{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Part 2 by Karen S. Wiesner

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's

A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,

Part 2

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

As I said last week in this two-part review, I feel bad for Martin. He went head-first into A Song of Ice and Fire and there was no stopping the epic as it grew larger and larger in many different ways, not simply from a writing standpoint but also in the market for the series as it crossed boundaries into TV and other media and merchandising. 

With series that have overarching plots like A Song of Ice and Fire does, finishing in a doable amount of time becomes a nightmare if the entire series isn't written in toto, in advance of publication. Now, obviously, even when he wasn’t as famous as he now is, Martin had a much, much larger audience than I'll ever have as an author, so I've had several luxuries in my writing he's never had. As authors, both of us realize only too well that an overarching series (as opposed to the kind of series with standalone story installments) can't be put off or set aside for too long without becoming off-track and distracted, momentum derailed, and mindset potentially being upset irrevocably to the point of feeling that, as a writer, you're trying to pound an enormous square peg into a very small round hole. In Martin's case, he's spoken of feeling like his books are delayed because he's trying to untangle "the Meereenese knot" (a reference from his own series concerning a nearly impossible act of contortion, and named after the city of Meereen in Slaver's Bay), perhaps in regard to chronology synching up with all the various plot threads. 

Authors who are in the middle of a long, popular series that has left readers dangling for countless years between installments have a tremendous amount of pressure put on them. Who's to blame for that is a combination of many influences, predominately the author's own, the publisher's, and the fans. In this case, Martin had the HBO series aspects added to his stress. However, that pinnacle of outright terror they--Martin in particular--must feel could very definitely impact the quality of writing. I would absolutely hate feeling like practically the whole world was waiting on me to deliver something. Nothing about the scenario appeals to me, though authors who have gone through this situation may have all the money and fame a writer could possibly ever wish for. Does that make the torment worthwhile? Depends on who you ask. Added to Martin's already ponderous burden is this question I imagine he faces each and every day: What if readers are disappointed when he finally provides series arc resolutions with second-to-the-last and final volumes? If there are special types of hell for writers, that's one right there, for sure.              

I've also often wondered how he deals with the fact that the HBO series is finished and he still hasn't finished the book series. The producers were forced to continue on with the conclusion without him, though he reportedly did provide input. Keep in mind, though, that, 1) The writers and developers of films and television have different audiences and opinions on viewer satisfaction than book authors do, and 2) I can't imagine a writer wanting to give away key details about an unfinished book series that may incite readers to feel they have no reason to continue following the series in literary form when he finally finishes writing it. Because the TV show supposedly screwed up the end of the series (according to critics anyway), this gives Martin a unique opportunity to offer the end of the series the way it was meant to be, especially if his rendering is mind-blowingly fantastic. Martin is just too polished and concerned with quality to provide any less than that. But it must be a concern that bugs him even when he's not aware it's there lurking like the harbinger of doom. I also wonder if he's actually watched the portions of the TV series past the point where his published book series ended. As an author, I absolutely would not have watched it or read anything about it. He's said that he doesn't read message boards anymore to prevent his writing from being influenced, so I wonder if that means he avoided watching the final seasons of the TV series, too. I'm not on social media enough to really know whether he did or not watch it or stop after a certain point. 

How a writer ties up the end of a series can either lead readers to becoming lifelong fans or dire enemies, banning that author forever. Like I said, I don't envy authors in this position, regardless of their money and fame. Maybe the challenge is part of the fun for many writers. Nevertheless, those are risks I simply never want to take as a writer because they could so easily blow up in my face. As they say, fame and infamy are two sides of a coin. 

As a writer, I tend to be adamant about being certain even before I begin work on a project that I can actually finish the series in a satisfactory way…or at all. That's for my own peace of mind as well as for my readers. With both of my overarching series writing projects, I made a point of working on the installments one right after the other. For Arrow of Time Chronicles, I completed all four volumes over the course of about 2 1/2 years. They were only published after I finished writing them. They came out one a month from January to April 2020. The three novel parts of Bridge of Fire, Book 10: Woodcutter's Grim Series were written back-to-back and published within days of each other in September 2021. A series with overarching plots absolutely requires successful release dates to keep fans invested and, let's face it, given these days of social menacing, less vicious. While, as I said, Martin probably didn't have the option or maybe even the desire to hold back this series until he'd finished writing all of them, he wouldn't have had to face the monumental pressures he is now if he'd only completed writing the series before editors, publishers, TV networks and producers, and fans got involved. I suspect a fair portion of the delay in finishing Books 6 and 7 is due to wanting to make them both absolutely perfect, far beyond what fans of the TV series are expecting or even hoping for. 

While I wait as patiently as I possibly can for further installments, I'm reading what else the author has to offer apart from A Song of Ice and Fire, mostly enjoying it, and also looking for other "Game of Thrones" connected fiction, like House of the Dragon and the Egg and Dunk adventures, which I'll review below and hopefully provide something to tide you over for The Winds of Winter. 

 

I first read "The Hedge Knight" in the Robert Silverberg edited Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy collection (1998). This story is associated with George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, set in that world 90 years before the events that take place in the novels. 

It's hard to find a definitive title for the series "The Hedge Knight" is part of because, I suppose, this story was the first and therefore not well-defined at the time it was published. I saw it called Tales of Dunk and Egg, Dunk and Egg Adventures, A Knight of the Seven Kingdom, as well as simply Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The three currently available short novels in the A Knight of the Seven Kingdom series (which is what it was called in the trilogy compilation published in 2015 as well as what it will be called for the forthcoming HBO series) are touted as being part of the A Song of Ice and Fire, or even as a prequel. I don't think either are good descriptions. The storylines are completely different. I would call A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms an off-shoot of that series, at most. 

"The Hedge Knight" takes place while the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne, and it does include characters from A Song of Ice and Fire--Aegon Targaryen (known here as Egg, the future King Aegon V) and Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk, the future Lord Commander of the Kingsguard). In case you're wondering, as I was when I first started reading this, a hedge knight is one without a master that travels the kingdom searching for employment (and sleeping in the hedges). Hoping to gain the interest of a lord as a knight for hire by participating in a tourney, Dunk instead finds himself fighting for his life when he crosses the wrong Targaryen in order to save a young, pretty puppeteer artist. 

