GREETINGS, FELLOW TREKKERS, FROM SHORE LEAVE!

Hey, there, fellow space nerds, Trekkers, Star Warriors and assorted geeks! 

Hold onto your helmets 'cuz this week's post comes to you live from the Shore Leave Science Fiction Convention in Hunt Valley MD. Shore Leave is well known for being the largest fan-run STAR TREK con, but has expanded in recent years to include a wide range of SF fandoms. Big guests this year include John Barrowman of ARROW and TORCHWOOD fame, as well as Jaime Murray, Tony Curran and Jesse Rath (the scheming Tarr family of DEFIANCE). Woohoo!

Of course, Shore Leave has always been  a huge con for writers--pro writers for both TREK and STAR WARS pro novels, as well as SF of all stripes and fan fiction of every description. I started out as a TREK fan fiction writer selling my novellas at Shore Leave and my return as a pro writer is a big moment for me. My only regret is that my mentor and SF writer Ann Crispin, who used to run the writers' workshops at SL, passed away several years ago from cancer, so won't be here to see how far I've come.

I will be sitting on three panels here at the con: arguing the ever-fascinating questions of "The Best and Worst of Star Trek and Star Wars;" explaining my co-publishing deal in "Publishing: the Good, the Bad and the Indies;" and giving what advice I can to newbies and series hopefuls in "Writing the Next Book."  I'll also be selling and signing at the "Meet the Pros" event and doing the same all weekend at a table in the dealers' room.  Fortunately my daughter Jessie will be here to help me out. I'll be one tired tribble when it's all over!

Wanna get updates as the weekend progresses? Check out my Facebook page for the latest pics!    

Cheers,
Donna

Tuesday Teaser - Fight Like A Girl! #scifirom #spaceopera

To keep my spot busy over the seven week summer holiday for my monsters, I'm sharing my favourite excerpts from my books while I discover new favourites to read with a book binge over the holiday. 

Today I'm sharing one of my faves from scifi romance Tethered. Assigned to protect and help a scarred human diplomat, assassin Tyree is challenged to a sparring match. Zander might regret that...

She sprang forward and aimed two rapid punches at his face. Zander evaded both with a speed and grace totally out of proportion to his bulk. Her third he blocked with little effort, and she stepped back to reassess her strategy. But only for an instant.

A quick step forward and she lashed upward with her foot, snapping his head back. Zander staggered but didn't fall. Her second kick failed as he grabbed her ankle and jerked her off balance. She twisted as she dropped and caught him hard in the knee. Zander collapsed. Both rolled aside, and then jumped up to face each other again.

Not bad.

Tyree bit back a laugh as they exchanged blows, each faster than the last. Zander blocked or evaded most, but not all. His skill almost matched hers, yet his defenses were just a fraction too slow. Each move she made tested his reach, his reflexes and his stamina until she could sense him struggling a little.

Time for the kill.

She floored him with a kick to the chest, the full weight of her augmented density behind it, but as she moved in to finish the fight he dove into her. Tyree landed on her back hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs.

Zander had her pinned to the ground. She bucked but couldn't shift him. The triumphant smile on his face sent rage blazing through her gut. With hardly a whisper, she Misted out and went through him. Golden heat filled her for a second before she pulled free. Zander pushed to his feet and spun to meet her, but she cranked up her molecular density and punched him hard in the chest. He collapsed, gasping and coughing. In one fluid movement she sat astride him at full density, and the air whumphed out of his lungs. She pinioned his arms with her hands, her face hovering mere centimeters above his.

As her breathing slowed to normal, a huge grin split her face. She'd made a vow to herself to jump him, and she'd done it. Perhaps it was childish, but it warmed her heart.

"Your...reputation...is well deserved," he gasped.

"You're not so bad yourself," she complimented him. He'd fought well, but perhaps not quite with the determination—and certainly not the desperation—of most opponents she'd faced. "For a human."

