Today I'm interviewing Arlene Webb, one of my IPs and co-bloggers over on the Take it to the Stars blog. From first hand experience, I can tell you Arlene is a talented writer with a very fresh voice. (Pssst....and just between you and me, this is a name you may want to watch for in the SciFiRom section in the future. ;) )
Q: Arlene, you’ve written a unique Science Fiction trilogy with a heavy dose of romance that doesn’t involve star ships, blasters or another civilization. Where did you get the inspiration?
A: There’s many vibrant colors surrounding me in my profession—running a florist shop—I was coerced into managing when the wholesale greenhouse I ran got flattened by a tornado. There’s too many shades of boredom that surround me in a job I’ve been at too long. Color took on personality, characters were born, they hijacked the series.
Q: When did you start writing?
A: About six years ago, my son went off to college. Yippee, an empty nest and the notebooks started filling.
Q: When is your prime time for writing?
A: Every waking moment customers aren’t annoying me. Sure, I’d sleep at my paying job if the phone would stop ringing, but most times it’s a sentence here, a whaaat do you want there, then a rewritten sentence. But Sundays are my most favorite day.
Q: Besides writing, what else do you invest a lot of time doing?
A: Reading, critiquing, but unfortunately the bulk of my time is spent earning a living.
Q: How many writing projects are you working on?
A: Two and a brood. I’m polishing book 3 in the Color series, just started a stand alone that’s got a minor tie in to the series, and I’m mentally cluttered with the wrap to the series.
Q: Who are your favorite authors or who has inspired you?
A: Barbara Elsborg. Bill Watterson. Harlan Corbin. TC Boyle. Christopher Moore. JK Rowling. Tolkien. Frank Herbert. Kurt Vonnegut….just a few that immediately come to mind. The list is endless.
Q: Do you have a most favorite book?
A: Nah. I’m too easily delighted, and surrounded by too many wonders to play favorites. I do have a book, Robin Hood, I stole when I was seven. (Hey, put the phone down. Petty theft has a statue of limitations, and I didn’t murder that particular librarian.) It’s pretty tattered and torn, so I’ll twist your question to oldest book.
Q: What’s your favorite Science Fiction (Romance) movie or TV show?
A: Ohh, again, there’s too many to have a favorite. Buffy, but not the movie. Fireflies series and Serenity. Stargate Atlantis. Heroes. X-Men...
Q: Who is you favorite character from your stories and why?
A: Malcolm. He’s the most annoying. If you have an hour I’ll go into detail, but you might as well give up getting him to do something he doesn’t want to do. His character grows more complex with every book so that I, his reason for being, have to go round and round with him if he feels the slightest detail is off. Every other character cooperates, grows and expands without trying to take me with them. I mean, the nerve trying to teach your creator what’s what, but you have to respect that in a character.
Q: What do you enjoy most about being a writer?
A: It can be painstaking drudgery, and it seems never ending to learn how to pour convoluted detail from your head to make a logical sentence, but most of all I love snickering to myself when a line works itself out to have an ironic twist.
Q: What do you enjoy the least?
A: The hours that disappear.
Q: Anything else you’d like to tell us?
A: Yes: Thanks for being such a great friend, Laurie, and for promoting sci-fi-romance on your blogs and encouraging me to keep writing.
Thank you, Arlene, for doing this interview. I'm looking forward to seeing your novels--and your particular word palette--in bookstores in the not-so-distant future.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Poll Ending Soon
The poll to choose a motto for our Intergalactic Science Fiction Romance Week will be closing sometime today. Get your last minute votes in for your favorite.
We'll have a new poll going up soon. In fact, if all goes well *sweats a bit* it'll be part of an interactive fun exercise sometime later today. Or tonight.
It's taking two connected posts and a poll to pull this one off, so I'm still attending to details.
We'll have a new poll going up soon. In fact, if all goes well *sweats a bit* it'll be part of an interactive fun exercise sometime later today. Or tonight.