The first time I read "The Hedge Knight", I'd just started getting into the "Game of Thrones" world and its massive cast of characters. I didn't really know that series as well as I do now, having both read the books and watched the HBO series countless times since. I had no idea how these characters fit into that world and series. Additionally, the Dunk and Egg (as in, "dunk an egg") aspect seemed silly to me. Beyond that, I have an even stronger opinion of tourneys than Ned Stark--what a waste of time, money, energy, and blood. So I can't say I appreciated the story the first time I read it. However, when I reread it recently in connection with my review of the two Legends short novel collections, it was with a much clearer comprehension of the primary series. I really liked and rooted for Dunk and Egg. As soon as I finished this story, I ordered the trilogy of novellas, published together in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. In large part, I suppose I gave this story more of a chance the second time around because I'm ravenous--more like absolutely famished--for more Ice and Fire world stories. 

"The Sworn Sword", the second story in the A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms series was originally featured in the Legends II collection (2003). I started reading "The Sworn Sword" within that anthology but my copy of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms came, so I jumped over to that collection of the three stories the author has written thus far in the series. I read this short novel in almost no time, and I was unable to keep myself from going on to the third story instead of returning to Legends II. I absolutely loved "The Sworn Sword" in which, a year or so after the events of "The Hedge Knight", Dunk and Egg find themselves sworn to the service of an aging, has-been lord with secrets the old man hasn't bothered to reveal to his "employees". When the water on the land of this lord is stolen with a dam built by a neighboring house, Dunk and Egg go to the thief who's been painted as black as night by their lord. But things aren't at all what they initially seemed. 

In the third short novel, "The Mystery Knight" (published in 2010 in the Martin and Gardner Dozois edited anthology Warriors), Dunk and Egg are on the road, staying out of sight after prior events in the other two stories but longing for a soft bed instead of the hard ground, and good food instead of the hardtack that takes away the will to chew, let alone live. When they hear about a wedding taking place nearby, complete with a feast and mini tourney, Dunk decides maybe winning the tilt will provide the means for him and his squire Egg to make their way to Winterfell to see about serving one the lord there. They quickly become embroiled in another deadly conspiracy, this one involving a dragon egg. This series is absolute must-read, as is the one it's set in is. 

The compilation of all three short novels was a joy to read alongside illustrations by the fabulous Gary Gianni. Prior to the frequently placed, amazingly detailed black and white sketches, I'd pictured Dunk as a much older knight (I was inadvertently thinking about the actor Liam Cunningham who played Davos Seaworth in the HBO Game of Thrones series). I also imagined Egg as being older and much larger. The illustrations show a much younger man for Dunk, and small Egg is adorable with his bald head in Gianni's artwork.

In 2011, it was reported that Martin was working on a fourth novella for A Knight of the Seven Kingdom (The She-Wolves of Winterfell) but he was forced to stop writing it with the demand for the next title in A Song of Ice and Fire. In 2014, Martin said he'd roughed out another Dunk and Egg story, The Village Hero, set in the Riverlands. Which will be written/published first remains up in the air. He also has notes and "fairly specific ideas" for a number of other installments with potentially revealing plot titles: The Sellsword, The Champion, The Kingsguard, and The Lord Commander. 

The first three stories were adapted as comic books and reprinted as graphic novels. Additionally, after talk of this series becoming another HBO TV adaptation in the Ice and Fire universe, it was given a straight to series order in 2023 and filming began on the first season, consisting of six episodes, in June 2024. Release date is supposedly late 2025. I can hardly wait! 

If you're a lover of high fantasy similar to The Lord of the Rings (but much, much more graphic) with timeless characters and rich, medieval settings, suspense and danger galore, I can't imagine you wouldn't absolutely love both of George R. R. Martin's connected series, whether reading the books or watching the series, just like I do. The added appeal of dragons, blue-eyed ice creatures, hedge knights, and would-be princes in hiding sold me from the moment I heard about them. There's a lot already available here in this amazing universe with the promise (though I've probably wisely stopped holding my breath) of still more to come. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Part 1 by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's

A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,

Part 1

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

I can't help it, I feel bad for George R. R. Martin. He takes a lot of flak I don't believe he deserves. He had an idea for a phenomenal, epic fantasy story a la Tolkien (and yes, he, like the father of modern fantasy literature, considers A Song of Ice and Fire one very, very, very long story published in several volumes) and it became larger than life, to the point where he couldn't keep up with it and was quickly finding that each installment was growing and spiraling wildly in a way that undoubtedly felt out of control by the time HBO got involved and began producing the television series. 

Add to that stress, Martin isn't just an award-winning author and editor for many, many success anthologies featuring other authors--he's also a successful TV and feature film writer. When he begins to feel writing for TV compromises "the size of his imagination", he, in frustration, returns to book writing. In 1991, after having a vivid idea of a boy seeing a beheading and finding direwolves in the snow, he wrote the first scene of A Game of Thrones. In this fictional world, seasons last for years and can come to an unpredictable halt. Violent political machinations with several family dynasties vying for control of Westeros--including the daughter of the deposed Westerosi king attempting to return from exile and assume the throne she believes belongs to her--are at the heart of the tale with the growing threat of powerful supernatural creatures returning to the civilized world forming an intriguing backdrop I found irresistible from the first time I heard about these "White Walkers". 

Before long, Martin was researching, making maps and genealogies, and writing a few more chapters, which were interrupted for a TV series he worked on for years that ultimately never aired. In 1994, he returned to novel writing and A Game of Thrones. 1,400 manuscript pages in, he started to realize this was going to be a much larger endeavor than he'd originally thought. It was published in August 1996 with 1,088 pages, not including the appendices. At that time, it was touted the first in a trilogy, but, by the time the second book was published, "trilogy" was dropped. A Clash of Kings was released February 1999, coming in at 1,184 (sans appendices) pages. 

In 1999, after Book 2 reached #13 on The New York Times Best Seller list, producers and filmmakers started showing an interest in the film rights to the series. A Storm of Swords, the third book, was turned in several months late, published in November 2000, with well over 1,500 pages. A Feast of Crows, Book 4, came out five years after the previous (November 2005) with events set up to directly follow where Book 3 had left off, and focused on characters from King's Landing, the Riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands. Book 5, A Dance with Dragons (with a whopping 1,600 pages) was set in the same time period but focused on characters in Essos, Winterfell, and the Wall. Only Arya, Jon Snow, Tyrion, and Daenerys had chapters in both parallel-running volumes. It came out in July 2011. With this story, the series had caught up with what had happened in the previous installment around the two-thirds mark of the novel, and then went further. However, it covered much less than the author intended and left several agonizing tenterhooks that fans have been hanging on all this time. While rude critics claimed Martin had lost interest in the series or, devilishly, was looking to make more money and so held off on finishing the book for publication, he says he just spent too much time rewriting and perfecting it, which I heartily believe. 

