Pippa's Journal - 10/23/2013

Just over a week ago, I was struck by inspiration. For the past two years I've seen holidays come and go, without ever once being inspired to write something with a holiday theme, even when tempted by submission calls. The ideas just weren't there. And as a scifi author, somehow, I found it hard to visualize the holidays we celebrate now once we've moved out beyond our own system to new worlds. For example, the times for the solstices will change with the planet. Our calendars may have to change to fit with these new worlds. And when we've traveled to new continents, such as Europeans arriving in what is now the USA for example, a new holiday was born - Thanksgiving. Invasions have brought in new beliefs and new celebrations, or genocide has eradicated the previous ones. Will we give up our old traditions and holidays for new ones on new planets? Or will we already have left such things behind?

But after making a couple of notes on my smartphone about a book title, and a couple of vague ideas for a character, muse suddenly took off with an idea for a Halloween story. And it wasn't science fiction. Muse wanted to do a PARANORMAL story! *gasp* Now, look, I have nothing against paranormal. But it isn't something I've read a lot of, nor had I ever considered writing it. I know paranormal is very big still, and I don't want to look like I'm jumping on the bandwagon. I somehow doubt that one paranormal short is going to increase my fanbase any. But that was the way muse wanted to go, and I've learnt to let her have her way. Even though I still have two projects I set myself to finish this year.

In six days, I put out 11K words, and finished the story. Not only had I written a new-to-me genre, but I did it linearly from start to finish, with only the odd pause to research. I couldn't quite believe it. I'm not intending to try and put this out for THIS Halloween (I am not going to rush something for the sake of it even if it does mean sitting on this story for ONE WHOLE YEAR! *shudders*), but the whole thing was done in just six days. That's 1.833 words a day. At that rate, I could do NaNoWrimo. I could put out a novel a month. A longer length novel every two months. If only! Sadly it doesn't work like that (or at least not for me).

But the research was fun. After looking into what happens to bodies exposed to vacuum and theoretical anti-gravity systems, I was reading up on the history of Halloween and the different varieties of fairies and sprites. I still got to do a bit of science by looking up the composition of a human body and using my knowledge as an analytical chemist to work out what household chemicals could be used instead, converting chemistry to alchemy. That particular inspiration came from Sir Terry Pratchett in the Wintersmith, where the spirit of winter attempts to make itself into a human for love - 

Iron enough to make a nail,
Lime enough to paint a wall,
Water enough to drown a dog,
Sulphur enough to stop the fleas,
Potash enough to wash a shirt,
Gold enough to buy a bean,
Silver enough to coat a pin,
Lead enough to ballast a bird,
Phosphor enough to light the town,
Poison enough to kill a cow,

Strength enough to build a home,
Time enough to hold a child,
Love enough to break a heart. 

I wasn't able to find out if this was an older rhyme used in the book or an original piece by Pratchett - an interview with him suggested it was from somewhere else and he'd rewritten part of it, but I've found no other evidence. So, in terms of chemistry, these are the elements that make up a human body (this is a very basic list) - 

  

Elements in the Human Body (about.com)

Element	Percent by Mass
Oxygen	65
Carbon	18
Hydrogen	10
Nitrogen	3
Calcium	1.5
Phosphorus	1.2
Potassium	0.2
Sulfur	0.2
Chlorine	0.2
Sodium	0.1
Magnesium	0.05
Iron, Cobalt, Copper, Zinc, Iodine	<0.05 each
Selenium, Fluorine	<0.01 each

For greater detail, there's a comprehensive break down on Wikipedia here.

The great thing is I can now spend the next year planning how and when I'm going to release it, what I'm going to put in the back of book info, and getting it edited without the pressure of time. Next Halloween, I will have my first holiday-themed story available, and I'm really excited! I'm keeping the title under wraps for now (shh!), but here's a rough graphic of the cover I'm working on. What do you think?

Action!