"Thank you. Perhaps we could try this again tomorrow?"

Tyree laughed. As much as he could irritate the hell out of her, he was equally amusing. "If you want to spend most of your morning on the floor..."

He gazed up at her with that easy smile, making no effort to struggle. Most humans, without the influence of her pheromones and the distraction of her naked body writhing above theirs, would not have been so trusting. So compliant. She found herself staring at his mouth. What would it be like to kiss him, without the use of her talents? Would it be as satisfying? As sensual? The warmth of him, the firmness of his body beneath hers, sent heat spiraling through her abdomen.

"Perhaps you could let me up now?" His words jerked her from such musings. What the hell was she thinking?

A SciFi Romance Novella
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Staying Ahead of the Tech (And How it May Not by Possible)

Next up in my Inherited Stars Science Fiction Romance series is The Outer Planets. It's a clear departure from the tone and setting in my first novel--Inherit the Stars--but yet, it is indeed a component of the same universe.

The Outer Planets takes a step back in time some 1,500 years from the Inherit the Stars era. That makes the setting just a couple of decades ahead of the Right Here and Right Now. In the Inherited Stars Series timeline, the story goes back to the origins of how things come to be in Sair and Drea's universe.

Xeon24.com

A previous blog explained how The Outer Planets looks back at a future that hasn't yet happened, and how challenging (and daunting) it is to peer into the literary equivalent of a crystal ball.

The Near Future setting presents some real challenges. Unlike Inherit the Stars which was written in last five years, this novel has been brewing in my head for decades and had already undergone several major revisions and updates prior to becoming a finalist in the 2011 RWA Golden Heart Awards.

Whoa! That was already four years ago! So much has happened on the technological front since then that the exploration of some of the really cutting edge stuff is now in danger of being overtaken by recent advances in science.

On many fronts, technology is catching up with fiction. As one Facebook commenter recently posted (paraphrasing): People now look to Star Trek to see what technology will be out next year.

Ain't it the truth! Transparent aluminum and all that jazz! Makes being a Near Future SFR writer a bit tricky, doesn't it?

But there is a flip side. The good news is that writing Near Future SFR is a two-edged light sabre.

Some of the technology revealed in The Outer Planets might have been too much of a suspension of disbelief for some readers until very recent years. We're right on the verge of breakthroughs now that will not only make such innovations believable, but highly likely to happen in the next few decades.

So what's new in this particular Near Future? Here's a glimpse at just some of the tech.

"Super Cool Mobile Phone
 Wrist Watch" (actual product name)
by ChinaVision as shown
 on www.damp-dry.com

Wristcoms. Nobody carries cell phones anymore. Everyone has this 50th generation upgrade of the computer wrist watch. It's a personal computer and data storage device, communication device, chronometer (also known as a watch), and tracking device (with privacy contingencies) all wrapped up into one. Oh, and one more cool perk. It has the ability to transmit video messages in holographic mode.

Mobile computer systems. And I don't mean laptops. In this Near Future, computer systems as we think of them have become obsolete. All terminals are "dumb" until an individual plugs in their personal omni-device in the form of a sia cube. Just plug that baby into any available terminal and the effect is -- voila! -- instant home computer! All operating systems, programs, applications and files are now available via the sia technology. Individual machines no longer carry their own array of applications and software because, well, as we all know, it's not at all efficient. Imagine being able to sit down at any terminal in the world solar system and having instant access to all your files and software.

Sia Cubes. A futuristic operating system array and storage device all rolled into one, like a memory stick on super steroids. These little babies can store entire New York City Public Libraries to the nth full of operating systems, applications, data, sound and image files. Nothing like having human history on a string.

StatMos. It stands for Status Monitor. It's another name for that "dumb" terminal that's waiting for someone to plug in a sia cube and turn it into a real system. When the monitor is not activated by an individual, it is tuned to the vessel's main information system (we are borg) and displays maps and layouts of the ship, data and time, bulletins from command, medical, or services, ship's calendar, or other general data that might be good to know while you're a passenger on a pressurized vessel hurtling through an endless vacuum.

