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

Worldbuilding from Reality Part 11 - Worldbuilding Does Not a Story Make

Worldbuilding from Reality

Part 11

Worldbuilding Does Not a Story Make

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous posts in the Worldbuilding From Reality series are indexed here:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/05/index-to-worldbuilding-from-reality.html

When you are worldbuilding, you are weaving the black velvet that will cradle and display your diamond.  You are not creating the light that will make your diamond sparkle, or the diamond itself, but if you do a messy job of worldbuilding then no adjustments of light or cut of diamond will create the riveting effect you intend.

Worldbuilding is crucial, but should be as invisible as the black velvet of a jeweler's display case.

In this analogy, I'd guess the "light" is your theme, and the diamond is the Relationship you are depicting.

The Worldbuilding is an integral part of the light and the jewel it illuminates, and some genres, some authors, make the Worldbuilding into the whole plot.  Done well, this is also riveting.

For example, the long running Destroyermen series by Taylor Anderson with the 2019 entry in the Series #14, Pass of Fire.

https://www.amazon.com/Pass-Fire-Destroyermen-Book-14-ebook/dp/B07HDQXWYW/

I think the overall Theme of the Destroyermen novels might be, "The best defense is a vigorous offense."  The world situation, and how a handful of "can-do" American sailors can improve the situation, is the plot. The Story

I can't sing the praises of Anderson's Destroyermen too loudly.  The "world" is an alternate Earth (which a WWII Destroyer falls into from a storm in the South Pacific), and the building is how this tiny group of sailors orchestrates a reproduction of WWII, but with totally different factions, different species (some not human) and humans who fell into this world from different historic epics.  We also have the indications some of the humans from different epics are actually from different parallel universes than our own.

So there is a cosmic-level worldbuilding theory behind the series, and the World where the conflict is in progress when our Destroyermen land there is the result of the asteroid that triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs landing in a slightly different spot, rearranging the geography of Central America.

There are a couple of species of feathered lizards that have achieved sentience -- and a civilization based on feeding the voracious populace both with humans and with their own species.

Our Destroyermen take the side of the people being attacked and eaten, or attacked and conquered by some stray WWII Japanese.  Alliances form, war spreads, and the Destroyermen put the natives on the track of ever improved weaponry.

The 2029 entry in this Series is Pass of Fire (the fire being a series of volcanoes in Central America, the Pass being formed by the asteroid hit).

And from this base of intricate worldbuilding, the long-long sequences describing weapons improvements and what counter-improvements the enemies achieve (with the help of the Japanese), and what huge, world-wide, sprawling strategies and tactics can be launched, and which of the surviving Destroyermen are leading parts of the war, and which parts are led by those who learned from our Destroyermen, also describe the Relationships developing because of the battle-camaraderie.

The Characters gradually emerge as well rounded, understandable individuals with unique talents brought forth by vicissitudes.  But even the marriages and births are incidental, except as one more motive to fight.

Survival is the biggest motive for this war.

Hollywood romanticized WWII by telling many deeply romantic stories about couples meeting during war, or separated because of it.  War impacts real lives, reshapes life directions.

In an Action Genre, the war itself and how to conduct it, is the story and the plot.

In Science Fiction the science of war is shown as the key to winning.

In Romance, the impact of war on family relationships, and the highly intensified Romances sweeping people into Relationships they would never have chosen, is the Story while the war itself (strategy, tactics, weaponry advantage, resource allocation) is just background.  The Romance-During-War Novel Plot is not the war, but the insane chances people take to get back together.

The Destroyermen series has no Romance in it, but it does have a few plausible Love Stories woven through it.

A Romance writer should read this series to study techniques for weaving flawless, featureless black velvet.

The last thing an artist wants is to distract the viewer's attention from the work of art being displayed.

In a Romance novel, the Jewel being displayed, the work of art, is the evolving Relationship.  As the Relationship matures into Love through many classic stages (each experienced uniquely), the "action" unfolds on the field of Relationship.  What the couple will do next is the suspense line.  If they are soldiers in a war, which side wins the war is usually not the problem.  If they are running the war, they win it together as a team.

In Romance, the war happens only to fertilize and inform the Relationship.

In the Action Science Fiction genre, which the Destroyermen Series precisely nails to perfection, the Relationships happen only to infuse the winning spirit into the combatants.

I have found not one single flaw in all of the novels in Taylor Anderson's Destroyermen Series.

I've discussed a few previous novels in this series:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/reviews-2-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html










https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/01/reviews-45-military-science-fiction-and.html




And we discussed Pass of Fire in the Theme-Plot Integration series.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/07/theme-plot-integration-part-18-stating.html

Clearly, I can't stop raving about Destroyermen. It's flawless, for what it is,  but that just whets my appetite for a similar series, complete with intricately perfect worldbuilding, the science of weaponry, all used to create and showcase the developing of Relationships.

We are enjoined to love our fellows as ourselves, but we humans often fall short of that goal.  The way Romance genre can illustrate the moves, strategy and tactics of warfare might teach us what there is to love in every human.