Having got the Halloween story out of my system, I'm working through the notes from my wonderful beta readers on Darkfall, in the hope of submitting this story before the end of November. I also have my unfinished sfr novella Revived on the list for completion by the end of 2013. This is connected to Terms & Conditions Apply, though it only briefly mentions one character from that story. I also received the first piece of artwork for Keir's Fall from my publisher, a tantalizing snippet of what's to come. I wish I could share but...nope. :P

Discoveries

Thanks to Cara Bristol, I discovered this really cool website that tells you how to kill people! Er, from a purely research point of view, of course. *cough* Medical Scene Writer.

Happenings

This week several Brigade members are taking part in an If You Like event captained by Heather Massey over at The Galaxy Express here, recommending SFR titles to tie in with some of the bigger name books, films and TV shows. There's a huge range of suggestions, and if you hop over to Heather's, you can check out the master list to all the blogs taking part. I've already added more books to my teetering TBR pile as a result. :P

With thanks to Kyndra Hatch, the SFR Brigade blog is showing a sudden burst of activity, with Meet the Author Mondays, guest posts on Tuesdays, and recommended reads on alternate Thursdays. There is also the weekly SFR Brigade Presents blogging ring running, with snippets posted by various members of the Brigade. If you're interested in taking part in an interview for Meet the Author, please download the interview document from here and email it to me.If you're interested in providing a guest post, there's a list of suggested topics posted in the files in the Facebook group, and please speak to Kyndra Hatch about dates. We're also interested in book recommendations from other Brigade members for SF & SFR titles, and books on science, writing craft and marketing.

I'm taking part in the TRS Spookapalooza here from the 25th-31st October, and there'll be lots of fun posts and giveaways! I'll be showcasing a cocktail that happens to share a name with my male MC from Keir. Make sure you stop by to find out what. Gethyon will be part of a giveaway, along with a $10 gift card at Long and Short Reviews from the 28th October here. As part of Anti-Bullying Month in November, I will be donating my royalties from Gethyon to Childline for that month, as my male MC is himself bullied at the start of the story.

Ping Pong

Laurie, thought-provoking post on why another galaxy - it certainly sparked a lot of responses.

Donna, loved how you set out your If You Like SFR-arian post.

Why Another Galaxy Far, Far Away?

I'm putting on my reader's cap today to open up a discussion topic. Okay, it's regarding a pet peeve of mine. And this pet peeve is so monumental to this reader that it's causing me to have issues with some SFR books that I'd otherwise rate very high.

Most of us agree that Science Fiction Romance should have at least a basis in science, with a liberal amount of imagination applied. I'm all for the imagination part, even when it gets a bit beyond liberal. But I have to confess, I have a major issue with "suspension of disbelief" when the story has a non-logical/seemingly impossible setting.

A story set in another galaxy is an instant turn-off for me.

Why?

My question is: Why there?

Does setting a SFR in another galaxy make it seem "more" Sci-Fi? Do you think the story feels more exotic? Does it make the technology and the setting somehow more futuristic? Do you just love that line from Star Wars about the story happening "in another galaxy far, far away?"

I so disagree with these lines of thought, so let me present my case.

Here are my biggest problems with suspension of disbelief involving stories set in other galaxies:

First of all, let's take a closer look at our very nearest spiral galaxy neighbor--Andromeda--currently hurtling toward our galaxy on a collision course. Andromeda and The Milky Way are coming together at some 300,000 miles per hour. Even at that speed, the collision won't take place for some 3.75 billion (with a "b") years--give or take. That's because Andromeda is so very far away--even as our closest spiral neighbor--it's still going to take eons to get here.

So when I read a story about a human colony/space station/exploration vessel set in Andromeda in, say 3700 AD, my questioning mind says: "Wait! How can this be?"

Andromeda is about 2.54 million light years away--that means traveling at the speed of light (which we're not even sure is possible) for 2,540,000 years--longer than the existence of our species if you believe in evolution. Even if we could travel 10 times the speed of light, it would take 254,000 years to arrive. At one hundred times the speed of light it would take 25,400 years to reach Andromeda. So you can see my problems with having a colony/space station/exploration ship in Andromeda in the next 3,000-5,000 years. Sorry, we wouldn't even make it anywhere near the outer edge of the Milky Way in that amount of time.

