Author Spotight - Michelle Levigne talks about her passion for writing Science Fiction Romance

I just like the flexibility, the extra possibilities available in the whole SF genre. I guess I write romance because relationships are important in the stories. One of my friends pointed out that my stories were very "domestic," meaning the relationships were a large partof the story.

There are more "toys" to play with, writing SF. More things to do, more places to go. But the important thing is to make sure that the "toys" and the otherworldly settings and situations are integral to the plot -- if you took them out of the story, the story would fall apart, it couldn't be written without them. If you can take away the ray guns and the spaceships and have the same story without a hitch, then maybe it really isn't an SF story, you know? I'm working on a series of short stories where I take faerie tales and turn them into SF romances. This is possible, maybe even necessary, because of the "unearthly" elements in faerie tales -- the magic, the creatures, the strange landscapes, the curses, the quests, the characters -- it translates well into SF settings and characters. The genie can turn into a sentient computer. Goblins turn into aliens. The Beast turns into a hero infected with a mutating disease. Beauty is the intrepid doctor who works to cure him. On and on.

A classic example is a story idea I had, where a rich, powerful, ruthless man, kidnaps a young woman who turns out to be his daughter. He couldn't get away with it for long in our modern world. However, put the story in a star-spanning civilization, where every planet has its own laws, and communication and tracking people isn't easy between worlds, suddenly it's very possible. And the daughter he kidnaps was originally bred for him for a specific purpose, for possible genetic gifts that will make him even more powerful. If he can get her to think like him.

So the possibilities are broader and more convoluted in SF, and you can have all sorts of tools and toys and settings and sidekicks that you can't find in our modern world that has become so very small and familiar.

Author Spotlight Week -Vijaya Schartz shares her passion for Science Fiction

After a period of being fascinated by the classics, then by Mystery novels as a reader, I discovered science fiction and fell in love. So many possibilities... It became a passion. What if?

Yet, as I was reading more and more science fiction, one element was always missing. Sometimes the stories ended on a depressing note, and there was nothing to deter from the somber themes. Even when the hero won in the end, he was usually alone.

For superheroes of comic books, victory was always bittersweet, as they had to protect their anonymity. I found that disturbingly unfair. Of course if they could just get the girl and be happy, it would be the end of their career. Can't imagine Superman kissing his wife and a bunch of snotty kids goodbye before jumping out the window to go save the planet from a nefarious intergalactic villain...

Later, when I discovered traditional Romance, I found it a little too mild and lacking in action and external conflict. I yearned for a grander scope to the stories, not just two people's happiness. I did however appreciate the guarantee of some kind of happily ever after at the end. It made me feel safe and fuzzy.

Then, when I decided to write for publication, what came naturally to me was science fiction. But I still yearned for a romantic thread.

Some of my friends say I come from another world, that I am a time traveler from the future who forgot who she was. I don't know about that, but it would explain a lot. LOL. I believe I have a solid imagination. But is it really imagination?

Thanks to my extensive travels and contacts with many earthly cultures, I can also discern which elements of a culture are purely Human (if any really are), which are dictated by survival, and which are ingrained from a young age, learned through experience, or forced upon an individual to fit specific cultural standards.

This discerning skill now allows me to write believable futuristic worlds and characters, even if their looks, their circumstances or origins would be unlikely in our world. It's a matter of justifying the differences to suspend the reader's ingrained beliefs.

So now, I write romantic science fiction with a kick, where I get the best of two worlds, with a guaranteed satisfying ending through the love story. So many science fiction novels tend to be dark and depressing. Not mine. My action-packed stories and kick-butt heroines lend themselves to many romantic conflicts, and I found that science-fiction is a perfect stage for it.

Find out more about my books at: http://www.vijayaschartz.com

Author Spotlight - AR Norris talks about her favorite authors

Author HG Wells

I have a lots of favorite authors, and all for different reasons. It's so hard to choose Isaac Asimov and H.G. Wells were awesome and triggered my love of possibility and obsession of the future. (And it is an obsession.) Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz got me excited about speculative fiction and a love for the "sense of other". Jane Austen really touched my romantic side.

The richness and visual they wrote out on paper filled my lower class world with action and adventure. I didn't need anything other than a secondhand book to lose myself in. Edgar Allan Poe was the first time I remember crying over a story and understanding what it meant to write with feeling and emotion. Stephen King was the first time I remember having to sleep with the lamp on after I grew out of being afraid of the dark. And Dean Koontz introduced me to real characters caught up in amazing situations. Jane Austen was the first writer to make me sigh and hope to be swooned by a boy.

When I decided to become a writer, these authors taught me an even more important lesson. All of them were dedicated to their craft. They submerged themselves in their genre and researched every aspect. As an example, Isaac was so focused on his imaginary world he could write in a bare white room and still churn out a wonderful, colorful story that explored future concepts and the consequences of today's actions. Edgar Allan Poe was so dedicated he focused only on writing, at the cost of financial stability.

****

Steph: You know I LOVED HG Wells. I haven't read him per se, but we all know how his stories inspired the muse. I just wanted to let you know that I get as giddy as you when I think about him.
Smiles

Author Spotlight - AR Norris talks about her love for Sci-Fi Romance

Why I write SFR. It's a two part answer that has morphed over the generations. The equation is easy: SF + R = SFR.

First the SF part. That one is pretty easy to answer. I write science fiction because that is where my creativity automatically goes. If I think of a woman going on a hero's journey, it's in space. If I think of a man trying to find his father, he finds him on an alien planet. I wake up in the morning from a dream and my husband listens to the galactic adventure I went on through the night.