Romance writers need to study the Art of War as illustrated in the Destroyermen Series to see how the worldbuilding doesn't make the Story, but this kind of worldbuilding from the realities of WWII could make a whopping good Romance.  Just keep asking yourself what's missing.  What's there is perfect - but what's missing is even more important.

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

Reviews 49 - Bucking the System

Reviews 49

Bucking the System

Cry Pilot + Sequel

Defiance squared - no, cubed - is the essential quality of a) a Romance Heroine, and b) a science fiction Hero of any species.

Here's the thing about both Romance and Science Fiction readers. We are very aware of how we differ from the majority, while at the same time feeling close kinship with that majority.

You will find the "me against the system" plot arc in long series (C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner novels, etc) and in stand alone novels, or series kick-off novels.  The Science Fiction Hero is out to change the world, whether he/she knows it or not.

In the Mysteries of Pacing series (part 7 lists previous parts)
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/11/mysteries-of-pacing-part-7-art-of.htmlwe've looked at "how" a writer can form and mold raw material (the "I've got an idea!" flash of the complete life of a Character) into a linear sequence of Events (plot) and Lessons (story) that tickles the curiosity bump of a specific "majority."

Here is a kickoff novel with long series potential by Joel Dane titled CRY PILOT, with the sequel BURN CYCLE that I haven't read yet.

Book 1

Book 2

The title doesn't seem to make sense.  One "cries" out for a Corpsman when  a soldier is wounded.  But that's not what this "cry" means.

Science Fiction fans love a mystery, so a confusing title has a solid place among science fiction novels -- unlike other genres.

So we have to look closer at this oddly titled novel, and right off we are lured into the mindset of a guy determined to outsmart the system he was born embedded into.  Aha, my kind of novel!

With a carefully light brush, Joel Dane fills in the intricate and complex world building he's done to create the main Character's goal.

Maseo Kaytu is the odd name that also rivets the attention, a main character determined to survive a mission billed by the system as a suicide mission.  Some "Cry Pilots" do survive the flying of these fearsome but old and decrepit weapons platforms.

The current "system" doesn't still know how to build such flying platforms, and just barely knows how to repair them. Resources to do such repairs are scarce, and the enemy they fly against is rapidly destroying these machines.

They are A.I. equipped machines, but will not fly a mission without a human "pilot" (even though the pilot doesn't do much, other than die from G-stress maneuvers.)

The enemy is the Earth itself, seething with bio-engineered, fearsome weapons left over from a doomsday war.  Currently, the cobbled together system of government has fielded a counter-bio-engineered weapon designed to "heal" the whole Earth -- and it has made significant progress.  Humanity is fighting for time.

Into this system, Maseo Kaytu flings his defiance.  He is a criminal with the ambition to earn his way out of the sewer of the system.  But there is a lot going on that he doesn't know about.  Achieving his immediate goals leads him into a wider battle, and embeds him among a team of equally oddball individuals who just might have a chance - if they work together - of being part of the solution, not the problem.

So you see, this is a novel to read for the plot.  But as Maseo's array of acquaintances grows, you will find him focusing on a few women, (one in particular with psi talent) and finding how Relationship is the key ingredient in a winning team effort.

This novel is science fiction in the grand manner, but uses all the modern science you could ask for.  It isn't Romance, but has a nascent love story embedded in the plot.

It is a page turner, and well worth a studious read.  Think hard, and you will find that to make this series a Romance, you only need to start later in Maseo's life, and trim some scenes to make room for more private adventures.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 48 - The Kickass Heroine Lifestyle

Reviews 48

The Kickass Heroine Lifestyle

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Reviews haven't been indexed.

In the Mysteries of Pacing series ...

Part 1
 https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/09/mysteries-of-pacing-part-1-siri-reads.html

Part 2
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/10/mysteries-of-pacing-part-2-romance-at.html

Part 3 - where we discussed the TV Series Outlander
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/10/mysteries-of-pacing-part-3-punctuated.html

Part 4 Story Pacing
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/10/mysteries-of-pacing-part-4-story-pacing.html

Part 5 How Fast Can A Character Arc?
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/10/mysteries-of-pacing-part-5-how-fast-can.html

Part 6 How to Change a Character's Mind
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/10/mysteries-of-pacing-part-6-how-to.html

...we looked at some of the fundamentals of how Theme, Story and Plot fit together to create Pace.  There's more to be said on that topic, and it gets more interesting as we add Style and Voice to the mix of skills.

Here, we pause to look at some examples where the breakneck pacing leaves no room for relationships, or romance.

Here are the three novels to compare.

https://www.amazon.com/Bitter-Seed-Magic-Spellcrackers-Novel-ebook/dp/B005ERIRH2/










https://www.amazon.com/Rebel-San-Angeles-Book-ebook/dp/B06W549MRS/

https://www.amazon.com/Salvation-Day-Kali-Wallace-ebook/dp/B07JD1CBKN/




When mastering a skill, it pays to look at where others "fail" to incorporate that skill.  What does a novel look like if it is "fast paced" and what sorts of Characters spend a part of their life in the fast-lane of life?