Let's put some perspective on our current state of space travel. Voyager 1 and 2 are traveling at about 17,000 miles per hour, and have been traveling outbound for some 38 years. Yet Voyager 1--the farthest manmade object from Earth--is only about 17 light HOURS (not light years) away from our planet, and finally entering the region of interstellar space between our home solar system and the very nearest star. To reach that nearest star traveling at its current speed would require about 19,400 years, and it would take 130,877,700 years to reach the edge of the Milky Way! Even if we could somehow boost the Voyagers to light speed, it would still take approximately 29,000 light years to reach the edge of our galaxy. And even reaching the edge of our own galaxy, we haven't even made a minor dent in spanning the 2.54 million light years to Andromeda.

So why set a story outside the Milky Way? Our own galaxy is incredibly, inconceivably vast. If you use Newton's version of Keplar's Third Law of Planetary Motion, there are an estimated 200 billion (with a "b") suns in the Milky Way Galaxy. Other estimates put the total closer to 400 billion stars. It's about 26,000 light years to the Galactic core and, as mentioned, another 29,000 light years to the edge of the galaxy. Some estimates say there could be billions (with a "b") of Earth-like planets in our own galaxy.

That's a whole lot of real estate for a story setting!

In fact, when we look up at all those myriad stars in the night sky, we're actually only seeing about 2,500 to 5,000 stars on a clear, moonless night. If you could see all the stars in both the southern and northern hemispheres, the max would be about 9,000-10,000. Binoculars might allow you to see up to 200,000 stars. A good telescope, maybe 15 million. That sounds like a lot, but it's only about .000075 of the lower estimate (200 billion) of stars in our own galaxy.

What we call "The Milky Way"--that great band of stars and gas stretched out across the heavens we can see on very dark nights is actually only a very small part of our galaxy--the Sagittarius Arm. There are four main arms called the Norma and Cygnus, Sagittarius, Scutum-Crux, and Perseus. Our sun is located on what's called the "Orion Spur" or the "Local Arm." The galactic disk itself is some 100,000 light years across. It's not even possible to see the center of the Milky Way because of all the gas and dust. So when we look at "the Milky Way" we're actually only seeing a tiny fraction of one arm--which is just a percentage of all that our galaxy encompasses.

In other words, the Milky Way is freakin' huge!

What's that, you say? You still want to set your story in another galaxy because...well, it just sounds cool.

Okay, really stretch my "suspension of disbelief" and say you've developed some sort of Galactic Skip Drive--which you at least touch on in your story--and that it lets your characters span these impossible distances to get to another galaxy in the next 3,000-5,000 years.

I'm still not convinced.

Let's put aside the basic questions of why they'd even want to go there when there's so much to see, explore, discover, puzzle over and colonize right here. There are even more potential problems...

We don't even know for sure if the astrophysical mechanics work the same way in other galaxies that they do as we understand them here in the Milky Way. Andromeda is roughly double the size of the Milky Way but has about the same mass. Why is that? Because we don't think it has as much dark matter. Dark matter affects our galactic dynamics in ways we don't even fully understand yet, much less have the ability understand the implications for Andromeda or any other galaxy. In spite of the lower mass and less dark matter, Andromeda is believed to have a higher stellar density. Andromeda also has black holes (35 identified so far) that cluster differently than black holes in the Milky Way.

Though galaxies may look somewhat alike, that doesn't mean they are alike or even have close to the same properties or mechanics. The differences could be as far apart as the atmospheres of Earth and Jupiter. Assuming Jupiter is a planet so it's similar enough to Earth that you can set a story about a colony there would be a huge mistake. (Okay, touche'. I made this mistake once--but it was 40 years ago and I've educated myself since then.)

So there's my argument for not setting a SFR in another galaxy.