In the meantime, in 2007, HBO had acquired the rights to turn A Song of Ice and Fire into a TV series, Game of Thrones. The first 10-episode season aired in April 2011. The series was officially a hit. Though the book series debuted without any mass market publicity or buzz of any kind in the genre, forcing the author to earn his audience the hard way--by writing damn good books that his fans were avidly talking about with other readers--Game of Thrones practically came out of the gate with a cannon explosion. Soon, Martin was carried along by the blitz with a seemingly endless succession of book tours and conventions, though he was trying admirably to juggle all that while writing one script per season of the TV series, writing the sixth book in the series, along with his The World of Ice & Fire companion guide and the Dunk and Egg novellas. 

In March 2012, Martin said that he expects the final two installments to be 1500 pages each but later talked about not being "firm about ending the series with a seventh novel". Book 6, The Winds of Winter, is supposed to resolve the cliffhangers from A Dance with Dragons early on, opening with two big battles that were built up in the previous installment. The viewpoint of Sansa and Arya Stark is supposed to be covered, as well as Arianne Martell's and Aeron Greyjoy's within this title. As for the ending to the series, the author says he wants a satisfying depth and resonance but plans to avoid disappointing fans "by deviating too far from their own theories and desires". 

By October 2012, 400 pages of the sixth novel had reportedly been written, half of which needed revising. HBO was churning out the popular series by mainly following the books already published to a fanatical increase in viewers, and Martin was working hard to deliver in hopes of Book 6 being published before the sixth season of Game of Thrones. By early 2016, he announced he wouldn't be able to catch up with the books in time for the last season of the show. As of this writing, July 2024 (13 years later), we still haven't seen the sixth installment (though in October 2022, he said it was approximately three quarters done), let alone the final (probably) book, A Dream of Spring. 

Martin is said to have told the TV show producers the "major plot points" of what may be in the final two installments. One presumes he told them enough so that the show and its stellar actors (some of whom received a million dollars per episode toward the end) went on to earn countless awards. That said, the final season's ending responses from fans and critics were a pretty mixed bag, with a lot of people unhappy with it. 

For my part, I didn't appreciate the very abrupt end of the supernatural angle of the series. It was almost like the producers came up with a checklist out of nowhere and this vital subplot was checked off summarily within an episode or two. I can't really think of how else it might have been done, so I survived that. That said, for the ultimate end of the series, I had three requirements or I would have been absolutely wroth: Arya, Tyrion, and Jon Snow had to survive and Dany had to die by Jon's hand. So I was pretty pleased with the series conclusion. I don't expect to be quite as pleased with the author's own ending, should we get it, given his own words to the effect of killing off major players so readers don't rely on the hero coming through unscathed and instead experience the tension those characters go through page by page. 

You can almost hear the exhaustion in his voice in a 2003 interview when Martin talked about never again writing anything on this scale, of returning to his fictional universe only in standalone novels, and of writing about characters from other time periods within the setting, such as his Dunk and Egg stories. Disaffected fans in this thirteen year interval between book have been abusive and downright merciless, judging the writing process by their own woefully ignorant prejudices, adding to the stress this author is no doubt feeling to the extreme since the Game of Thrones TV series ended in 2019. 

Martin has also been involved in HBO's follow-up attempts to cash in on more success in this fictional universe, not only with writing the massive two-volume, complete history of House Targaryen that--along with novellas "The Princess and the Queen" (published in the 2013 anthology Dangerous Women), "The Rogue Prince" (2014 Rogues anthology), "The Songs of the Dragon" (2017 The Book of Swords anthology) and the Asimov's Science Fiction and Dragon compilations "Blood of the Dragon" (taken from Dany's chapters in A Game of Thrones), "Path of the Dragon" (Dany's chapters in A Storm of Swords), and "Arms of the Kraken" (based on Iron Island chapters from A Feast for Crows)--spawned the House of the Dragon HBO series currently (as of this writing) in its second season as well as the upcoming one for the Dunk and Egg adventures, and several others which seem to have failed to move forward (the Jon Snow one was what I personally was most looking forward to) or are still being discussed. 

I, for one, devoured every installment of the book series when they were first published and continue to read them every couple years in hopes that a new volume will come out soon and I'll be ready to read it the very instant it's released. I also watch the HBO series at least once a year. My only complaint with it is that it's very hard to watch the over-the-top gratuitousness that goes far beyond the "honest necessity" to reflect real people Martin deliberately includes for "an immersive experience" in the novels because sexuality is "an important driving force in human life". I tend to fast-forward through the worst of it. Other than that, over the course of three or four intense days, I binge-watch the entire series every time I get started with it because I'm tortured with the situations the characters are going through and I can't leave long before I have to return to find out what will happen (though, at this point, I obviously already know). 

I love that the characters are so complex and well-fleshed out, it's sometimes hard not to believe they're just fictional imaginings. Not surprisingly, Ned Stark, Jon Snow, Tyrion, Arya, and Davos are my favorites. The settings are lush and vivid while the events are so authentic and suspenseful, I would love to live in the time period--in theory anyway…okay, so maybe just LARPing there. According to Martin at some point since 2012, he definitely doesn't plan to allow another writer to finish his book series for him if he's unable to complete it himself (he is 76 years old, after all). 

In the meantime, I'm avidly, anxiously, agonizingly waiting for the series to be finished, but I'm also understanding of the author's need to do it in his own time, to the very best of his ability, while also trying to juggle so many other things in the process. The less stress his disgruntled fans put on him, the more likely we'll see the next installments, which hopefully come out with satisfactory conclusions instead of the series exponentially growing and growing and growing with each new volume. So practice patience and enjoy what else the author has to offer, as I am, including non-Song of Ice and Fire offerings, as well as Ice and Fire connected House of the Dragon and the Egg and Dunk adventures, which I'll review next week and hopefully provide something to tide you over for The Winds of Winter. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Reviews 65 Mercy Thompson novels by Patricia Briggs

Reviews 65

Mercy Thompson

novels

by

 Patricia Briggs

Reviews haven't been indexed yet.  Search Reviews on this blog to find more.