Many of the most popular novels ever written - and most popular now being published - are extra-fast paced.  Historically, that hasn't been the case, but popular, mass market, fiction generally reflects the daily realities that people deal with in their real lives.

Some genres specialize in opening a window into a differently paced world.  For decades, Romance, Historical Romance, and suspense and crime novels provided a markedly different pace than life was taking on.

We talked a lot about "The Information Explosion" as computerization took shape, communications went Satellite, CNN delivered real-time battlefront news, and topics proliferated.  The speed at which Universities published new discoveries on a wider and wider variety of fronts, from Medicine to Astrophysics, increased perceptibly.

And then everyone just got used to Facebook, Twitter, cell phones, E-Newsletters, and the tsunami of information flowing over them every day.

We are now in a period of consolidation and digestion of this increase in human life's pace.

A new generation is growing up taking online devices for granted from the age of maybe 5 or so - maybe younger.  Parents are worrying about how young brains can be differently wired because of the pace of digital experience, and the "blue light" of screens having unknown effects on the whole body.

But these young children are adapting to the world they enter, just as previous generations have adapted.  Humanity's most potent survival trait is adaptability -- but individual human adults don't adapt.  Each generation fossilizes in a certain configuration, adapted to conditions of their youth, and decries the deformation of their children by new circumstances.

This is a new phenomenon in human evolution.  For millions of years, parents taught their children how to cope with the world the parents grew up in, and that knowledge worked fine, with a few minor tweaks, for the rest of that child's life.  Change took many generations.

All that changed with the printing press and movable type.

The speed of change is still increasing.  What once took more than a hundred years now happens in twenty (or less).

Science Fiction Romance has arisen (along with Paranormal and Fantasy Romance) because those purely technological changes have now soaked down deep into our cultures -- and cultures are fighting back.

For astrologers, this is a change cycle traceable by Pluto.  Pluto (whether it's a planet, or not doesn't matter - the effect is perceptible if you know how to look) is now transiting Capricorn.  Pluto is sexuality and the raw, basic urge to reproduce and survive, which includes "war" in the sense of grabbing the territory and resources of others.  Pluto "rules" Scorpio, the natural 8th House, which is other people's resources, opposite the natural 2nd House, your personal resources.

Values are a resource.  That makes Values an 8th House, Pluto/Sex (not Romance or Love, just Sex/Reproduction) phenomenon.

Starting in the 1950's and erupting onto the Headlines where writers could rip it off and craft novels about it, the Sexual Revolution has attacked the very foundation of the cultures (all of them) that existed before the printing press and movable type.

The women who suffered, died, worked themselves to death to win (or elsewhere, lose) World War II, stood up and screamed ENOUGH ALREADY!

The children they raised, raised another generation that knew nothing about the oppression their great-grandmothers lived and died under.

They didn't know they were free because they didn't know there was such a thing as legalized, culturally embedded, values (a whole system of values) based on the unconscious assumption that female-ness automatically meant slave, non-entity and stupid.

The generation born with Pluto in Scorpio grew up on the concept of the "kick-ass heroine," completed "the sexual revolution."

For decades the pants-suit and short haircut was the uniform of the liberated woman. "I'm as good a man as you are," was the fashion statement.  Anything a man could do, a woman could do (probably better).

But a new generation is now emerging into adulthood, bolder, more self-confident, and happily adorning themselves in long hair, dresses, skirts and wearing pants to every sort of event as they please.

These women devour the Kickass Heroine novels and model themselves after action-hero figures, in novels, games, movies, and TV Series.

We are seeing the chip-on-the-shoulder confrontation against masculinity wane, even as men complain of the attack on masculinity.

We are seeing a cross-cultural revolution.

We are seeing Values morph.

We are seeing sharing of values diminish, leaving culture crumbling.

Into this real-world mixture of change, comes the Science Fiction Romance, boldly going where no one has gone before.

We are watching, in our real world lives, how Love is Conquering Culture Shock.

Alvin Toffler's 1970's books on the physiological effect cultural change has on humans, and how this accelerating pace of change is creating change, is a must-read even today for Romance writers.
https://www.amazon.com/Future-Shock-Alvin-Toffler/dp/0553277375/

The readership you are targeting is in the medical condition called "shock."  The interlocking physiological systems are dysfunctional because of this shock.  We don't know yet, medically, how dire this may be, but we know that "stress" unrelieved, unrelenting, "fear-fight-flight" states wear our bodies out.

Fiction can be an anodyne to culture shock.

Fiction about Relationships, Love, and Romance, about people (human or not) coping with super-stressful, action-packed, blinding-speed, high-stakes games of survival amidst crumbling cultures may shape our future reality.

Star Trek is one of the examples of fiction informing reality.  As with Robert A. Heinlien's novels, the portrayal in Star Trek of human beings using advanced tools, tools that current science declared impossible, released the imagination of a generation that created many of those impossible tools.

That's the "science" part of science fiction.  The tools change, and the power of a single individual to do harm, or good, increases exponentially.

That increase has, in itself, not been a problem until recent decades when the foundation of shared values has dissolved.  Both the Values themselves have changed (women aren't born to slavery), and the sharing has diminished markedly.