Now, I'd love to hear from you. Do you have or have you read a SFR set in another galaxy? Why did you choose or enjoy that setting? Did the setting affect the dynamics of the story? How did your characters get there? And why did they go there?

Video of Milky Way-Andromeda collision simulation: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/animations/animations/galaxycollision.mpg

THE GRADUAL SFR-ARIAN

A few years back a cookbook hit the scene with the hopeful title The Gradual Vegetarian.  Presumably aimed at the veggie-curious and those determined to drag reluctant spouses, friends and family members kicking and screaming away from their burgers and fries, the book began with the idea that if you could be persuaded to try something that tasted similar to a food you liked, you might eventually be tempted to venture a little further out of your comfort zone.  One day you might wake up to find you were actually fond of vegetables!

Those of us who love science fiction romance often find ourselves in the position of the lone vegetarian carting a green bean casserole to the family barbecue.  How do we make our romance-reading friends love it as much as we do? 

Starting Sunday, SFR-loving bloggers across the e-galaxy will be addressing this question with a series of blogs with the theme “If you like . . . you’ll love . . .”, comparing well-known SF or romance authors or books with lesser-known SFR authors and their titles. (Once the event gets underway, you’ll be able to find a master list of the participating blogs at Heather Massey’s The Galaxy Express.) 

I’m jumping the gun here at Spacefreighters Lounge with my “Gradual SFR-arian” approach to finding SFR you’ll love.  (It was either that or get left in the dust of all the other blogs going before me, Friday being at the end of the week!)  So here we go.

Sherrilyn Kenyon is one of the founding authors of the paranormal romance phenomenon, overcoming years of rejection to finally convince the Powers That Be in New York that vampires (and Greek gods and demons and so on) could make sexy heroes.  Her Dark Hunters PNR series is a huge bestseller with millions of fans.  If you’re one of them, you might already know that Kenyon began her career trying to sell SFR—only to fail dismally. 

Now, with all the weight of her millions behind her, Kenyon has returned to SFR with her League series, every major volume of which, starting with Born of Ice, has landed her on the bestseller list. The series shares her tortured alpha heroes and initially vulnerable, but finally gutsy heroines with her PNR stories.  And, of course, her style is the same across both series.  So it is a natural transition for Kenyon’s PNR fans to make the move to her SFR work.

If you enjoyed the League series, you’re ready for something in the same vein.  Tortured (literally) heroes, heroines with issues and space adventure?  Try Marcella Burnard’s Enemy Within.  Political intrigue, more space adventure and more alpha heroes than you can shake a phaser at—Susan Grant’s Tales of the Borderlands series. 
 

Suzanne Brockmann, popular for her kickass romantic suspense novels featuring U.S. Navy SEALS, surprised her long-time fans last year by publishing Born to Darkness, a science fiction suspense romance.  It combined the familiar elements of her SEALS and former SEALS series—alpha males, lots of action, hot sex and romantic tension, suspense—and put them in a dystopian, near-future setting.  Of course, it would be an easy jump for her fans to follow her to the new subgenre, and many did, putting Born to Darkness, the first of her Fighting Destiny series, on the bestseller list as always.

So, if you enjoyed Born to Darkness, what do you try while you wait for Suzanne to finish the next book in her series?  Well, Heather Massey wrote an entire article devoted to this subject a while back, which you can read here.  But just one calculation of many suggested if you’re looking for “near-future setting+combat scenes+Alpha hero+kick-butt heroine+hot sex=Nathalie Gray’s Agent Provocateur.”  And since I love me some Nathalie Gray, I’m fully on board with that recommendation.

Okay, so let’s play a little criss-cross.  If you love Gena Showalter and her Lords of the Underworld paranormal romance series, then you probably like Angela Knight and her Mageverse series.  Did you know both these PNR goddesses also wrote SFR?  So you’ll probably like Showalter’s Alien Huntress series, starting with Savor Me Slowly, and Knight’s Time Hunter series, Jane’s Warlord being the best known. 