It's taking two connected posts and a poll to pull this one off, so I'm still attending to details.
Interview with Barbara Elsborg
Barbara Elsborg: Author and Reader Extraordinaire!
Q: In addition to being the published author of two erotica e-novels, Perfect Timing a Contemporary by Ellora's Cave and Consolation Prize, a Fantasy/Vampire by LooseId, with two more sold and many more waiting in the wings, you are also a Reader Extraordinaire! You told me this week you finished three books in one day. :O What books did you read?
A: Those three books were -
THE LEOPARD PRINCE - Elizabeth Hoyt
ALIEN ENCOUNTERS -Ladd, Nash, Tomas and Toombs
THE LAUGHING CORPSE - Laurel Hamilton
The first of those was one of the best historical romances I've read. The second was disappointing and the third just average. I haven't read much of Hamilton though I do love vampire and paranormal stories.
Q: On the average, how many books do you read in a week?
A: When I'm in the UK, maybe eight on average. In the US that would go up to twelve on average but could be twenty.
Q: *gulps* Wow. Have you taken formal speed reading training, or are you just a natural (and what’s your secret)?
A: No training - I just read very fast and I read for hours. My reading speed is about 75 pages in 25 minutes - I know that because I read on the exercise bike at the gym. I sort of see the words in blocks rather than reading each one individually - maybe that has something to do with it. I've always read a lot but having to read quickly at university pushed my speed up. Dickens in a night!!
Q: Do you read all genres or tend to stay with certain ones? What’s your favorite genre/s?
A: I read all genres. I can't think of one I haven't read at one time or another. I used to only read suspense and horror. Then I moved to romantic comedy and that led me to scifi romance and straight scifi and to historical romance and erotic romance. I tend to swap and change. What I read depends on my mood. If I need comfort reading - funny historicals hit the button every time. Or Harlen Coben - he makes me laugh.
Q: Who is/are your favorite author(s)?
A: That's hard - I couldn't name one but I might fill pages with those I really like. Jenny Crusie, Lisa Jewel, Julia Quinn, Mary Balogh, Fiona Walker, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Jill Winters, Adele Parks, Freya North, JR Ward, Keri Arthur, Harlen Coben, Dean Koonz, Lee Child, Nelson Demille - with those writers I would buy automatically without reading the blurb.
Q: Do you have an all-time favorite book, and if so, what is it?
A: No, I couldn't pick one.
Q: Do you think reading has a direct influence on your writing?
A: Absolutely - I used to write suspense when I read mostly suspense. Once I discovered romance, I started to write romance. When I read a good book, it makes me want to be as good as that author. A more recent interest in scifi romance caused me to start a novella of my own about a spaceship landing on a woman's flowerbed - much to her fury. Next on my - must finish list.
Q: How many novels have you completed? (Peeks through fingers and feels unworthy.)
A: Eight full length novels, plus a first hidden in the closet never to see the light of day, seven long novellas - average 60,000. Three more part written.
Q: That's amazing. How long have you been writing?
A: I'd guess - nine years old when I wrote stories based on TV series. First novel took about five years in my twenties and then I messed around with other sorts of writing - travel articles for the largest regional newspaper in the UK etc until about ten years ago. Then I got serious!!!
Q: You live in England (most of the time). Does this have an impact on your writing, reading or both?
A: I write more in the UK than in Florida. Read more in Florida. Maybe I have a rest here and build up ideas. My suspense stories were set in the US, but my romances have been set in the UK. I've never tried to write a romance set in America. It's an interesting thought. I feel more comfortable writing about a country I know really well.
Q: Anything else you’d like to say?
A: If I was stuck on a desert island and could only have 1000 books by my favorite authors or a huge pile of paper and pencils - what would I go for? The paper and pencils. Guess I'm a writer!
Barbara, thanks so much for taking time out from your very busy schedule to do this interview.