Patricia Briggs has been mentioned in the following post on Theme-Worldbuilding Integration titled Use of Media Headlines.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-6.html

The previous parts of Theme-Worldbuilding are linked at the top of the post and 21 parts of the Theme-Worldbuilding Integration series are  indexed here:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

I've recently read STORM CURSED, #11 in the Mercy Thompson series.  Mercy is the lead, POV character, and could be viewed as a "Mary Sue" since she acquires the high regard of a vast variety of Beings as she plows through the obstacle course of her life.

She starts out as an underdog, well, under-were-coyote, and marries a werewolf Alpha, as she gains the high regard of a number of sorts of supernatural creatures.

In STORM CURSED, Mercy has to hammer her way through a major confrontation with Witches who she thought were "White" but turn out to be the worst of the "Black" magic users.

In other words, she has been hoodwinked, fooled, scammed.

We all know that feeling from all the spam phone calls and emails - some of which we (hopefully almost) fall for. You know what it feels like to be a Patsy, even if you've never been a Karen.

https://amazon.com/Storm-Cursed-Mercy-Thompson-Novel-ebook/dp/B07DMYTL6L/

Now she knows the dangers and the bad actors, she has to vanquish them.

She gathers her allies (werewolf pack and all) and mops up the problem.

Why is it her problem? Because in a previous novel, she declared in public that she, and the Werewolf pack, would take charge of this Territory and forbid Black magic.

The objective is to be accepted by the human majority as a self-policing minority.  

I like this series because Mercy is a genuine person with depths who seems to grow through surmounting her challenges. There seems an underlying thematic reason why she, of all people, SHOULD run "point" on these operations.

Part of that reason is her ability to be open, emotionally bonded to people through her admiration of their better traits and opposition to their lesser propensities.  She improves people she befriends -- and all these "creatures" are people to her, complete people.

I think this series is popular because we see these issues of polarization of society, separating mixed-bag-type-people into camps or teams in order to stage a fight which is a distraction from the real issues underlying the conflict.

Mercy is aswim in the pea-soup mess her world is in, but forges a path toward unifying the disparate factions. 

I highly recommend this series.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 61 - Forged an Alex Verus Novel by Benedict Jacka

Reviews 61

Forged

An Alex Verus Novel

by

Benedict Jacka 

Reviews have not yet been indexed.  To find them search for the Label, Reviews.

We looked at MARKED, #9 in Benedict Jacka's Alex Verus Series.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/01/reviews-44-marked-by-benedict-jacka.html

And here is #11 in the series, FORGED,  - which ends off with a lot more adventures in store for the intrepid team which the hero, Alex Verus, has put together. 

https://www.amazon.com/Forged-Alex-Verus-Novel-Book-ebook/dp/B085BV7JF5/

This is not a Romance Series, but the plot is driven by iron-clad Bonds among individuals, some male, some female, some not human.  In this entry to the Series, we meet a self-aware Artificial Intelligence who willingly joins Verus's team after being rescued from the bad guys.

The whole novel (and series) is composed of fast-paced action scenes - with astonishing and unexpected weapons, skills, attacks, and mishaps appearing out of nowhere.  

It all makes perfect sense when you understand that Alex Verus is essentially a "good guy" with his fanny caught in one horrendous bear trap and his goal merely survival.

He's not out to destroy, expunge, or vanquish the bad guys.  He doesn't want power over them.  He doesn't want to become the boss of the world or correct all the wrongs of the world. He just wants them to stop trying to kill him and his friends.  To move toward that goal, he has killed many, sometimes dishonorably. 

In the ensuing battles, some of his friends get killed, some captured and tortured, (sometimes rescued by him or his other friends), and the total situation of the massive war that scampers across alternate-Realities changes with nearly every blow landed in combat.

The real meat of the story, though, lies between battles, between attacks, in the quiet moments when Verus cements his bonds with his friends, frenemies, and even former enemies, and potential Lovers. 

This is well written, easy reading, with deep characters whose predicaments make you ask yourself hard questions about your own life, and what you wouldn't do to survive.

And it does pose good questions about how or if Love can actually conquer "All."  By the end of this Book 11 in the Series, it does seem that friendship has a serious chance at stopping the violent attacks, and might forge new alliances.  

If you are trying to write a Romance, this is a good Series to study for ideas about what sort of "All" your Characters' Love might have to conquer.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

The Power Of Thoughtful Questions

 "I ask questions for a living..." Larry King responded to an interviewer of perhaps the most famous interviewer of our generation.  

Larry King also shared some of his guiding principles, such as that an interview is about the interviewee, not about the interviewer, therefore he "left ego at the door". He "never brought [his own] opinion to [his] interviews." He believed in asking concise questions, and giving his guests an uninterrupted opportunity to answer.

Writers can learn a lot, craftwise, from public figures who ask questions for a living. 

While Larry King asked questions to edify and entertain and broaden the horizons of his viewers and listeners, asking questions of a different sort is the basis of an attorney's craft. Asking questions is also a critical part of a teacher's Socratic method to stimulate critical thinking and draw out ideas. The right questions, at the right time, and in the right order can often achieve what no amount of argument will do.

There is an anecdote in "Doesn't Hurt To Ask" by Trey Gowdy in which Gowdy gently roasts Senator Tim Scott for having a vanity license plate US SENATOR 2. Senator Tim Scott responds with a question: "How many times were you stopped last year by the police...?"

Off topic, but maybe vanity license plates that convey a helpfully reassuring message to law enforcement ought to cost no more than regular plates. Maybe somewhere on the back of a vehicle, it should be possible to have the photos of the licensed driver and co-driver of that vehicle.  If the need to ask to see License, Registration, and Proof of Insurance are the most dangerous part of a traffic stop, shouldn't those documents have an RFID chip that the police could read before approaching the driver's window?

One of Gowdy's chapter titles, likely to appeal to writers, is "A word is worth a thousand words".  That might be an oxymoron for the ages. Deep!  Another great insight from Gowdy's years as a prosecutor is that there may only be two witnesses to a murder. One is dead. The other is the defendant.