Showalter is darker than Knight, though, and her SFR is much darker.  For an equivalent among lesser-knowns, try Kim Knox’s Synthetic Dreams.  Susan Grant’s early stuff (Your Planet or Mine? for example) is closer to the Time Hunter series.

Criss-cross can be played by historical romance fans, too, thanks to that marvelous sub-sub-genre, steampunk romance.  Say you’re a fan of historical/adventure romance writer Zoe Archer and her Blades of the Rose or Nemesis Unlimited series set in Victorian England (and her empire).  If so, you may want to try Archer’s excellent steampunk romances set in an alternate universe in the Ether Chronicles.  Still loving Archer?  Go all the way into space with her 8^th Wing military space adventure series.

Too much too soon?  Okay, Meljean Brook, known for her Guardian series of demon-oriented PNR novels has written some fantastic steampunk romances, the Iron Seas series, beginning with The Iron Duke.  These, also, are set in an alternate universe, but the historical-romance elements of costume and place will appeal to any fan of more traditional tales of the ton. Just imagine Mr. Darcy has been forced to replace his sword arm with a biomechanical simulacrum.  Poignant, is it not?

See?  It is possible to dip a toe into the flowing stream of SFR and find, indeed, the water’s just fine.  In fact, if you’re not careful, you’re just liable to be swept away to a whole new world.

Check out the recommendations others have made as bloggers around the SFR galaxy address this question throughout the week of October 20-25.  For more information, visit The Galaxy Express.

Cheers, Donna

Butterman (Time) Travel, Inc. - #Cover #Reveal #scifi #timetravel

Welcome to Butterman Travel, Incorporated

We are a full service agency designed to meet all your exclusive time travel needs. Family-owned and operated, we offer clients one hundred years of time travel experience. A place where you can rest assured, safety and reliability always come first.

Anxious to attend a special event from the past? Or for a glimpse of what the future holds?

You’ve come to the right place. We’re a fully accredited operation, offering an array of services; including, but not limited to: customized travel plans, professionally piloted operations, and personal trip guides. *Terms and conditions do apply

Conference us directly from our Website. Our frontline reservation specialist, Bianca Butterman, will handle all your inquiries in a professional and efficient manner, offering a tentative itinerary and free fare quote, so you can make the most of your time trip.

We look forward to serving you at Butterman Travel, Inc., where time is always in your hands.  

 


I was kind of torn on this one. See, I'm greedy. There's two time zones I'd like to travel too, one past and one future. I LOVE the medieval period, so much so that it features in my debut novel (also a time travel story). Although it was a hard time to live in, with death and disease, the belief in witchcraft that could have you executed without even a trial, I'd like to go back and see how it really was. I love the weaponry and the clothing. The music they played, and the devotion that went into making books, when every letter had to be penned by hand with no proper lighting, when they had to make their own pens and ink. The skill that was required to do it.

But then again, I'd love to travel to the future. Being a scifi author, I follow a lot of the scientific developments on the news - not just to add to my stories, but because I've always been interested in science and technology. All this talk of a Mars landing excites me, but I don't think it's going to happen in my life time. NASA are working on actual warp engines and invisibility cloaks, the stuff of science fiction! My current phone is probably 100s of times more powerful than the home computer I had as a teen. We've come so far in just the last few decades, let alone the last few hundred years. Imagine what we might have in another 100 years from now! I'd love to see that!

So I'd definitely be booking a trip at Butterman Time Travel Inc given the chance. Why don't you check it out too? Release date 11-12-13...

BIO AND LINKS:

PK Hrezo is a native Floridian whose life could easily be a Jimmy Buffet song. She shares her home with her firefighter husband and their two children. When not creating characters and their worlds, PK can be found at her other job of rearranging passenger’s itineraries for a major international airline. The only hobbies she loves more than traveling, are reading, writing, and music, and when the four are combined she exists in total bliss.  

She blogs regularly at PK HREZO: Fearless Fiction http://pk-hrezo.blogspot.com/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/PKHrezo  @pkhrezo

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorpkhrezo

Website http://down-the-rabbithole.com/