Uranus Strikes Out

The Challenges of Writing a Near Future SFR

I had a funny thought today that in the process of revising my latest manuscript, Outer Planets, I effectively obliterated a member of our solar system from the mission parameters. Zap! Space dust. (Doesn’t being a writer come with some nifty powers?)

In my original draft of this Near Future Romance, my space exploration vessel was plotted to scout the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus for potential colony sites and resources that could be mined, extracted or otherwise pilfered by a burgeoning colony or two, or absorbed by consumers back on Earth. So why pick on poor Uranus? What did the seventh rock from the Sun ever do to me?

To put it simply, common logic killed Uranus.

First of all, it created a timing problem. My mission takes place from approximately the year 2039 to 2044. As it turns out, Jupiter and Saturn are going to be in close proximity in orbit in approximately November 2041, instead of being at opposite sides of the sun. The timing is perfect. Actually, they’ll be close again sometime in the 2070s but that’s too far in the future for the story I want to create, which I intentionally set within the life span of most readers. There’s a reference in the story to His Majesty, the King of England. Guess who that is? I thought it was kind of a cool thing that when the reference is made to a monarch some 30 years in the future, the reader will know who will most likely be occupying that seat.

But back to Uranus.

First of all, placement in orbit. I simply couldn’t make the inclusion of Uranus work in any feasible way, since although it wasn’t at the opposite side of the sun at that point, it was too far away to work into my mission without adding tens of million of miles. That was strike one.

Secondly, my purpose for including Uranus in the story was to open up the possibility of its additional 27 moons (as of this date) to explore. But with just Jupiter and Saturn there are already 123 moons. (Amazing, isn’t it? There are 150 moons orbiting those three planets!) Upon re-evaluation, 123 moons is plenty to explore especially with the possible water moons of Europa and Encaledus, the methane oceans of the Earth-lookalike Titan, and the volcanic activities on Io, et al. In fact, exploring 150 moons was probably overkill. So that was strike two.

Last of all, distance. Even if I’d cheated a bit and made Uranus’s orbit position feasible (i.e. fictional) for the timeline, it’s still way out there. Literally wayyy out there. Though Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus are neighbors, the distances between them are enormous. Earth is a mere 92,957,000 miles from the sun—to make the measurement of great distances easier to understand, that’s called an AU (or Astronomical Unit). In comparison, Mars’ orbit is only about one half of one AU away from Earth. Venus is even closer, but in the opposite direction. Jupiter is 483,632,000 miles away or four AUs. Saturn is 888,188,000 miles or nine-count ‘em—nine! AUs. And Uranus? A whopping 18 AUs or 1,690,950,000 from Earth, about twice as far out as Saturn.

Just for fun, I laid all the planets beyond Earth out on a graph line and translated it into rounded AU numbers. It looked something like this:

0.5 Mars

1.8 Asteroid belt

4.0 Jupiter




9.0 Saturn








18.0 Uranus










29.0 Neptune








38.0 Pluto

So even if Uranus was in perfect alignment, like Jupiter and Saturn will be, it would require all the time it took to reach Saturn (another two years) to get there, making my mission at least an eight-year mission, not five years. For reasons of both believable logistics and most of all, plot dynamics, that simply doesn’t work.

At our present level of propulsion technology we’d be hard pressed to even reach Jupiter in the first year, but I think it’s reasonable to assume some advances in both speed and efficiency in the next thirty years. So, one year to reach Jupiter. Six months to research the Jovian system. Another two and a half years to reach and study Saturn. And a final year to return home. (I developed new technology to increase the ship’s velocity for the return to Earth. Voila! Five year mission.)

So that settled it. Strike three. The mighty Uranus has struck out. Besides, the blue gas giant and her twenty-seven moons was just way too much additional detail to pack into an 110,000 page novel.

Writing a Near Future SF Romance is presenting a whole new set of challenges for me than I’ve encountered in my other SFRs. In P2PC and Draxis, I could simply create the worlds I wanted with all their little quirks, customs and idiosyncrasies to compliment the plot or add conflict for the characters. But dealing with characters living in a world only two or three decades down the road, the story takes on the feel of a contemporary (albeit an extraordinary one). There’s a lot more research involved. In P2PC, the distance between Veros and Banna (or Rathskia and Ithis) didn’t matter. Because those planets are…you know…fictional. Whereas Jupiter and Saturn are fact. And they can be seen by anyone on any given night with any decent telescope. Hello!

