Bear Awareness Week

Not only is today (Sunday) Mother's Day, but it is also the start of
Bear Awareness Week.

And the connection to alien romance is...?

Admittedly, it's tenuous. It has to be were-bears and shapeshifters, and maybe berserk, bear-spirit-possessed Viking warriors who seem to have had a dark ages type of 'roid rage.

Anyway, an intrepid bunch of bear-loving, speculative Romance authors are going to get together to thrash out what it is we love about men who have a lot in common with bears.


Angie Fox, Carrie Masek, Sandy Lender, Cynthia Eden and Charlee Boyett-Compo are joining me on internet voices radio tonight between 9pm Eastern and eleven pm to give a whole new depth of meaning to Bear men and Romance.

We'd love some listeners, even for a little while.


For those whose taste in alien romance veers off the beaten track into exotic historicals, check out the last CRAZY TUESDAY/

In the last program, Jade Lee and Emily Bryan (aka
Diana Groe) talked about everything below the belt in honor of Earth
Day... from Brazilian waxes for courtesans, to castration, to foot
binding.

http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/CrazyTuesday.htm


FOR CHERRY PICKING SPECIALS, which is the irreverent and irregular
Sunday night-time show about Romance heroes and the animals they shift
into being when the right female comes along.

http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/rowena.htm


Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
http://www.rowenacherry.com
http://www.internetvoicesradio.com

Not with a moose... nor with a rabbit, I think

If you have a mind like mine, perhaps you are always wondering how far you'd want to push the romantic envelope in real life, and what you think your editor might swallow in your fiction.


Things happen. I'm sure a lot of us see and process random items in the news or on the net, and come up with similar ideas.

This week, I clicked a couple of different links that took me to YouTube. I lie. I clicked a lot, because friends on Facebook.com (do befriend me!) posted links to two of my favorite musician groups: Queen and The Doors.

I digress.

One link took me to Survivorman, Les Stroud (who was verisimilitude consultant for my alien romance, Insufficient Mating Material) talking about one of his most scary real life adventures. In the rutting season, he made the sounds of a romantic lady moose, and a very determined male moose pursued him relentlessly. I suppose moose operate on the "if it quacks like a duck" theory. Either that, or he was furious with Les Stroud for being a blatant moose teaser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xltg0iagMJY


Another link took me to a pastiche of funny cats. (One image was not funny, so I'm not posting the link.) A male rabbit stalking, and then attempting to hump an outraged ginger cat was.

The cats I grew up loving were rabbit killers! That adds an extra element of piquancy, and I suppose that's why Vampire Killers falling in love with Vampires is such fun.

So... as I was chopping onions for dinner, I began to wonder (not for the first time) if I were a mythical Greek maiden, how would I really feel if the most powerful and over-sexed god in the Pantheon charged up to me in the guise of a bull, or as a really big swan, and was determined to have his way with me?

Having watched the latest Merrill Lynch ad. I have to think that a bull would have practical difficulties if the maiden didn't want to cooperate. I don't think it would make a good romance for me to write. Could be a comedy. Would not have a traditional happy ending.


By the way, Insufficient Mating Material is giveaway book of the day today (Sunday) at

http://www.authorisland.com/

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

World-building. How off Earth do you tell time?

Have you ever thought of "Time" as a problem?
Maybe not.
If all your alien romance action takes place on one planetary body, or moon, you might start with the local sun or star, and measure time by the orbit.
But what if the orbit wobbles?

I suppose you could have Leap Years on a grand scale.

If the sun is a Cepheid Variable, (not recommended, too unstable) can you rely on light to predict time?

What if there are two suns? Suppose you have several moons?

And supposing your civilization is on a space ark, or a tora, or a space station --like Babylon 9-- populated in a democratic manner by peoples from many galaxies. How would they agree on what time "Standard Time" is? Whose moon --or watch-- would rule?

Would there be Time wars?

Why do the military use a 24 hour clock, and civilians use a 12 hour (plus am/pm)?