Armstrong Space Port aka ASP - As exploration (and mining and profiteering) on the Moon and Mars become more commonplace, a permanent space station and orbiting shipyard is constructed in orbit around Earth. With a capacity of 15,500 individuals (plus visitors), it serves as a hub for Mars and Lunar shuttle flights and supply ships, and later becomes the base for constructing the outer planets exploratory and research vessel NSS Destination (a ship that will be re-christened before she even embarks...but no spoilers.)

Docking Arms. Sometime around 2030, while in the midst of building ASP, some brilliant engineer figures out that having two ships direct dock in a vacuum is a very bad idea. As a result, they construct the first docking arm systems. Docking arms are simply a heavily padded beam that swings out from the side of the larger vessel at a 45 degree angle. The arm is equipped with the docking cone and mechanism and also outfitted with shock absorbers and other safety equipment to make docking safer for both the craft attempting to dock and the personnel occupying the larger vessel or space station. Once the ship has successfully docked, the arm swings back in an arc along the side of the ship to allow the shuttle to connect with a special docking airlock to offload passengers or cargo.

[There are other forms of technology that I can't share for the sake of avoiding spoilers. Those will be for the readers to discover later. :) ]

Inevitably, real life technology will catch up with and supersede that depicted in the novel, but like the recent reincarnation of Terminator and such past hits as the Back to the Future franchise, I believe that stories exist in their own universe, and in that perspective, the fictional status quo remains timeless.

What are you thoughts on technology that's coming in the very near future? What innovations do you think we might have in another five years? Or ten? Or twenty?

For space nuts, it's an exciting time to be alive

NASA photo of Pluto

It has been an exciting week for space nuts. In some respects the biggest news-grabber was the discovery of “Earth 2.0”, a planet orbiting a yellow dwarf star a little larger than our sun, in the Goldilocks zone. It's fourteen hundred light years away, so we won't be visiting soon, but although I'm not quite as excited as some, the discovery adds weight to the already impressive argument that we can't possibly alone.

Personally, I'm much more excited about the data from Pluto.

I'm not a scientist, just an interested spectator. I was expecting a barren, frozen rock rather like our own moon, swinging around the distant sun in its wildly eccentric orbit that sometimes means Pluto is closer to the sun than Neptune. I was wrong. Frozen, sure. But just a rock? Uh-uh. Pluto has an atmosphere. Pluto is not covered in impact craters – which means it is geologically active. Pluto has canyons, and Pluto has solid, water ice mountains as high as the Rockies. All this on a sphere smaller than Earth's moon. Exactly what size is one of the many things NASA's New Horizon probe has been able to calculate, as reported here. And that's one of the things that interests me. Our moon has negligible atmosphere; Pluto's can be measured. It seems that heart-shaped thing is a glacier. There may be organic molecules on the surface. This article on Space.com gives a great, potted explanation of what has been discovered so far.

The reason I find all this so fascinating is mainly because of the water ice, and the organic molecules. It has been speculated that Earth's water came from asteroids. Pluto is the largest known object in the Kuiper belt, the source of comets and asteroids. Perhaps just such a body collided with the early Earth, contributing its water and its organic molecules to the primordial mix?

I watched and rewatched the footage which Voyager sent back to Earth during its encounters with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune back in the eighties and nineties. Until now, that data was all the scientists had to play with. They learned so much about the outer planets from that data and it still forms the basis of many of their theories. The New Horizons mission has answered some questions and raised many others. The Dawn comet mission is set to send back more data as the host comet plunges towards the sun. And Kepler continues to discover more exoplanets. Meanwhile, work is proceeding on the James Webb space telescope, set to replace Kepler. Who knows what it will discover?

It's an exciting time to be alive.