The digital revolution diminished the "sharing" component of Culture.

The printing press kicked off the information explosion, and the digitalization of the world disintegrated the audience.

In the 1950's there were 3 US spanning TV networks, and they stopped broadcasting about 10:00 PM (then came Johnny Carson and midnight talk shows.)  Everyone watched the same shows - especially the big hits.  Everyone could carry on a conversation using those referents.  It was a common, shared, culture.

Today, there are hundreds, maybe thousands if you count streaming from other countries, of TV Series, Movies, Variety entertainment, Cooking Shows, National Geographic channel, -- just try to find 5 people in the grocery store at the same time who all watched THIS OR THAT last night!

Only small Groups on Facebook gather around discussing a particular print novel.  Nobody else knows or cares.

We simply don't have a universe of discourse in common, and so the dissemination of Values is not working the way it has in previous generations.

You might not believe it, but only a small percentage of the population pays attention to politics.  It's the loudest thing in the media right now, but only a small percentage of the population grasps enough of the subject to define a "value."

This fragmentation is an important consideration if you want to market fiction.

I have here three novels you probably never heard of, and most likely won't read, possibly don't care about at all.  They are mass market publications by very big, traditional publishers, mass market to tiny fragments of the 5 or 10% of the people who read books.  Yes, they are in ebook formats, too, but none of these by themselves constitute a large enough "reach" to matter.

Taken together, however, they make a point you should consider.

What do these 3 books have in common?

All 3 have a female protagonist, though Salvation Day by Kali Walace also has an alternating Point of View Character who is male.

Any of these 3 novels could have been published as Science Fiction or Fantasy in the 1970's.

Read the blurbs on the covers, and the "Look Inside" snatch on Amazon.

Now substitute male names for the Main Character.

Any of these books could be old fashioned "neck-up science fiction" the teen-boy-aimed genre which excludes all complications of the plot due to the story, the psychological morphing due to falling in love.

All these novels are about the same length (one of the requirements for mass market), and because of that length requirement, if there is to be "action" there is no room for "relationship."

Some exquisitely skilled writers can fold in a strong, plot-driving, internal-conflict-resolving Relationship even with a strict length requirement, but the current market does not have an appetite for that sort of novel.

These female, kick-ass heroines are just heroes. There is nothing feminine about them. It is as if half the Character's character is lopped off with a carving knife.

You can't craft a Soul Mate for a Character like that -- because such half-character Characters have no "Soul" you can find to build on.

They are powerful, tough, and desperate, as well as goal directed and emotionally engaged in their projects.  They have enemies, and meet those enemies.  They can tell the good guys from the bad guys, and they all oppose badass villains with true grit.

That's how they are just like men - and it is a portrait of the modern woman - but the other half of the novel is missing.  How are these women different from men?

We live in a culture in flux, and it is currently a very fragmented culture where the definition of masculinity, femininity and humanity are all changing.

Different groups espouse different values, and as always with humans, those most cherished values are held subconsciously, as beliefs. See Mysteries of Pacing Part 6, How To Change A Character's Mind.

Most of our beliefs are non-falsifiable hypotheses about the nature of life.  We don't question them, or prove them, or test them.  So any "ass" that gets in our way is fair game for kicking.

These 3 novels all draw a stark, black vs white, picture of right and wrong, and don't provoke the reader to ask hard questions about these currently changing aspects of our everyday world's cultures.

While delving deeply into the qualities of character necessary to surmount overwhelming odds, these three novels do not share the depth of thinking behind Science Fiction and Fantasy published in the 1960's.  That's not to say the older novels were "better."  Those novels were aimed at their readership, and these novels are aimed at a different readership.

None of the three is, in itself, particularly outstanding. They are all well written, could use a more vigorous editing for repetitions of information and lame dialogue, and tackle the job of extrapolating current trends into the near future or an alternate reality.

They may all be taken as cautionary tales, but none point the way out of this current cultural fragmentation.

It will take a Science Fiction Romance to illuminate that path out of the current state of affairs.

Children born with Pluto in Aquarius -- 2024 and on -- will be the ones to crystalize a new culture from this fragmentation.  They will be of age in 2050, and current predictors are skeptical that Earth's biosphere can support human life past 2050, at least not "life as we know it."  Civilization may be doomed, so we'll need to crystalize a new one.

I haven't yet seen any Science Fiction Romance novels about that coming epoch.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 47 - Police Family Love by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Reviews 47

Police Family Love

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Reviews haven't been indexed (yet).

In the entry, Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration Part 11 - Arranging Marriages,
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/06/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding.html
we discussed the TV Series, Shtisel, made in Israel, in Hebrew with English subtitles.

The title, Shtisel, is after the Shtisel family it follows through the harrowing issue of arranging marriages amidst a secular culture in Jerusalem.

It is reminiscent of the Chaim Potok novel about a talented artist, MY NAME IS ASHER LEV.

https://smile.amazon.com/Name-Asher-Lev-Chaim-Potok-ebook/dp/B002GKGAZG/

But Potok wrote in novel style, and was thus able to address deep and far reaching nuances of his theme about family and the misfit artist.