Even on our own little world, we've had different calendars and almanacs as current world rulers have dabbled, and named months after themselves, and got egotistically involved in whether or not "their" month is bigger and longer than their rivals' months.

If any super power ever elects a President named February, watch out!

Even if "we" all agree on Greenwich Mean Time (time is "mean" ?) we live in different time zones, and when we fly across an international date line, we travel in time. And if we leave one atomic clock at Greenwich, and whizz another identical one around the globe in orbit, they don't tell the same time. (Twin paradox).

So what would happen to fast-moving --but not equally fast-- spaceships? Do you think, instead of talking about the weather (as Englishmen are supposed to do), friendly spacefarers would chat about the time all the time?

In FORCED MATE, I decided to base time-telling in the Tigron Empire on a regular, predictable, reliable event: the alien female cycle. "The third thing females are good for."

That presupposes mammalian females, and reproductive cycles, and also that gravity, velocity, the space diet etc do not interfere with biology. What else is regular and reliable?

Heartbeats? Just imagine if time passed more quickly when we are frightened, or sexually active, or doing our gym-rat thing!

This week, Barbara Vey blogged on Thursday about a sex myth quiz. You can find a link to Barbara Vey's blog through the bloglinkhoppers link.

Spoiler alert!

Apparently, the average, healthy, human male (at least three loopholes, there) produces 300 million spermatoza every day. Imagine trying to tell time based on that reliable number! Of course, this is not a serious suggestion. It would be totally unmanageable and impracticable.

On that happy thought.... I'll leave you to go spoof something.

Best wishes,
Rowena

PS. Check out the Sampler of 10 current and former Dorchester FF&P authors' first chapters.

Rowena Cherrry

FORCED MATE --what's the book about

A reader on the Amazon Romance discussion thread (about what Readers wish Authors would put on their websites... good thread!), asked me why there is no unbiased information about what FORCED MATE is about.

In a small, but not unbiased, way, I'd like to rectify the omission.

FORCED MATE is a chess term (all my titles are chess terms). Basically, the Black King and the White King race to make a pawn their Queen. It seemed a great metaphor for a romance where two powerful world leaders want the same girl.

Persephone is abducted (from Earth) by Hades (dark god of the Underworld) ... and kicks his butt.

My heroine, Djinni-vera (Jinny) Persephone, is psychic and a mind reader, and an intergalactic warrior in training who is being kept hidden on Earth until the time is right for her to marry her betrothed, the White "King".

The "Black" King (I am using my inverted commas deliberately) sees a picture of the heroine, and decides --much as Hades did-- that he has to have her. He also wants to make her happy --in some versions of the myth, Hades also was willing to go to great lengths to please Persephone and he turned his underworld into a dark version of Earth for her, but with a double bed.

Since the "Black" King has never had to woo a woman to get her into his bed before, he's a bit out of his depth. He consults unreliable sources, such as old, pirated James Bond movies, and Romance novels, and an embittered English mercenary, and tries almost every stock "Romance" situation, and is astonished and baffled --and annoyed-- when his romance is not an instant, outrageous success.

Of course, the White "King" does not take the abduction of the perfect pawn Princess like a gentleman and a sportsman. He objects. He wants her back. He does not give up gracefully.

This is a complex romance with many levels and layers. It's full of puns, miniature spoofs, good jokes (and bad jokes!), bathroom humour (I-tell-your-alcohol level toilets), political intrigue, one explicit consensual sex (think of England) scene, and a whole starshipload of interesting characters with their own ideas of what is really important and whose side they are on.

Some commentators have said this book is about the ultimate hunk.
Others have said it is about the heroine and her relationships with other females. Others have said it is about the humor.

For me, it was the book of my heart.

