabulous cover artist Kanaxa, who has been very supportive of the SFR community.

Who Created the SFR Galaxy Awards Web Site/Blog?

The very talented Charlee Allden created and manages the SFR Galaxy Awards web site.


Hope to see you on January 31st at the SFR Galaxy Awards site for the big announcements! The First Annual SFR Galaxy Awards

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