Barbara's next erotica release from LooseId will be FALLING FOR YOU with a tentative date of November 18th (the male MC in this story is Alek, the mysterious brother of Luka in CONSOLATION PRIZE). No release date yet set by Ellora's Cave for SOMETHING ABOUT POLLY (where Jake's scheming brother Adrian from PERFECT TIMING takes center stage and is delightfully redeemed).
Q: In addition to being the published author of two erotica e-novels, Perfect Timing a Contemporary by Ellora's Cave and Consolation Prize, a Fantasy/Vampire by LooseId, with two more sold and many more waiting in the wings, you are also a Reader Extraordinaire! You told me this week you finished three books in one day. :O What books did you read?
A: Those three books were -
THE LEOPARD PRINCE - Elizabeth Hoyt
ALIEN ENCOUNTERS -Ladd, Nash, Tomas and Toombs
THE LAUGHING CORPSE - Laurel Hamilton
The first of those was one of the best historical romances I've read. The second was disappointing and the third just average. I haven't read much of Hamilton though I do love vampire and paranormal stories.
Q: On the average, how many books do you read in a week?
A: When I'm in the UK, maybe eight on average. In the US that would go up to twelve on average but could be twenty.
Q: *gulps* Wow. Have you taken formal speed reading training, or are you just a natural (and what’s your secret)?
A: No training - I just read very fast and I read for hours. My reading speed is about 75 pages in 25 minutes - I know that because I read on the exercise bike at the gym. I sort of see the words in blocks rather than reading each one individually - maybe that has something to do with it. I've always read a lot but having to read quickly at university pushed my speed up. Dickens in a night!!
Q: Do you read all genres or tend to stay with certain ones? What’s your favorite genre/s?
A: I read all genres. I can't think of one I haven't read at one time or another. I used to only read suspense and horror. Then I moved to romantic comedy and that led me to scifi romance and straight scifi and to historical romance and erotic romance. I tend to swap and change. What I read depends on my mood. If I need comfort reading - funny historicals hit the button every time. Or Harlen Coben - he makes me laugh.
Q: Who is/are your favorite author(s)?
A: That's hard - I couldn't name one but I might fill pages with those I really like. Jenny Crusie, Lisa Jewel, Julia Quinn, Mary Balogh, Fiona Walker, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Jill Winters, Adele Parks, Freya North, JR Ward, Keri Arthur, Harlen Coben, Dean Koonz, Lee Child, Nelson Demille - with those writers I would buy automatically without reading the blurb.
Q: Do you have an all-time favorite book, and if so, what is it?
A: No, I couldn't pick one.
Q: Do you think reading has a direct influence on your writing?
A: Absolutely - I used to write suspense when I read mostly suspense. Once I discovered romance, I started to write romance. When I read a good book, it makes me want to be as good as that author. A more recent interest in scifi romance caused me to start a novella of my own about a spaceship landing on a woman's flowerbed - much to her fury. Next on my - must finish list.
Q: How many novels have you completed? (Peeks through fingers and feels unworthy.)
A: Eight full length novels, plus a first hidden in the closet never to see the light of day, seven long novellas - average 60,000. Three more part written.
Q: That's amazing. How long have you been writing?
A: I'd guess - nine years old when I wrote stories based on TV series. First novel took about five years in my twenties and then I messed around with other sorts of writing - travel articles for the largest regional newspaper in the UK etc until about ten years ago. Then I got serious!!!
Q: You live in England (most of the time). Does this have an impact on your writing, reading or both?
A: I write more in the UK than in Florida. Read more in Florida. Maybe I have a rest here and build up ideas. My suspense stories were set in the US, but my romances have been set in the UK. I've never tried to write a romance set in America. It's an interesting thought. I feel more comfortable writing about a country I know really well.
Q: Anything else you’d like to say?
A: If I was stuck on a desert island and could only have 1000 books by my favorite authors or a huge pile of paper and pencils - what would I go for? The paper and pencils. Guess I'm a writer!
Barbara, thanks so much for taking time out from your very busy schedule to do this interview.