Another truth is that almost every human likes to talk a lot more than they like to listen. That gives huge life advantages to anyone who likes to listen, or likes to ask incremental questions and is willing to actively listen to the answers.

For authors perhaps wanting a refresher in character development, or the use of dialogue while in the POV of the questioner, Trey Gowdy's "It Doesn't Hurt To Ask" might be a goldmine. As Gowdy says, "Asking the right question is a devilish way to turn the tables."

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

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

Reviews 59 - People of the City by Marshall Ryan Maresca

Reviews 59

People of the City
by
Marshall Ryan Maresca

Here is a non-stop action series we've discussed before,

https://www.amazon.com/People-City-Maradaine-Elite-Book-ebook/dp/B0852PDDC1/










https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/01/reviews-51-shield-of-people-novel-of.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/06/reviews-53-fenmere-job-by-marshall-ryan.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/06/reviews-46-police-family-love-by.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/05/reviews-34-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/06/reviews-16-thorn-of-dentonhill-by.html

And I do recommend the whole series, as a study in "worldbuilding" -- even though it is not Romance Genre or Fantasy or Paranormal Romance.

It has a couple of "love story" threads, but they get buried in the detritus of action-action-action.

As in much fantasy-action, the fighters get badly injured but recover quickly, much more quickly than is realistic.  This casts a "comic book" atmosphere around the "Magic" so that "Magic" is just a way of imposing your personal will on the world, the adolescent male wish-fulfillment-fantasy.

But Maresca uses Magic as only one small thread of the tapestry he is weaving before our eyes.  Watch his future novels built on this foundation -- and use your imagination to figure how, if you and your readers explore such a "world," you could illustrate LOVE CONQUERS ALL.  The problems Maresca is setting up are exactly the type that love is best at conquering.

With PEOPLE OF THE CITY, Maresca brings to simultaneous climax all the threads begun and richly colored, woven and showcased in the previous Maradaine novels.

I do seriously recommend reading them in the order in which they were published, as it is actually one, continuous, long story -- a story-arc -- that behind the non-stop action-action format, leaves us with many serious issues to consider on a fundamental level.  And that is what fiction has traditionally been for -- challenging pre-conceptions, prejudices, and assumptions while at the same time provoking thoughtful consideration of other  explanations for how things are which lead to how things might be "....if only."

The essence of science fiction is the three ingredients, "What if...?" "If this goes on ..." and "If only ..."    When mixed with science, these three thinking processes lead to ideas that have never been promulgated before.

With this blast of novels centered on the city of Maradaine, Maresca uses political science, psychology, sociology and anthropology (and Magic) as his "science" ingredient, spending all 12 of these novels explaining "the problem" and setting that problem against a detailed survey of the sociological organization of a city based on neighborhood gang rulerships of territory, drug cartel rulership of imports, people-trafficking, a righteous constabulary, a corrupt constabulary leadership, a King with major political problems, a Throne in question, and a university struggling to teach two antithetical theories of the universe - Mechanics of Machines and Science-vs-Magic.  There are also mandatory Magic-user monitoring and controlling organizations called Circles which one enters upon completing certain University training to obtain "power."

But as with humans (and these people are human, though different, and with races and cultures unfamiliar to the reader), it is all about "power" --  physical, psychological, knowledge itself, or magic (or the knowledge of magic) and psychological power of trickery, illusion, misdirection.  Apparently, Magic is an individual endowment one is born with, but acquiring power takes real work plus some arcane tools nobody really understands or has ready access to.

We, as readers, can see the analytical thinking of engineers applied to investigating how these magical tools and substances can acquire, store and deliver raw Magic-power, but the denizens of this complex world can't see it.

Except, one suspects in the distant past, they did see the combination of science and magic, and came to a bad end.  Thus in the era of "The Maradaine Elite" there is a young generation beginning to awaken to this combination, willing to explore the possibilities to gain enough "power" to counter the corruption destroying their City from the top down.

The title page of PEOPLE OF THE CITY indicted the next book, coming soon from DAW Books, will be titled THE VELOCITY OF REVOLUTION -- a title combining a scientific mechanical concept "velocity" which has both speed and direction, with "revolution" which likewise has mechanical implications but is often used to discuss changing political leaderships.

It sounds like a very clever segue into a story about combining Magic and Science -- and that is a combination I find endlessly fascinating.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 55 Walking Shadows by Faye Kellerman

Reviews 55

Walking Shadows

by

Faye Kellerman  

Reviews haven't been indexed yet.

The last few Reviews posts have discussed recent entries in long established (non-Romance) Series.  There is a reason for this focus that has to do with story structure.  It is a subtle point, and one you are not likely to learn by reading Romance genre - even series.

I have also brought Gini Koch's ALIEN series

to your attention, and though it's plot is mainly driven by a Romance that lasts right on through marriage and children, it is a hybrid genre series.  It's well done, fabulously entertaining, and a far reach outside the pure Romance genre.

Still, Romance fans love it (as do I).  The problem with trying to learn structure from the ALIEN series is simply that it is way too well done.  It's structure is buried under heaps of detail, texture, and everything-and-the-kitchen-sink plotting.

Historically, Romance genre novels did not EVER do "reprints" -- and thus were inhospitable to series writers.

To make it worthwhile to do a Series of novels, you must be able to keep reaching a wider and wider readership, while providing access to previously published novels.

Today, authors even of the SFWA Grand Master status, such as C. J. Cherryh, whose Foreigner series we discussed in Reviews 54

are providing their backlist titles as self-published or e-book only publisher items.  Kindle has been helpful for doing this.  Commercial, mainstream publishers simply can't do it because of the tax laws (which derailed many writers' careers) taxing warehouse inventory.

To drive a Series of novels to a satisfying and memorable conclusion, to the kind of payoff for reading so many books that makes the money-time-effort-attention worth while, a writer needs constant, continuous, reprint or availability of previous entries in the series.

The world has changed to where e-books can do this job.

During this shift, Romance genre, propelled by a handful of adventurous editors, managed to introduce Romance readers to that big-bang payoff that only a well crafted, long running (15 books or more), can deliver.

Because of ineptitude of series structure (it does take practice!), many series peter out instead of delivering that one, final, definitive bang that flings the Happily Ever After future right out before the reader's eyes.