Rowena Cherrry
alien romance

1. FORCED MATE (paperback, also e-book)
2. MATING NET (prequel, short story, e-book only)
3. INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL(paperback, sequel/spin off... story of Djetth (Jeff) and Martia-Djulia (Marsh)

Coming in 2008: KNIGHT'S FORK

I beg pardon for the self-serving post. Today, I mean to finish KF (before it is 3 months late)

A different view of flowers

alien romance appeal to me because I love to take an anarchic view of human romantic traditions... as do many of the other authors on this blog.

Have we talked about Flowers?
Why do Anglo-American males give cut flowers (and chocolates) to females?

For us, flowers are an all-purpose "I'm sorry", "I want to have sex with you", "I love you", "I remembered your special day" token.

But what happens if you are on a space ship, and the only flowers come from the farm, and the extravagant giving of them means that the food crop has been depleted? Is the gorgeous alien female going to be flattered or appalled?

Here's an excerpt from KNIGHT'S FORK (the next in the series after FORCED MATE and INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL)

In the thoroughly romantic tradition of abduction romances, the hero (Rhett) has imprisoned the heroine in his bedroom while furious with her .... usually either for rejecting his advances or else for making advances when it is not her place to be sexually aggressive.

Now, after thinking things through, he has returned to make peace (and sometimes babies). As usual, they begin by talking at cross purposes. She apologizes for whatever is uppermost on her mind, he expresses condolences for whatever he thinks is her problem.



“I should be more careful,” ’Rhett’s harsh whisper interrupted her guilty pleasure.
Electra looked up and her irrational heart leapt to welcome him.

He’d come back!

Glad, nervous, guilt-stricken and afraid all at once, she stared across the length of the suite at him. One of his hands was bent behind his back. He glared as if he’d never seen her before. A peculiar odor had wafted into the suite with him. His ambiguously reddish aura warned of rampant sensuality. Probably. One could rule out any foolish notion of ’Rhett being violently in love. The only other strong possibility was that he was in a state of noble indignation.

No doubt he was furious to find her prying into the Empress Helispeta’s papers.
Caught spying, there were few diplomatic options.

Wait and see, and if challenged say

Oh, is this private? I just picked it up

. Or, denial

I was not doing whatever you thought you saw me doing.

Or, apologize right away.

“I’m sorry…” she began.

“So am I!” he said.

With an expression of shame, he brought his hidden hand into sight and she saw the damage.

He held a fistful of broken-off legume flowers. They were as delicate, as colorful, and as inedible as insect wings. Impulsively, she moved toward him.

“Oh, what a shame! What happened?” she blurted out, before it occurred to her that perhaps in some rage he’d deliberately destroyed her future rations. Had the growing tips not been severed from the body of the plants, in time there would have been enough temper-suppressing legume fruits to provide three healthy side-dishes at least.

“We should put them in water,” he said remorsefully.

Electra shook her head. “It’s too late. They can’t recover. They’re flowering. They won’t have the energy to take root. But never mind. I should take liquids,” she said reluctantly. “If I remain in a state of near fasting, I shall be less…” she hesitated, “…inconvenient.”

He gave her an enigmatic half smile.

“How, Your Majesty, could you possibly be less inconvenient?” His husky voice deepened. He sounded almost playful if not sexually playful. She marveled at his self control, so far.

When had he started calling her “Your Majesty”? Perhaps it was only her imagination, but it seemed that he’d addressed her –correctly—as “Princess,” which was the higher title, until he’d discovered that she was in his power and sexually available to him.
Would he call her “Your Majesty” while he held her face between his beautifully symmetrical hands and (mildly sexual content...censored)

-----

I'd like to take this opportunity to mention that my newsletter is up on my website, also that I am part of a Halloween scavenger hunt contest

I'm also "doing" mermaids and manatees on Passionate Internet Voices Talk Radio from 9pm to 11pm on November the first in honor of the Defenders of Wildlife Manatee Awareness Month.

On Oct 31st, I'll be interviewing Ghost Hunter Jeff Dwyer, and also C. L. Shore
Passionate Internet Voices Talk Radio from 9pm to 11pm
-----

Happy Halloween, everyone!