Barbara's next erotica release from LooseId will be FALLING FOR YOU with a tentative date of November 18th (the male MC in this story is Alek, the mysterious brother of Luka in CONSOLATION PRIZE). No release date yet set by Ellora's Cave for SOMETHING ABOUT POLLY (where Jake's scheming brother Adrian from PERFECT TIMING takes center stage and is delightfully redeemed).
SFR What is it? What ISN'T it?
Science Fiction Romance covers a lot of ground for a subgenre niche. But what is it exactly? Or can it even be described in exact terms? Do you feel there no boundaries on that universe or are the sector lines clearly drawn? We'd love to hear your opinions.
For the sake of discussion, here are several blurbs for books defined as Science Fiction Romance using the Amazon search feature. Would you consider these to be Science Fiction Romance? Why or why not? Would you be interested in reading the book? Why or why not?
Eye of the Beholder by Stacey Klemstein
Echelon Press Publishing (February 29, 2008)
240 pages
Some women would be thrilled to have a troublesome ex-lover mysteriously disappear, but when he's an alien-human hybrid and you are supposed to be his leader...the rules change. Zara Mitchell fears the worst when Caelan vanishes while investigating a hate group...one that might have information about the strange female Observer they've been seeking. But Asha, Zara's rival and only available source for help, claims it's too dangerous to attempt a rescue. Desperate to locate Caelan and hoping against hope for a little luck, Zara strikes out on her own. Unfortunately, luck deserts her (just like everyone else) when she walks straight into a trap, one set just for her. Now, with the leader of the Observer Council breathing down her neck, and Caelan's time running out, Zara has to summon courage and strategy skills beyond anything she's ever known to save Caelan, herself and our world.
Star-Crossed by Marilyn Byerly
Hard Shell Word Factory (September 2000)
304 pages
Earthman Tristan Mallory discovers that on Arden, men are sex slaves. He has no intention of belonging to anyone, not even beautiful Mara d'Jorel. Mara despises the harem system and has refused to participate, but her heart won't allow anyone else to own Tristan, To give Tristan the freedom her world denies, she must risk everything, her reputation, home, and her freedom and life. Her greatest risk is losing Tristan's love to another woman. Tristan's friend Kellen is acquired as a bed slave by vicious Cadaran d'Hasta, head of Arden's Internal Security, who has used the lives and deaths of thousands of men to gain her power. Intelligent and amoral, she'll do anything to destroy him and Tristan and any woman weak enough to love them. With the help of a local intelligent alien who resembles an Earth cat and Dorian Dalia, Tristan's long-time romantic interest, Tristan, Mara, and Kellen escape the planet. Through the vast emptiness of space and the most primitive of human colonies, they seek freedom, but Cadaran is always one step behind them.
The Islander: A Romance of the Future by Charles Whittlesey
Lulu (February 20, 2008)
372 pages
In 2155 there are two Americas: one for the wealthy and one for the poor. The wealthy control most of the land and all the technology, while the poor lead short and squalid lives confined to the remnants of America's collapsed cities, known as Islands. The two cultures collide when Galen Fairchild, a young Islander, falls in love with Mata Vandermere, the daughter of a prosperous family from the modern city of Stratis. Like Romeo and Juliet, Galen and Mata struggle to stay together in the face of daunting opposition from family, friends, and many other forces. Their troubles finally lead them into the ghostlike ruins of downtown Minneapolis, where no Islander dares to go. Inside the crumbling skyscrapers, they discover a strange power linked to Galen's past, which not only changes his life forever, but also pits the two cultures against each other with cataclysmic results.
The Quest (The Rystani Series, Book 4) by Susan Kearney
Tor Paranormal Romance (June 27, 2006)
352 pages
A warrior on a mission
Kirek of Rystan's objective is to destroy the Federation's deadliest enemy, but he needs help. When assistance comes in the form of a sexy and irresistible space pilot , he takes on a second goal--to win her heart.