I noted that, as a TV Series, Shtisel couldn't do that and stay on the air.

Here, I want to point you to a series I've talked about before, by Marshall Ryan Maresca, set in his fictional/fantasy city of Maradaine.

He has crafted a series of series -- focusing on different levels, layers, and professions that make up a huge, sprawling port city.

Here are previous discussions of this huge work of art in the making:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/09/theme-character-integration-part-14.html

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

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/06/theme-plot-integration-part-17-crafting.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/07/depiction-part-16-reviews-26-depicting.html

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

And now we have two more books.  Note that -- books, not just TV episodes. Each of these novels is replete with details revealing the depths of a World you could never imagine, but which seems totally familiar.

  The Way of the Shield (A novel of the Maradaine Elite)


A Parliament of Bodies (A novel of The Maradaine Constabulary) 

The Way of the Shield has a sequel, Shield of the People, out October 2019.

"The Shield" is a martial arts "order" -- part of the previous culture, struggling not to be lost amidst a changing society.  Think of the parallels to the TV Series, Shtisel, which I recommended previously:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/06/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding.html

If you do a deep contrast/compare study of the martial arts order, how hard it is to live their life, what they swear to do, how seriously they take that oath, with the lifestyle depicted in SHTISEL, you will learn a lot about the writing craft.

But include the novels of the Maradaine Constabulary, along with two American TV Series, NCIS and BLUE BLOODS,

and you begin to see where Alien Romance fits in the genre-mix that is most popular today.

We have a long history of great Detective Series, novel series made into TV Detective series (Perry Mason comes to mind), and many stories of how teams of police and/or lawyers become bonded into a family.

A working group of crime fighters (even superhero alliances) bond the way combat veterans have bonded with buddies from time immemorial (really, pre-Rome days).

It is the nature of humans to bond with those who face adversity with them.  It is in the whirling blades of combat (physical or psychological), that the true core of a human's personality is revealed.

Thus many of the best Romance novels mix in another genre that includes some sort of danger, testing, supreme effort.  Becoming part of an organization, such as a Martial Arts Order, where you must pass a test to be accepted, forms that sort of bond.

These procedures (reduced to hazing in the case of the college fraternity - kid's games compared to real life) do forge MARITAL BONDS, true marriage for life, and perhaps beyond.

In the USA, we have had influxes of immigrants over the centuries, and such communities have settled together and formed major bonds that last generations.  Some groups have assimilated easily, and others have resisted for many generations.  Some just soak up Americana and adapt it.

In the 20th Century we had the Italians and the Irish, as well as the Jews of Eastern Europe.  New York's Irish Cops became famous.

All three of these incoming groups were famous for their family strength, keeping family ties going for generations before intermarrying and becoming part of the 50% divorce rate statistics.

The TV Series, Blue Bloods, focused on a multigenerational Irish family in the process of complete assimilation.  Being a cop (or in one woman's case, an attorney) was the family business.

It's a stereotype for s reason -- non-Irish people knew many such families.

In the sub-series, The Maradaine Constabulary, Marshall Ryan Maresca has given us a multi-generation family of cops, tough men and women of impeccable loyalty to law and order.

The inexplicable element in the Maradaine law, to me, is how it replicates USA law, the legal protection against search and seizure and other rights of individuals that cops can't violate and get a conviction in court.

While these concepts date back thousands of years, and are part of the Magna Carta -- survived a multitude of dictatorial Kings, and somehow became codified into USA law, they are by no means universal among countries today.  Even where such law is on the books, it is often ignored.

There is no explanation (so far) in the Maradaine novels about where they got these ideas -- but they do have an Aristocracy as well as a Parliament.

The novel, A Parliament of Bodies, has major elements of Horror Genre, but likewise incorporates both unbreakable family ties and love/loyalty between spouses.

Setting aside the inexplicable World Building puzzles, both these novels and the sub-series they represent are well worth your time to read.  They are not Romance novels, but love and loyalty are the plot-driving forces that depict what a strong family really is.

Always remember that "strong family" is the single most critical element in the Happily Ever After ending for a Romance.  If the marriage doesn't nurture children, a next generation and a next beyond that, who love, understand, appreciate, and above all honor, the couple forged in Romance, then you didn't have Soul Mates to begin with, and thus no HEA is possible.

So study the limits of what the publishing industry can allow right now, and, like Srugim and Shtisel TV Series, break that boundary, challenge the stereotype, find a new angle to view your story.

Just don't miss the Maradaine novels.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Flattery Will Get You.... In Trouble

They say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery... until they call it plagiarism or copyright infringement.

And then, there are famous hairy features, attractive hairy features, mind you. If you pay homage to such things for fame and profit, you might violate a famous person's valuable rights to publicity.

Legal bloggers Linda A. Goldstein and Amy Ralph Mudge blogging for the law firm Baker & Hostetler LLP discuss  the lost case of iconic eyebrows and a product named without permission.

http://e.bakerlaw.com/rv/ff004c2750a3e46347a15e287b44be8e8af5c0ad/p=6238948

Celebrities forfeit a lot of personal privacy by virtue of being celebrities, but they retain the right to profit from their own personas--or to prevent others from exploiting their names and likenesses for commercial gain.

https://f.datasrvr.com/fr1/419/60144/ROP.pdf

This pdf from Alan L. Friel of BakerHostetler is interesting reading.