This project has been an incredible journey for me via my research. Whether reliving the giddy years of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, studying how a space shuttle actually orbits, marveling at the amazing paintings of former astronaut Alan Bean, touring the Skylab at the Smithsonia Air and Space Museum, or puzzling out the political dramas surrounding the Mir space station, Outer Planets has taken me places I’ve never been before. I hope it will do the same for readers someday in the not too distant future.

Welcome Home, Atlantis!

Some amazing footage of the Atlantis shuttle landing today. Thanks to the Space Fellowship on Twitter for posting the link.

BLAZE OF MEMORY

As I’ve said before, I’m a big fan of Nalini Singh’s phenomenal Psy-Changling SFR series. I love her sensual, shape-shifting Changlings, her cool, emotionally-repressed Psy and the alternate, politically cutthroat Earth that brings them together in all sorts of creative and intricate ways.

That said, BLAZE OF MEMORY, the latest in the series, is not an easy book to love. Singh has set the bar high for herself in this seventh novel. Because she’s a writer of talent and imagination, Singh rises to the challenge for the most part, but the result is not the seemingly effortless triumph of earlier titles in the series.

A large part of the series’ appeal has always been the “attraction of opposites”. Fireworks can be expected when icy Psy empath (female) meets hot Changling alpha (male), cold Psy assassin (male) meets irresistible Changling abductee (female), or even hot Changling wolf meets hotter Changling leopard.

The emotional chemistry is not as predictable when you pair a Psy who has already been stripped of the strict mental conditioning that controls her emotions and a member of “the Forgotten”, a man with same genetic coding for psychic talent as the Psy, but none of the emotional repression of enforced “Silence.” Conveying emotional intensity between these two characters is much more difficult because it’s harder to make the reader understand what is at stake for them. What is it they’re risking for each other? And why?

Throw in the plot device that our heroine, Katya, has been programmed to kill our hero, Dev, and it would seem unlikely that they would get together at all. I’m usually willing to go along with these things—this is romance, after all—but I did feel this was a stretch. The heat quotient just never reached the point between them that I felt Dev couldn’t have found a way to leave Katya in someone else’s care for a minute, especially given that Dev is director of an organization protecting the Forgotten and KNOWS this is a trap. Again, there’s that question: why?

Love should always be the answer, but I just wasn’t feeling it in this volume of Singh’s generally excellent series. Of course, the lovers find their way to a satisfying ending, though the political plot threads that wind their way through the book must await the next novel for resolution. When that volume comes out, I’ll be right there in the bookstore with my money in hand, undeterred. Nalini Singh is just that good.

ERRATA: I said in my earlier post on Nalini Singh that the Psy-Changling series had eight volumes. It is SEVEN, including BLAZE OF MEMORY. Sorry, I'm math challenged.

P.S. Interesting to note that one of the leading ladies of paranormal romance, Sherrilyn Kenyon, has recently begun an SFR series with her novels BORN OF NIGHT and BORN OF FIRE. Sherrilyn says in the Author’s Note to BORN OF NIGHT that it was written in 1986-87, sold in 1992, and first published in 1996. My copy of FANTASY LOVER, the first in her DARK HUNTER series, lists a publishing date of 2002. So I guess that means she was a Skiffy Rommer BEFORE she was a paranormal phenom! So, welcome aboard again, Sherrilyn, and let’s hope you bring a lot of folks along with you for the ride!


Cheers, Donna

NALINI SINGH IS OURS!

Imagine a world, very much like our own Earth, with recognizable places and technologies. But populate this Earth with three very different races of beings. One race is human, much as we have always known humans to be. Messy, emotional, not particularly strong or fast. With a modicum of intelligence and artistic flair. Equally capable of greatness and mediocrity.

Another race, the Psy, shares a basically human genetic code predisposed to psychic talents—telekinesis, psychometry, telepathy, medical diagnosis, empathy, even foresight and teleportation. The heavy downside of these psychic talents in the past (madness and violence) has led to the institution of a strict universal training system from birth to eliminate all emotion in the Psy. Their only real connection to each other is through the PsyNet, a kind of WiFi of the mind. Without that connection, individual Psy wither and die.