The second part, romance, is a little more winding. I wanted to write and read stories that had the characters and story at the front and the science as the backdrop, by which the world is enhanced. Unfortunately, by the late 80s and early 90s SF had really boxed itself in. The stories available in bookstores were science heavy with the characters and story as a backdrop. Most of the pages were filled with expounding theories and physics and blah, blah, blah. I didn't care! I wanted the characters to use the dang technology without explaining it to the tenth degree. But then I found the hidden secret.

Science fiction writers, ones who really cared about the human element of the story, were publishing in romance. "Those little sneaky sneaks!" Romance really saved SF, just like they saved paranormal and fantasy. It was easy to fold into the romance world. I mean, who doesn't want a HEA?

Author Spotlight Week -Vijaya Schartz shares her passion for Science Fiction

I've been a sci-fi fan since childhood. I was reading it from the school library, hiding behind my bed, driving my mother crazy. Of course, I was also reading detective stories, and adventure stories. But I watched all the sci-fi movies and TV shows. It was like a drug. I couldn't wait until I could go on a spaceship myself and explore the universe. Turns out I was born a little too early for that. Do you know that if you fly high enough in a plane, you can see the curvature of the Earth? Well, I’ve seen it. But I’m also watching the progress of Virgin Space Flights (they have regular update documentaries on the Science Channel) and I hope it will be possible for anyone to travel in space in the next few decades. It’s definitely on my bucket list.

So, naturally, when it came to my own writing, it made sense that I would write sci-fi. At first, it was straight sci-fi and weird fantasy, then my stories took a more romantic turn. Why not have the best of both worlds. All women like romance (whether they admit it or not). So now I write sci-fi romance. it's still a fully developed science-fiction plot, with a love story throughout. But even without the romance element, the story would stand on its own. That's what makes what I write sci-fi romance, and not futuristic romance, where the future is only a backdrop for a sizzling love story, with not much of a realistic plot.

I like to sprinkle a lot of action and adventures in my books, and dangers, and difficult situations. I love to get my characters in jeopardy, then figure out a way of getting them out of there (or leaving them stuck together long enough, so they can learn to appreciate each other). And what better place for that than being prisoner on a spaceship? Of course, that’s what happens in Black Jaguar.

Borealis Week - Feeding the muse & growing a passion for Science Fiction

J. MORGAN:

I'm not sure I have a full blown passion for writing SciFi, but I definitely want to write more. Kiss me Kate has sparked the kid in me. I grew up on Sci-Fi, books, TV shows and movies. Basically, I devoured anything I could get my hands on. That love affair kept growing as I got older. Even though, I'm neck deep in ghosts, vampires and werewolves, I would like to try my hand at discovering new worlds one day instead of haunting the one we have now. In the end I think that's the heart and soul of a Sci Fi author. They're not content with the world as it is. They want to explore the world or worlds that might be just beyond the fringe of the present. Whether it is the near future or the far flung maybes that not even our grandchildren will have thought about. As an author, I can't help but want to be part of that. Scary thought, isn't it? An entire future full of Jmo. Then my tagline could be, The Future's so bright you gotta wear Groucho Marx Glasses. Okay, that might be going too far, but I think I could wait around just to see if it happens. Maybe in one of those Futurama head thingies. Now, that sounds cool! Somebody hook me up with that.

PI BARRINGTON:

I think that my passion for science fiction was a combination of luck and timing. I was fortunate to be born at the end of science fiction generation of the 1950's so that when I watched television as a child and forward the sci-fi shows were literally were in full swing. There was "Lost In Space", "Journey to the Bottom of the Sea", "The Time Tunnel" "One Step Beyond", "The Invaders", "Outer Limits", "Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman" to name the most famous series of the 1960's and 1970's. "The Outer Limits" was the show that really affected me the most because it showed humans sometimes at our worst and was downright depressing at times but for me, that was the reality of science and science fiction. Sometimes we do things we shouldn't just because we can and other times our bad humanity comes out and uses science as a power base or for some negative motivation. We have to be very careful with our technology. "The Outer Limits" was just the most intense for me. "Space 1999" was also a sentimental favorite. By the end of the 1970s both "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman" was the bar for sci-fi television and in the 1980s science fiction really came into its own through George Lucas' Star Wars episode. For me, it's all about military element that thrills me, lots of cool clothing, weapons, and effect, not to mention space travel itself! Plus, I'm just a girl nerd.



GAIL R. DELANY

I feel I'm being a bit repetitive on this because I did a similar set of blog posts a couple months ago, but I don't mind repeating. Writing science fiction is the ultimate test for your imagination. As writers, it is our natural instinct to 'create'. Whether it's create characters, create fascinating settings or plots, or in the case of science fiction and speculative writing, often creating worlds.

I write science fiction because I love asking 'what if...' questions. Because Borealis involves so many kinds of people and storylines, I got to create not only my own series of 'what if...' questions, but some 'what if...' questions for the other authors in the series. I feel like a movie director. "This is your motivation in your book..."

Borealis is my first venture into more 'hi sci fi' versus futuristic and/or speculative, and I find it's almost like writing in a different genre. While I could stretch the concepts of Earth in my Phoenix series, with Borealis I can stretch further -- and play with more cool gadgets. My hero, Theron, has a lot of cool gadgets.

Writing science fiction opens up so many doors, and sometimes a few spaceports.

Here's a buy link on the Desert Breeze Site: http://stores.desertbreezepublishing.com/-strse-111/Borealis-J-Morgan-PI/Detail.bok