Reviews 44 - Marked by Benedict Jacka

Reviews 44

Marked

by

Benedict Jacka

In the How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction series, Part 3

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in.html
we touched on the alternate universe premise being explored by mathematicians and quantum physics enthusiasts.

Combining Science with Fantasy, mixing genres, works best when you know both theories.

As I mentioned, James Blish (author of the first published STAR TREK novel, SPOCK MUST DIE) explored the alternate futures, parallel universes stacked like strips of film, in JACK OF EAGLES.

STAR TREK did alternate realities in the 1960's TV series, and it has continued to be explored in the movies and revived series.

Quantum Leap, the TV Series, used alternate universes spun off at decision points as a "vehicle" -- never explaining the physics, just saying the main character is a physicist.  I hated that part of the TV Series -- I wanted to know the PHYSICS, because that's the most interesting part of the quantum leaping concept (becoming in charge of another person's life).

Marion Zimmer Bradley used the decision point generating futures theory in her Darkover Series where an ESP talent is foretelling futures, not THE future.

Now Benedict Jacka has once again used this premise for his main Character in a long (and deservedly popular) Series of novels from ACE.

Here is MARKED, #9 in the Series:

https://www.amazon.com/Marked-Alex-Verus-Novel-Book-ebook/dp/B075HY1KXR/

Previous novels in the series haven't really focused on ROMANCE -- but this one actually pivots on the psychological dynamics behind Romance and the Soul Mate concept.

The female lead Character has a dissociated (evil twin) locked away in an astral plane dungeon, and the evil twin gets out, wreaks havoc, and must be put away for good.

On page 299 of 310, the key phrase, "I love you," solves the problem.

It is said because of the male lead character's analysis of the personality of the "good" half of the female lead Character.

That analysis is astute.  The psychology of split personality is well and solidly (and scientifically) depicted.  The resolution is plausible.

This novel, and the whole series, is highly recommended reading.  It is FANTASY universe, and about law enforcement entangled with politics.  The main male lead character gets a (thankless) job in low level law enforcement and through many novels, rises to the top of the political power structure (where he decidedly does not want to be).

A complex, rich, multifaceted fantasy world with the male lead Character's only "power" the ability to "see" a short way into the futures splitting off as people toy with, and then decide on a course of action.  Just thinking about doing something generates timelines!  Fascinating premise.

The physics behind this premise is never explained, which frustrates me.  The interesting thing is that this readership is assumed to know all about the alternating and ever fragmenting reality-streams generated merely by human intension.

Very highly recommended series!

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Beware Body Language... And Easy Gifting

Pundits on news and opinion networks seem particularly fond of analysing the body language of British royal family members, and of Prime Minister Theresa May as she shakes hands or has her forearm seized by powerful European politicians, and of President Trump and those with whom he meets in front of the cameras.

Who has the upper hand? Who is lying? Who is passively aggressive? Who is sending off subtle signals? This is all good stuff to fill a five minute TV segment, and it is also wonderful material to weave subtly into our romance stories to show (not tell).

For the Persuasive Litigator blog, Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm blogs on behalf of the law firm Holland & Hart LLP about reading too much into body language. It's so good, this writer is bookmarking it. One would not want to perpetuate the occasional canard.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ef350588-0b7b-486c-9a91-2ce9f8df5674&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email+-+body+-+general+section&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2019-01-03&utm_term=

If the above-mentioned website asks you to create an account and log in, please look for the textlink to "read the original".

Here is a link to the original:
https://www.persuasivelitigator.com/2018/12/beware-of-nonverbal-pseudoscience.html#page=1

Maybe a very long tie is the sartorial equivalent of a diminutive man driving a Ferrari. And maybe it isn't!

Angela Hoy has compiled a fascinating list of whispers and warnings for followers of Writers Weekly.

https://writersweekly.com/whispers-and-warnings/01-02-2019

For those who have not yet used their supermarket-bought Christmas gift cards, there is a particular matter of concern.

And now, this writer has a plane to catch.

Happy New Year!

Rowena Cherry

New Year Customs

Happy New Year!