The members of the third race on this alternate Earth are the Changlings, whose genetic code contains generous doses of animal DNA. They may be wolves, leopards, even rats or hawks by nature and can transform from “human” to animal form when they so desire. Though they are fully sentient, their behavior is influenced by their animal nature. Thus, the wolves and cats are strongly attached to pack or pride and follow hierarchical patterns within their communities.

All right, now you have the world. It’s based not on fantasy but on genetics, anthropology, sociology and political science. If I were to give you even more details about what went on in the Psy world or the Changling world or between the three races, you’d see that even more clearly. So what we have here is obviously the basis for a great science fiction story, right?

Those of you who are fans of NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Nalini Singh are already way ahead of me on this. Wait! you say. Not only do we have the basis for a great science fiction story. We have the basis for a terrific, best-selling SF Romance SERIES (EIGHT novels and counting).

So how come no one calls Nalini Singh a Skiffy Rommer? Why is her name not mentioned along with Linnea Sinclair and Susan Grant and Ann Aguirre and the others when we talk about great SFR writers?

Several things could be at work here, and not being much of a conspiracy theorist, I tend to favor the Occam’s Razor approach. Maybe a lot of my fellow Skiffy Rommers have not had the pleasure of reading one of Nalini’s excellent Psy-Changling novels. That’s an easy fix. Run right out and get the first in the series, SLAVE TO SENSATION, the story of a Psy empath and an alpha panther Changling working to stem a bloodbath brought on by a serial murderer in a world that is supposed to have eliminated violence. The book is breathtaking on many levels—in its creation of this alternate world, in its style, pacing and intricate plot and, so satisfyingly, in the depth of its relationship between the lovers at its center.

Primarily, though, I suspect Nalini is missing from the rolls of science fiction romance because she has been marketed as a PARANORMAL romance writer. That’s what the back of her books call her, after all. Her covers, particularly in the beginning, stressed the shapeshifter aspects of the Changlings (hey, I’ve got nothing against hot werewolves, either), and the titles could have referred to almost anything. I’m sure at no point did her agent sit up and say, “Hey, Nalini, you know this is really science fiction. Let’s make sure all the SF fans out there know that and call this a science fiction romance!”

Somehow, I imagine the conversation was very different.

Nalini: “Well, you know, this is science fiction. Just with a lot of hot romance.”

Agent: “Only 14-year-old boys read science fiction.”

Nalini: “That’s not true. I love Anne McCaffrey.”

Agent: “Okay. But no one in ROMANCE reads science fiction.”

Nalini: “Well, couldn’t we take out the romance and sell it as science fiction?”

Agent: (choking) “I’m trying to make a living here. Doesn’t this thing have—whaddayacallem—werewolves?”

Nalini: “Changlings.”

Agent: “Yeah. BAM! You’re a paranormal romance writer. And don’t you forget it.”

Of course, one thing that I’m sure Nalini Singh would never have suggested was taking the romance out of any of her books. She may be a fan of Anne McCaffrey (she lists McCaffrey’s PERN series among her favorite books on her website), but she considers herself to be first and always a ROMANCE writer. She started her career in series romance for Harlequin (Silhouette), and is committed to giving her lovers the same kind of happy endings that once were required by strict guidelines.

Nalini gives her heroes and heroines and their relationships the central focus in her books as well, the hallmark of the skiffy rommer, as opposed to the SF writer adding a few romantic elements to the mix. And just in case you weren’t paying attention earlier, those romances heat up the page. No 14-year-old boys allowed, please. (Though if they EVER got a hint of what went on in most of these romance novels, the boys would never go back to STAR WARS. My husband is a huge Nalini Singh fan.)

So I hereby lay claim to Nalini Singh on behalf of all of her fellow Skiffy Rommers (whether she claims US or not), and urge all SFR fans who have not had the pleasure to seek out her Psy-Changling series. (Stay tuned to this space for a review of Nalini’s latest book in the series, BLAZE OF MEMORY. Coming soon!)
Cheers, Donna