This writer's takeaway for authors is, never, never reveal that your hero's bedroom eyes were inspired by a famous living actress, or that your heroine is based on a reality star.

Also, if you want a famous person on your cover, be sure you have all rights.  Cover heroes can be tricky absent a signed, written agreement.

And then, there is the problem of asking for flattery, aka incentivizing reviews. Just because a lot of your competition does it, does not make it legal and safe.  The "best" reviews are freely given, not solicited and not paid-for.

Legal bloggers  Leonard L. Gordon  and Tyler Hale blogging All About Advertising Law for Venable LLP  explain.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=6d4aa6de-5bf6-40e4-a101-150b24179f35&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email+-+body+-+general+section&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2019-04-11&utm_term=

Or
https://www.allaboutadvertisinglaw.com/2019/04/ftcs-snack-service-settlement-reminds-dtc-companies-not-to-incentivize-reviews.html#page=1

Although authors may not think that the FTC case about free food in exchange for a screenshot of a flattering review applies to them, it well might.

All the best,

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

Faking Reviews Matters

Every author wants 5-Star reviews, on Amazon, on EBay, and elsewhere. Amazon tries to remove reviews that it deems to be fake (often in the process unfairly removing legitimate reviews), and sometimes it gets faked out, even by its verified purchasers/reviewers.

Two legal blogs reported on the first shot across the bows:

"Thinking of Purchasing 5 Star Reviews? Think Again!"advises legal bloggers Phyllis H. Marcus and Emily K. Bolles for law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b9e1c66b-8892-43b9-b94e-60659f794233&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2019-03-01&utm_term=


Also, legal blogger David O. Klein for law firm Klein Moyniham Turco LLP   discusses the same potential of a $12.8 million dollar settlement.

The FTC investigates fake reviews by an allegedly verified Amazon reviewer who was  allegedly paid to counter negative reviews posted by fans of a rival product by posting postive reviews of the product in question.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1f7b4ab1-4bca-4422-9ab4-622586c621b2&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2019-03-01&utm_term=

The stakes were high because the alleged work of fiction in question concerned the efficacy or otherwise of a weight loss supplement.

Soliciting "likes" is not much different from soliciting dishonest reviews.

Writing for law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP, legal blogger Aaron P. Rubin discusses the declaration that fake "likes" are illegal.  It is unlawful to sell fake followers, fake likes, or fake views... (and presumably fake reviews).

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a4df0387-61c7-46bd-8715-550f54e7df00&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email+-+body+-+general+section&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2019-03-01&utm_term=

Part of the fault for dishonest reviews lies with the companies or buinesses that put such stock in a "Like" or its equivalent on Facebook or  Google or Ebay that they pressure their vendors and salespersons to pester customers for likes or 5 star reviews (but nothing less than a 5 Star).

A certain Doors and Windows company does this to my knowledge, so one cannot trust reviews of at least one doors and windows company's products or salesmen.

Many authors use Pinterest, so may be interested to know that an IPO is in the offing.

Also, social media extortion is "a thing", so if anyone asks you for money or property in return for removing negative misinformation about you (or your works) that they have posted on social media, they may be punished by 5 years in prison or a maximum fine of $10,000.  Good to know!

Another link of interest for newbie authors wishing to avoid being exploited: http://www.writersandeditors.com/self_publishing_and_print_on_demand__pod__57417.htm#bookmark14

All the best
Rowena Cherry

Reviews 46 - The Private Eye Genre Progresses

Reviews 46

The Private Eye Genre Progresses 

Reviews have not been indexed, but you may find most of these posts by searching this blog for keyword Review.

In Reviews 45, we looked at the 14 book series, DESTROYERMEN by Taylor Anderson -- an exercise in the technology of weaponry and strategy and tactics of global warfare.  It has a few engrossing characters, and a couple of solidly developed Relationships -- but the plot has nothing much to do with who these people are or what they think about each other.  Romance fans will find little of interest, and a lot of boring wordage in huge blocks of exposition.

For that very reason, Romance writers need to study why Destroyermen is such a huge Best Seller in its genre.

Today, we'll look at a related problem for Science Fiction Romance writers -- the Private Eye, or Private Investigator (gumshoe) genre.

Military Science Fiction, and alternate Universes, time-travel Science Fiction is an all-time favorite of mine.  But I also thrill to a good Detective novel, Police Procedural, and anti-procedural (the rogue private eye who solves the crime but ruins the court case).

The Private Investigator novel hinges and two elements -- 1) the personality of the PI Character, 2) the intricate puzzle of the Mystery to be solved.

How-done-it; Who-done-it -- every subgenera or mystery is intimately related to Science Fiction in that Science is all about solving the mysteries of existence, how things work, and whether it makes a difference who you are.

Both mystery and Science Fiction are about learning something that will let you understand what is really going on.