It took Romance a while to grasp what Science Fiction had been doing for a couple of decades, and now I think we are seeing a transformation of the Romance field that will shift the views of the general public about the real-life possibility of the HEA.

Faye Kellerman (wife of the world famous Jonathan Kellerman, master of the Mystery Genre series), burst onto the publishing scene with a spectacularly different Mystery/Romance hybrid, Ritual Bath.  That novel won awards in spite of being far outside the bounds of what Mystery editors were looking for from a new writer.

The Ritual Bath,

the first in this long (so far 26 novels in the Decker/Lazarus series), introduced the Detective (Decker) to a witness to a murder (Rina Lazarus, a widow with 2 boys), they fall in love and over the course of 26 (so far) novels, Decker returns to his Jewish/religious roots because Rina is very observant (and may as well be an Alien From Outer Space from Decker's point of view), and they get married, have a kid, adopt kids (sort of) raise kids, send them off to college and marriage, move from one neighborhood to another, then retire to a different state, while Decker's daughter by a previous marriage is now a police Detective, too, and a valuable contact in another city.

Here is a list of the 26 novels:
https://amazon.com/gp/product/B07XX9XPGW

Meanwhile, Decker continues his career as a police Detective, retires to detect in a small town, and keeps on stumbling over stumper cases.

Rina, as always, sticks her nose in where it doesn't belong and solves a few of his cases, here and there (sometimes becoming a target of a murderer), drags him into her family's life, and generally is a stalwart, heroic woman.

Walking Shadows is #25 in this series, and #26 is Lost Boys, to be released in October 2020.

I have always given my highest (10 out of 5 Stars!!!) to the Decker/Lazarus series because it is one of the earliest examples of triple hybridization in publishing and broke ground for the mixed genre concept.

Isaac Asimov did lay the foundation with his Black Widow science fiction mysteries, and other writers have woven Paranormal elements into Detective novels, and fantasy worlds.  It took decades to achieve the conditions favorable to the Decker/Lazarus concept -- Mystery structure, Romance, and Religion.

Since fans seemed to object, the Religion elements get submerged in the later books, dissipated under the Mystery, and Romance per se does not burgeon into a big part of their family life.  It might have been more interesting to me if Rina had taken up the profession of the Match Maker, thus keeping Romance a hot element in each novel, while mixing it with Religion.  Also I'd have loved to see more novels drawing them into the religious life of other religions -- Los Angeles, the setting for most of the novels, certainly has enough variegated Religions.

My point is not that Religion is the important topic, but rather that the carefully balanced blend of all 3 genres in the initial novel, Ritual Bath, became distorted.

This happened because of reader feedback and editorial pressure, I'm sure (though I have no first hand knowledge).

The series is structured by the Life Cycle of the typical second-marriage couple, and that Life Cycle is optimized for a hard-working Los Angeles Detective (Vice squad to Homicide) by the addition of the third leg of Romance's footstool, Religion.

Rina Lazarus and Peter Decker are Soul Mates. That just glows out of the first novel in the series, they meet and parks fly.  It is intense, and artistically juxtaposed to murder.

They take several years to arrange life into marriage-and-a-kid.

That is how real life usually structures.

Compressing a life-cycle pivot point series into ONE novel spanning just a few weeks or months (or less) from First Sight to Wedding Bells reduces the real-life-cycle of actually lived events to a Comic Book.

It is a child's view of reality, of adulthood.

And that could be why so many people just can't accept the idea that there can exist such a thing as a couple "living happily ever after."

It's a childish view of adulthood, to them, and offering any single Romance genre novel as an example of how it is real just repels them more strongly.

Living life takes time.

Children just don't experience time the way adults do.

To a child, every endeavor is a one-step-process.  "Let's go to the park," says the child, and expects to drag Mom out the door.  But Mom first has to clean up breakfast, take dinner out of the freezer, answer the phone, go to the bathroom, change the kid's clothes, set the clothes washer going, pack toys and food for the kid, THEN go out the door, get into the car - oh, and on the way to the park, stop for gas, drop off the dry cleaning, and then head for the park, look for a parking spot, -- and by the time they are traipsing across the park, the kid has to go to the bathroom.  Go to the park is a multi-step procedure, and none of the regular parts of life can be neglected when you add Park to the list.

From the child's perspective, all that excess stuff is irrelevant.

Perspective may be the reason some people just can't grasp the reality of the HEA.  To progress from where that reader is to where the HEA is real is a multi-step procedure that includes many routine life-tasks plus a few special preparations, and requires some delayed gratification, some self-discipline, some heavy lifting, and long-tedious journeys between.

To the child who wants to go to the Park, getting there isn't real until he's swooping down the slides, deviling other kids on the playground, feeding the ducks, and fighting for a spot on the swings.

The child who has been to the Park before has building expectations, knowing there really is a Park, but it just isn't here right now.

The adult reading a Romance doesn't know there is an HEA, and has no idea what the connection is between this time-consuming, tedious, Romance, and the HEA.  Just as the child doesn't see the point of taking dinner out of the freezer before leaving, then stopping on errands along the way, the adult reading a Romance may not see the point of Romance.

Today's culture encourages people to confuse Romance with sex -- and that's another discussion.

There was a time when no publisher would publish a Romance novel that had even one sex scene.  Think about that.

In real life, Relationships are built over years, even decades. What a person means to you is the summation of thousands of interactions, of challenges met together, of favors done, of achievements admired, of movies watched together, and even children raised together.

Today, we are more keenly aware of what other people mean to us because of the sharp, sudden, unexpected loss of loved ones, co-workers, friends, distant relatives, neighbors, due to the Covid-19 virus, or due to lack of available treatment for a condition because of the focus on Covid-19.

People grow roots into each others' guts.  Loss of such a closely rooted person is like a tree falling over in a storm, leaving root system jutting into the air.  It's a ripping hurt.

A single novel, even a big, thick one spanning years of time, can't depict the growth of such a root system between people.

It takes a Series, maybe like the Decker/Lazarus series, spanning decades, to grow the Character's roots into the guts of the reader. To understand what the Characters mean to each other, the reader has to live their life parallel to that character.  It might take a week or two to read a long novel - and that just isn't long enough to feel, to believe, the evolutionary change of maturity the Characters have to go through between First Sight and HEA.

Ritual Bath was first published in 1986. I think it was 1992 that I first discovered a paperback of it at a book store.  It's 2020, and I can barely wait for the next installment!