A woman with a plan
Captain Angel Taylor's going after the biggest salvage haul in her career. Fiercely independent, she can't imagine a life with Kirek, a traditional Rystani warrior with extraordinary psi powers -- but he has seductive skills she can't resist.
The Quest
Teaming up, Angel and Kirek risk their lives to fight the evil Zin empire -- but Kirek's biggest battle of all is to win Angel's love.
For the sake of discussion, here are several blurbs for books defined as Science Fiction Romance using the Amazon search feature. Would you consider these to be Science Fiction Romance? Why or why not? Would you be interested in reading the book? Why or why not?
Eye of the Beholder by Stacey Klemstein
Echelon Press Publishing (February 29, 2008)
240 pages
Some women would be thrilled to have a troublesome ex-lover mysteriously disappear, but when he's an alien-human hybrid and you are supposed to be his leader...the rules change. Zara Mitchell fears the worst when Caelan vanishes while investigating a hate group...one that might have information about the strange female Observer they've been seeking. But Asha, Zara's rival and only available source for help, claims it's too dangerous to attempt a rescue. Desperate to locate Caelan and hoping against hope for a little luck, Zara strikes out on her own. Unfortunately, luck deserts her (just like everyone else) when she walks straight into a trap, one set just for her. Now, with the leader of the Observer Council breathing down her neck, and Caelan's time running out, Zara has to summon courage and strategy skills beyond anything she's ever known to save Caelan, herself and our world.
Star-Crossed by Marilyn Byerly
Hard Shell Word Factory (September 2000)
304 pages
Earthman Tristan Mallory discovers that on Arden, men are sex slaves. He has no intention of belonging to anyone, not even beautiful Mara d'Jorel. Mara despises the harem system and has refused to participate, but her heart won't allow anyone else to own Tristan, To give Tristan the freedom her world denies, she must risk everything, her reputation, home, and her freedom and life. Her greatest risk is losing Tristan's love to another woman. Tristan's friend Kellen is acquired as a bed slave by vicious Cadaran d'Hasta, head of Arden's Internal Security, who has used the lives and deaths of thousands of men to gain her power. Intelligent and amoral, she'll do anything to destroy him and Tristan and any woman weak enough to love them. With the help of a local intelligent alien who resembles an Earth cat and Dorian Dalia, Tristan's long-time romantic interest, Tristan, Mara, and Kellen escape the planet. Through the vast emptiness of space and the most primitive of human colonies, they seek freedom, but Cadaran is always one step behind them.
The Islander: A Romance of the Future by Charles Whittlesey
Lulu (February 20, 2008)
372 pages
In 2155 there are two Americas: one for the wealthy and one for the poor. The wealthy control most of the land and all the technology, while the poor lead short and squalid lives confined to the remnants of America's collapsed cities, known as Islands. The two cultures collide when Galen Fairchild, a young Islander, falls in love with Mata Vandermere, the daughter of a prosperous family from the modern city of Stratis. Like Romeo and Juliet, Galen and Mata struggle to stay together in the face of daunting opposition from family, friends, and many other forces. Their troubles finally lead them into the ghostlike ruins of downtown Minneapolis, where no Islander dares to go. Inside the crumbling skyscrapers, they discover a strange power linked to Galen's past, which not only changes his life forever, but also pits the two cultures against each other with cataclysmic results.
The Quest (The Rystani Series, Book 4) by Susan Kearney
Tor Paranormal Romance (June 27, 2006)
352 pages
A warrior on a mission
Kirek of Rystan's objective is to destroy the Federation's deadliest enemy, but he needs help. When assistance comes in the form of a sexy and irresistible space pilot , he takes on a second goal--to win her heart.
A woman with a plan
Captain Angel Taylor's going after the biggest salvage haul in her career. Fiercely independent, she can't imagine a life with Kirek, a traditional Rystani warrior with extraordinary psi powers -- but he has seductive skills she can't resist.
The Quest
Teaming up, Angel and Kirek risk their lives to fight the evil Zin empire -- but Kirek's biggest battle of all is to win Angel's love.
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