Both mystery and Science Fiction are about posing the question in a way that will let you solve the problem, and understand what is happening.

Mystery is about "who-done-it" in that Mystery focuses on a criminal who made something strange happen, and forced the investigator to pose questions to answer.

The TV Series NCIS is an excellent example of detailed Characterization, with characters grouped into a cooperative team, an ensemble TV Series.  Netflix, CBS All Access

https://www.amazon.com/Destinys-Child/dp/B07GJX1VZ2/

Which Character is the lead character for you, your MC, depends on what you think is important in life in the world.  All the Characters have ever-changing love-interests (or at least sex), but each brings a different expertise to question formulation.

For science fiction romance writers, Abby, the forensics specialist (fantasy character in that she does the work of a wide-array of different specialists), or possibly Ducky, the pathologist.

Finding out what the strange, oddball, components of the clues really are is a big part of unraveling a mystery.  Then the field people have to go talk to, interrogate, and background check the people involved, and then use Emotional Intelligence (in later episodes, Ducky becomes their profiler) to formulate questions about motives.

Watching this series is painless, breezy, and pretty mindless, as they repeat the same mysteries endlessly.  From season to season, they find ways to put each member of the team in jeopardy -- even threatened with being held to account for breaking rules.

Romance Genre is about this exact same mystery-solving process but applied to the Other -- the Love At First Sight, or the Love Hidden In Improbable Person.  Sometimes love surfaces as hate-at-first-sight, and that is a great mystery to solve.

So science, and romance, are warp and woof of the same cloth.  It is all Mystery.

Today, we have the advent of the Cozy Mystery -- revolving around ongoing, intimate relationships (which may or may not be romantic or sexual), with less blood on the floors, violence, threat to life-and-limb, and more inquisitive use of Emotional Intelligence.

To solve the mystery of how a crime was pulled off, a Private Investigator has to use tools that are a) unavailable to law enforcement, and b) available to the average reader of the genre.

In other words, the PI is the MacGyver of the Mystery Genre - the amateur who repurposes everyday tools to make things happen that the reader wants to see happen.

In Romance, the reader wants to see the Couple actually resolve their conflicts and get together as a team.

In Reviews 45, we noted how the Destroyermen novels slide through the gory details of forming improbable alliances among humans and non-humans.  This is the wish-fulfillment fantasy element used "off the nose" to help deliver the payload of WINNING to the military science fiction fan.

Then there is the PI, the Private Eye, who is a loner -- like the soldier of fortune.  Not a team player.  Not facile at forming relationships.  In the TV Series, NCIS, we have our Gunny, Gibbs-the-team-leader who does not want a promotion.  He has the knack of knowing everything, and being where he is needed -- these are the Talents of the Gunnery Sergeant in Military Science Fiction.

A Sergeant is a bright, talented, well schooled enlisted officer -- not a college grad, usually. College grads are commissioned officers.

Gibbs has been married, widowed, and multiply divorced -- he has found a spot in life that suits him fine, but still takes deep interest in women.

So to make the wide, TV audience who loves Procedurals (NCIS has to make court-cases, not just fix things as a Superhero Vigilante might), find NCIS a go-to-favorite, they had to explore and develop the Characters and play each Character for all the possible Relationships in their lives.

Likewise, to create an ongoing, long-series PI Character for a Best Selling Series, you have to take the readership into account.  A TV Series is expensive and thus has to appeal to a broader audience than a book, which is pretty cheap to publish relative to any video presentation.

One wonderful example of the narrow focus, PI Series parallel to Destroyermen, is DEV HASKELL - PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.

The Dev Haskell series is par-boiled, not hard-boiled, PI genre.  There is a lot of physical threat, a lot of fist-beatings, shootings, injuries, blood on the floor, gangsters who play for keeps, Crime Bosses to be reckoned with, and a loner PI, Dev Haskell, who shares a hole-in-the-wall office with a down-at-the-heels lawyer.

The Characterization is colorful, but just stereotyped enough to be worth studying for genre structure.

Dev Haskell is an "anthology series" -- like Darkover or Star Trek -- which can be read in any order.  But it's more fun in published order.

It is also easy to drop into the series without having read books set previously in the timeline.

So to complete the genre study of how the Private Eye genre is converging via Cozy Mystery toward the Science Fiction Romance Genre, download (or free on KindleUnlimited) the boxed set of books 8-14 of Dev Haskell - Private Investigator by Mike Faricy

https://www.amazon.com/Dev-Haskell-Box-Set-8-14-ebook/dp/B07FN3HSW6/

These are very short novels, each solving a mystery, but getting the PI embroiled in the underworld politics of his city.  In many ways, you will find similarities to Jim Butcher's Dresden Files Series (another favorite of mine!), keeping in mind it was briefly a TV Series, has graphic novels, comics, and many fans.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O3HD47C/ref=series_rw_dp_sw

Note what dimension of reality these very best selling series leave out -- solve the mystery of why Romance is left OUT of these very best, best sellers, why the Characters bounce randomly from relationship to relationship.  It's a mystery.  Solve it.  Then write the solution as a Romance.