Decker and Lazarus, Peter and Rina, are living the HEA - the real-life-kind of HEA, full of growth, change, challenge, and the application of the lessons learned at First Sight to the deeply entwined roots into each others' Souls.

If you want to argue the HEA with your readers, plan a long series, and be certain it has a firm structure built from the autobiographical bones of real people's real lives.  Then flesh out those bones with variations that bespeak the underlying themes you are dealing with.

Each individual novel in the Series has to open, and explicate, some sub-theme that is derived from that main envelope theme.

Note how C. J. Cherryh, in her Foreigner Series, treats the material of a single novel - an Event, a Problem, and the Solution - all focused around a theme - as a trilogy.  There is an overall theme to the series, and a sub-theme illustrated in each trilogy.

The series is structured around the life, and life-cycle, of Bren Cameron -- who is a father-figure to the young Atevi prince.

Bren stumbles from crisis to crisis -- yet he is living the HEA many readers say doesn't exist.

Think about that.  What is your vision of an HEA?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 52 Life and Limb by Jennifer Roberson

Reviews 52

Life and Limb

by

Jennifer Roberson 

Previous reviews have not been indexed.

But I have discussed Jennifer Roberson's previous work. She is one of my favorite writers.

I discussed Roberson's Sword-Dancer Saga in the first book review post I did for this blog.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/reviews-1-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

The Tiger and Del, Sword Dancer series went to 7 books, and I loved every one of them.

https://amazon.com/dp/B074CJYQLN





Roberson's Cheysuli Series - 8 Books - is very much worth your while.
https://amazon.com/dp/B078MRRYYV

And now we come to a new series, also Fantasy, but with a contemporary setting.  Call it modern Urban Fantasy.

https://www.amazon.com/Life-Limb-Blood-Bone-Book-ebook/dp/B07NV3DFF1/


You may remember the 15 Season TV Series, Supernatural, about two brothers who fight for right in a world of demons, possessions, Angels (fallen or maybe otherwise).  They travel the modern world saving the day from threats most people don't know exist.

It's a marvelous TV Series, but seemed to me to be flawed, possibly because there was more Horror Genre than Romance - more relationships that go nowhere than Happily Ever After trajectories.

I discussed the TV show twice:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/04/puzzle-of-romance.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/urban-fantasy-job-hunting.html

And on this blog, Margaret Carter also discussed the show:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/incarnations-of-lucifer.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/11/worlds-with-depth.html

We talk about this paradigm of "reality" because it is a fascinating backdrop for Romance, one that is not sufficiently explored.

Now, Jennifer Roberson (that is RoBERson -- not Robson) has brought her Relationship plotting talents to explore this basic concept.

In her afterword, she points out that her first impulse was to create the two lead characters as male and female and play the game as she has in previous series.  But she decided on two brothers to lead this series, brothers who are not physically related but are spiritually related in a way they (at first) don't exactly understand.

They are tutored by a man who seems to be an Angel (actual sort, with wings) working on Earth to gather forces to oppose Evil at an Armageddon.

This man tries to explain their nature to them as he trains them to conquer the evil forces, and supernatural creatures, demons that possess people.

This kind of Fantasy worldbuilding is Jennifer Roberson's strongest talent, and it shows in the first book in this new series, the Blood and Bone series.

This opening chapter focuses on introducing the two young men (who don't like each other - one who just got out of Prison because he killed someone, and the other who is a college educated Cowboy hick), detailing some of the tutorial assignments they are given, so there is a lot of exposition to absorb.  I liked them both.

The thing is, in this introductory novel, the exposition disguised as dialogue or even action, is not annoying.  The story unfolds at a good, solid pace, and the various oddball characters introduced show vast potential for Relationship.

I feel this Roberson series would have made a much better TV Series than Supernatural.

LIFE AND LIMB is not a "copy" of the TV Series in any way.

The world Roberson's characters inhabit is entirely different.  But if you study the 15 seasons of SUPERNATURAL along with this new Roberson series, do a deep contrast/compare analysis, you could learn why I keep harping on the worldbuilding from theme techniques.

The special difference between the TV Series, Supernatural, and the novel series, Blood and Bone, is theme -- and that difference generates the Characters, Plot, and Story that are so different.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 52 - The New Improved Sorceress, Book Two of Wayward Mages

Reviews 52

The New Improved Sorceress

Book Two

 of 

Wayward Mages

Reviews posts have not been indexed.

The previous book by Sara Hanover, The Late Great Wizard,

was discussed related to Soul Mates in this post:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/reviews-43-late-great-wizard-by-sara.html





Now we will look at the second book in the Wayward Mages series, The New Improved Sorceress.

2020 as a year will be one replete with headlines to be sliced, diced analyzed, and re-purposed for your own worldbuilding.

The themes, the drumbeat of civilization, is shifting tempo.  New styles and new artistic statements will be emerging -- well, not "new" new ones, just the very oldest from pre-history onward, repeating in an ever progressing spiral.

Finding the deepest, most invisible issues readers are wrestling with sends authors to the top of the charts.

Sarah Hanover has amalgamated the themes and symbols that have electrified readers for about ten years now.  Hanover might be finishing off the discussion of these topics using these symbols -- Phoenix rebirth in fire, ordinary girl thrust into world of magic, magical politics (various mythical creatures organized and opposing each other, trying to stay unnoticed by our world), and many other symbols.

Hanover's new series, Wayward Mages, is Urban Fantasy illustrating the secret world under/beside our "real" world.  Because the readership for this kind of World has "read it all before,"  she has created a number of characters just being introduced to the magic side of the world who shrug and accept it.

This late in the cycle of Harry Potter Urban Fantasy, the Characters have to behave this way so the story can just get on with it.  Readers of this genre are no longer fighting their way into believing there is more to reality than they see.  So the Characters don't fight that battle, and just get on with conquering Evil and saving the world.

This is a series you should pick up and follow because it may be one of the last of its kind.

Hanover uses the whole pantheon of magical creatures -- Phoenix, Harpies, Elves, inter-dimensional ghost, etc, etc -- and brings those odd species to life for us. She doesn't portray the magical creatures as "Aliens" -- (as science fiction aliens from outer space) -- but simply makes them plain American type ordinary people with magic-imperative agendas.

You could identify with any of these "people."

And they do intermarry among themselves (which causes trouble) and with humans (more trouble).

