How To Make Your Hero Invisible

For years, I have been sitting on two ideas because I have two different breeds of occasionally-invisible heroes in my alien djinn romances series.

My twin Djinn princes, Devoron and Deverill rely on colors that the human eye cannot see. For instance, human eyes cannot see the pee trails that incontinent-by-design shrews leave in the woods. It was never necessary to mention this until I tell their stories, because as far as I remember in my God Princes of Tigron series, they were only noticed from the POV of another Djinn.

The other sometimes-invisible hero is Viz-Igerd, King of the Volnoth. His species is amphibious, and they have squid-like skin which can change color at will. I could have described their skin as chameleon-like, but squid also use their skin for sexually aggressive flashing in addition to camouflage. There are artists who use "camouflage art", and it is really interesting, but would not work in the wild without a very lengthy set-up. One's ambush hero would have to live like a spearing-type Mantis Shrimp, and his love life would be decidedly dub-con.  (Dubious Consent.)

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

Trademarks Plunge Into Murky Waters

Trademarks are intended to be a "source identifier". They are not intended to be a restraint on anyone's vocabulary.

Imagine a science fiction world where certain words or phrases could be used only by certain individuals, and anyone who used a "marked" dictionary word could be punished severely. In my alien Djinn romance worlds, I did this with a clothing color.... but I digress.

There's an interesting (potentially game changing) trademark case "District Court In California Recognizes Plausible Trademark Rights Over Fictional Star Wars Board Game."

This ongoing case is about the presumably made up name of a fictional card game within the Star Wars franchise, that has been mentioned in the scripts, but allegedly has never been trademarked and turned into real world merchandise by Lucasfilms Ltd.

https://www.limegreenipnews.com/2018/05/district-court-in-california-recognizes-plausible-trademark-rights-over-fictional-star-wars-board-game/#page=1

For Hogan Lovells, legal bloggers  Julia Anne Matheson and Gabriel Guerra Medellin offer analysis of the complexities and difficulties of claiming rights over a word, based on its inclusion in the scripts/books, and the game's importance to Han Solo's career.

Suppose that instead of calling the game Sabacc, Lucas had called it CockyPoker.

Another trademark battle has been fought and won/lost concerning whether or not the casual observer can distinguish the silhouette of a taurophon from a griffin (or griffon).

In "General Court Considers Likelihood Of Confusion Between Mythical Creatures", a European court (apparently not fans of the Harry Potter world... or of Vauxhall Motors which has a rampant griffin for its symbol) fret over how well known a griffin (or griffon) might be.

Apparently, the intellectual elites believe that the undiscerning population could be disastrously confused by even a low level of similarity, and so, a taurophon may not squat in silhouette with its tail raised.

Legal blogger Karen Dorsey for Taylor Wessing explains the Court's remarkable thinking.

For those interested in seeing if anyone is trying to trademark words in your book titles, follow cockybot.

Victoria Strauss shares trademark attorney Brad Frazer's comments on how far you can go when trademarking words to perform a source identification function.

http://www.victoriastrauss.com/2018/05/09/trademark-shenanigans-weighing-in-on-cockygate/

It's invaluable advice for single title writing authors.

Also helpful, from early 2017, Melissa Thompson wrote for Business.com "5 Trademark Cases And What You Should Learn From Them".

https://www.business.com/articles/5-trademark-cases-and-what-you-should-learn-from-them/

Who knew that one has to be careful when describing a hero as the short form of "superlative"... at least as a source identifier.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry



  

Invisible Hero

Invisibility is a great ingredient for science fiction, and for implausible action movies.

James Bond had an invisible car. Harry Potter had a cloak of invisibility. In my earliest book (Forced Mate) one of my spaceships had a virtual invisibility mode. Many science fiction movies and series have "cloaking", which is explained in various ways. Or not explained.

I'm considering paint.

A few weeks ago (maybe more), I read about fish that see colors that humans cannot see. It was in a DISCOVER magazine article.

In the last couple of days, I've been pondering how a heroine who does not know that she is not human, but an alien djinn might describe a hero whom she can see, but no one else can. Obviously, he is a color for which there is no name in the human language.

I want a type of blue, because there is an English phrase (for depression) "blue devil". Owing to my sense of humor, which is a bit blue, too, I considered her thinking that he is the color of urine trails in a public swimming pool.... but I was reluctantly censoring myself, because that is just not Romance.

Today, I saw this:
My thanks to Houzz.com and to Rhiannon L. Crane

Backyard Birds: Create a Home for American Kestrels

"The American kestrel can see ultraviolet light. It enables them to locate the urine trails left by voles..."

So, should my heroine see urine trails?

My best wishes,
Rowena Cherry