Do it well, find a good marketer for it, and you might found a new Genre.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 45 - Military Science Fiction and Mystery Genre

Reviews 45

Military Science Fiction and Mystery Genre

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Reviews have not been indexed yet, but I talk about many books within the general writing craft discussions, examples of good (and not so good) techniques.

Technique is also genre-specific, so now let's look at some excellent books, series that are examples of a very focused, disciplined technique.

I've discussed Taylor Anderson's Destroyermen Series many times so some of you have thought about this one before.  Destroyermen has a couple of love stories, an awareness of why men fight wars.  The theme is that men fight wars to protect family, to establish safe places to raise children -- but in Taylor Anderson's Alternate Universe planet-earth-with-odd-aliens (some not human; some humans from other time-lines), the women fight, too.

The Destroyermen of the series title are from something closely resembling the reader's Earth, WWII, South Pacific Theater.  Nevertheless, without serious objection, without sexual harassment, these Destroy Crewmen and Officers, simply accept women as combatants.

The focus love-story is between a head Nurse, a woman with grit and determination not cultivated by our WWII era culture, and an officer.

In the novel, River of Bones (Book 13),

she's still pregnant, and aboard ships of war being in active combat.  The situation could happen only in an alternate universe.

Very few words in Devil's Due (Book 12), and in River of Bones,  are devoted to the love relationship that created the pregnancy.  All the Characters the point-of-view shifts among (and there are many) are wholly focused on fighting to exterminate an Enemy.

The Enemy (not human) starts out as having the mentality of vermin, or children, and fighting in shapeless swarms without strategy.  At first, in the series, it makes perfect sense to fight to exterminate vermin that are biologically wired to murder all other creatures (and eat them, even humans).

The point of view shifting is not tracking the story of how people feel about each other, or how their feelings direct their decision-making.  The point of view shifts to give the reader information about the strategy and tactics of allied and opposed forces in a huge war conducted in several theaters at once, all interlinked with politics related to the various planetary origins of the factions.

It is a very complex tapestry, very closely resembling the kind of story-canvas you find in Interstellar or Galactic War novels, as well as in horse-and-sword Fantasy Novels about who will be King (and who won't).

The war In River of Bones progresses as alliances shift, and the vermin exhibit the ability to learn after making an alliance with some Japanese from WWII Earth.  The vermin raise a generation of soldiers that is able to fight in formation, hold a line, and change plans on the fly as well as invent, copy or perfect or adapt new weapons.

The humans begin to realize this shift among the vermin, understanding the Enemy as people, and begin to win over some of them as allies.  The humans from our WWII South Pacific have not yet hatched the idea that the war can be settled without exterminating an entire species.  They are too busy trying to survive to think philosophically.

All of this happens in the context of an entire Earth globe divided into geographic factions pitted against each other.  By the novels, Devil's Due and River of Bones, the series begins to look like a Star Trek episode where humans are being tested by Aliens deliberately collecting specimens and prodding them into fighting each other.  The "real enemy" has not yet made an appearance.

Here is the author's website:
http://taylorandersonauthor.com/

It is a perfect example of marketing to a very narrow, very specific, readership, specifying exactly what the Destroyermen Series delivers -- and it is not Romance, or Happily Ever After.  It is grim defiance in the face of overwhelming odds, pockmarked with moments of triumph, and graphic moments of bloody battlefields littered with corpses.

It is fantasy in that the various factions, some not human, adopt USA-American values without resistance, examination, or thought.  Once shown a value in operation, they ALL admire it and emulate it -- or reject it and become The Enemy.

It is science fiction in that given a world with almost no technology, these Destroyermen spark an entire industrial revolution using the everyday know-how of enlisted crew.  The aliens they show technology to have among them enough geniuses to take everything up several decades and keep innovating.

Of course, since it is a war, the applications of technology are all to guns and ways to deliver explosions at a distance (aircraft, missiles, depth charges).

Just as in the Star Trek episode about the Gorn, they make everything for modern industry out of resources just discovered and easily available.

None of that background makes any more sense than Love At First Sight, and Irresistible Hunk leading to Happily Ever After does to the readership this series is aimed at.

This "makes sense" issue is what we've discussed in such detail in so many posts here.  What makes sense to one group of readers is nonsense to another --- as a writer, you need a theory (or just a thesis) about why one group understands and another does not.

Closely examine (count words, look at vocabulary and use of jargon, count sentence lengths, paragraph lengths), the sections of the Destroyermen novels that describe weaponry and combat.  Compare exactly to the sections of Romance novels that describe foreplay and sex.

I would suggest you read up on recent papers on Emotional Intelligence.  Then compare the Characters in this series with the facts on Emotional Intelligence.  It seems to me, the thesis behind Military Science Fiction (or the Action Genre in general) is that Emotional Intelligence is a fatal flaw in human nature.

To puzzle out what you think, read the Destroyermen Series - or part of it, and a lot of the reviews posted on Amazon and blogs.  The audience that devours these novels rejects Romance genre.  Figure out why, write Romance FOR this readership.

Next time we'll look at Private Eye Mystery series where it seems more progress has been made.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com