You can now see a budding Romance between the main Character, Tessa, possessed by a magical object that has embedded itself in her hand, and the Professor (a Phoenix in process of regenerating).  But something sizzles between Tessa and the local, magic-user Cop.  It is definitely the plot-driving Relationship of the series, so far.

As more books come out, we might find the overall theme is, "What exactly makes Souls Mate?"

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 51 - Shield of the People, a novel of the Maradaine Elite by Marshall Ryan Maresca

Reviews 51

Shield of the People

a novel of the Maradaine Elite

by

Marshall Ryan Maresca

This is the second in the Maradaine sub-series, Maradaine Elite.

The first was The Way of the Shield.

The set of Maradaine series (there are several already) from DAW FANTASY have become some of my favorite reading matter.  Each series focuses on a different level of society - the constabulary, the university students and faculty, the business people, the criminals, the territorial gangs who "run" their sections of town.

If the plots had more outright Romance, it would be even better, but it has relationship driven plots, family issues, and plenty of budding love stories.

Even with the author walking right by grand Romances as if blind to them, these novels are just fascinating.

They are Fantasy, in that Magic and Magic Technology are featured as part of the worldbuilding.  The Characters take this dimension of human power for granted -- it isn't remarkable, but just another element of the world that causes complications.  But science also works, and may be in hot pursuit of the mechanism behind Magic.

I'd say the Maradaine novels are Sociological Fantasy.  The world where Maradaine exists is a well built fantasy world, but the Characters are all embroiled in the push-shove jockeying for place, power, position, titles, authority, to function within the order of their society.

The Maradaine Elite title might refer to many things within the novel. There is a Cabal of landed, titled, rich and influential people called The Ten, who consider themselves Elite.  There is an Order of Martial Artists with aspirational idealism who are Elite fighters.  And there's a Political Elite who think highly of themselves.

Structurally, this novel is a thematic work of art, which could be why I like it so much.

It is about the pre-industrial society's method of counting ballots in a free democratic election.  The ballots are pieces of paper, and though counted in the out-lying cities where they were cast, they are put in lockboxes and transported by horse-drawn wagons over difficult mountain passes, to be officially certified in Maradaine, the capital.

Why this process is not accomplished Magically is not explained in this novel.

The Main Characters involved in rescuing the ballot lockboxes from those who would overthrow the will of the people belong to the martial order, priding itself on being a Shield of the People, never an aggressor, but are only trainees.

So the ostensible plot is focused on keeping an election from being falsified, but seething underneath that action-story is the conspiracy plot left from the previous Maradaine Elite novel.

There are those who respect and revere democracy (with no explanation of why, or where they got that idea), and there are those who think democracy is wrong, way too dangerous, and so they must rule.

Complex but very realistic political factions take shape, with no explanation of why these people (who are apparently human, but that is not established either) think exactly as the people of Earth in the 1700's.

There is no explanation of why Magic has not been harassed to create an industrial revolution.

In other words, these novels of various segments of the population of Maradaine, are hugely inspirational to the Romance Writer with a science fictional bent. Everything that is in the Maradaine novels is just fine -- it's what's MISSING that inspires.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 50 Finder by Suzanne Palmer

Reviews 50 

Finder

by

Suzanne Palmer 

Space adventure experienced by fully realized Characters meddling in "the affairs of Wizards" (with or without supernatural or magical elements), is another main staple of the science fiction reader which is replicated in the Romance field.

The displaced waif who takes a job as governess for a titled noble, becomes entangled in the situation of the children, defies the father over the problem, falls in love, and attracts the attention of the noble is a staple of Romance.  That is bucking the system.

Both Science Fiction and Romance are genres that cut into the life-arc of a main Character at a time when that Character is a "free radical" -- a molecule with an empty-spot just begging for a bond to form.  Free Radicals, in chemistry, tend to initiate chemical reactions.  In today's Health market, the "free radical" in our bodies is our enemy - not because it's bad, but because it tends to bond and disrupt our chemical balance.

Science Fiction readers expect writers to know science -- and show no ignorance.

Suzanne Palmer is a Hugo Award winning writer who wins for a good reason - she delivers a whopping good story driven by Relationships carried on a Plot driven by science.

C. J. Cherryh has shown us how humanity can spread to the stars, even without habitable planets in abundance, by building orbiting space stations, self-contained habitats filled with humans who mine their surroundings for materials and energy.

Suzanne Palmer has set this novel, Finder, (The Finder Chronicles Book 1) ...

https://www.amazon.com/Finder-Suzanne-Palmer-ebook/dp/B07FC7KWLB/   ...amid a cluster of such habitats, cobbled together from junk right alongside real space stations built with class and money.  She built an economy for these people that would make sense to any reader of Heinlein's novels, and expanded the old profession of "Repo Man" to repossess spaceships instead of just cars.

Yes, you can buy a spaceship on credit, and if you don't pay up, your space ship will be gone -- even if you are an arch-criminal running an interstellar empire of trade.  If you don't pay, the ship just turns around and goes home.  Well, it does if you don't disable or reprogram the A.I. that runs it.  If you do that - well, the owner will send Fergus Ferguson to pick it up, and he has the secret password.  That will work, if only he can get close enough.

Not every professional repossessor could or would tackle the job, considering who might be upset.  But Fergus has a deep and wide acquaintance with the criminal enterprises of the galaxy. He's leery but not daunted - and he needs the money.

Things don't go quite as he expects when he arrives among the connected habitats.  The locals are embroiled in some political issues that leave him stranded and at the mercy of -- a woman.

As noted in Reviews 49, Bucking the System
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/12/reviews-49-bucking-system.htmlis what we do, and what we love to read about.   In FINDER, Suzanne Palmer flings Fergus into the arms of the Vahn women - who own and live in one of the habitats in space.  They are all clones and just mind their own business until the system bucks them.  The system will be sorry. Trust me on that.

Fergus starts out thinking he's just a loner by nature. His story is about how he comes to a new opinion on his own nature.  The plot is about how this backwater cluster of human habitats deals with First Contact with apparently hostile Aliens.

Note, this is Book 1 in the Finder Chronicles. Fergus doesn't always repossess items from defaulting purchasers.  He has been s thief and a con artist, and uses those abilities to solve problems.  One problem looming is the new species of Aliens, and there are more adventures in store.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com