Do you eat black-eyed peas for luck on New Year's Day? Although my grandmother, who grew up in rural North Carolina, often cooked black-eyed peas, she never mentioned this tradition. Weirdly, I heard of it only after getting married, even though my husband was a "Navy brat" whose family didn't settle in Virginia until he was about twelve. Some cooks include a coin in the pot, with the person who finds the coin getting extra luck. My husband doesn't do that. Nor does he follow the additional custom of eating collard greens along with the peas. Peas symbolize prosperity, and the greens represent money. Another superstition mandates eating exactly 365 peas, a separate portion of luck for each day of the year. (Who counts out 365 peas for each serving at the table? And in leap years, do they add one more?) Lentils, similarly, are sometimes said to bring prosperity because they represent coins. There's an Italian sweet pastry that should be eaten at New Year's to ensure a sweet year. All these arise from sympathetic magic, of course, the concept that apparent resemblances have real-world effects.

Scottish tradition includes the belief that the "first footer"—the first person to cross the threshold of your home after midnight on New Year's Eve—should be a dark-haired man. A woman or a non-dark-haired person as first footer brings bad luck rather than good.

Here's a list of New Year's superstitions, mainly things you should avoid doing on the first day of the year:

New Year's Superstitions

Don't cry on that day, or you'll have sadness all year—okay. But don't wash the dishes or the laundry? Those are new to me.

Another common belief is that you shouldn't begin the year owing any debt. Excellent advice, but most of us have little hope of fulfilling that condition, what with all the credit card charges for holiday gifts and festivities.

My parents had a tradition of taking down the Christmas tree on New Year's Day. Several decades ago I joyfully abandoned this exhausting and depressing habit. I don't start un-decorating until Epiphany (January 6, the end of the "twelve days of Christmas").

Aside from the traditional kiss at midnight, do you follow any particular customs to inaugurate the New Year?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction Part 3 - Suspend Reader Disbelief

How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction

Part 3

Suspend Reader Disbelief 

Previous posts in this discussion:
Tarot:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/10/index-to-posts-about-or-involving-tarot.html

Astrology:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

Part 1
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in.html

Part 2
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-astrology-in-science.html

And now in Part 3, we'll look at UFO reports, which are (oddly) lumped in with the "Paranormal" (which includes ghosts).

In ordinary consciousness, people go about their business never giving a thought to ghosts, telepathy, teleportation, prophecy, or kidnapping by UFO.

So when they do turn their attention to such occult phenomena, it is like peering into a compartment where you keep ridiculous ideas, a toy box of concepts to push around into new patterns just for fun.

Most readers of Romance or any of the Fantasy (even Science Fiction) genres don't "take it seriously."  So as a writer, you don't have to work hard to attain "suspension of disbelief."

However, if you're writing a book to be published as non-fiction about such phenomena, you have to hammer away incessantly at convincing people that their toys are real.  It's part of the appeal of the Christmas Classic, The Nutcracker where toys come alive.

Tarot and Astrology, as they are mass-marketed for profit, are regarded like toys by most people.  These toys produce fun stuff, but they don't mean anything and don't have to be taken into account when living your day to day existence.

Romance is like that (until you do experience it for real).  The "for real" experience is like the toys in the toy box coming alive, an astonishing moment suspended outside of time.

In psychology, that moment is called "cognitive dissonance" -- and that experience of reassessing what is and is-not real is the essence of the fiction writer's craft.

To work across the boundary between the real and the inside of the toy box, the writer must study both fiction and  non-fiction.

The New Year's fare in Newspapers is peppered with "psychics" making predictions about the coming year (and other linear prognosticators doing "if this goes on.")  Tarot and Astrology get featured, as they sometimes do for Halloween (see my Halloween Tarot/Vampire story, "False Prophecy" in: Through The Moon Gate (and other tales of vampirism)

https://www.amazon.com/Through-Vampirism-Jacqueline-Lichtenberg-Collected-ebook/dp/B004MPRUZM/

In August (the silly season) newspapers carry stories about UFOs.  When people are bored (because Congress isn't in season, all their friends at work are on vacation so projects stall, the kids are home going stir crazy), they open their toy box of ideas and get lost in playing with them.  It's amusing and refreshing.

Non-fiction about UFO visits to Earth, about Astronauts sightings, other credible witnesses, photos (which we disbelieve more so now than ever), occupy that part of the mind.

I've been a UFO-NUT since grammar school when I found that section in the library and had my Mom take the books out so I could read them.  I never believed any of it, but could construct a world where it was true, "...they are watching us!"

Then I met a couple people (at different times) who told of their own abduction by a UFO.  Very convincing, especially since they weren't giving speeches about it for money or writing books, or being paid by a newspaper, etc. No profit motive, just a disturbance in life.

I have friends who follow the UFO reports, so one time I was at a speech where the guy was selling a book on the topic, and spent over an hour presenting "evidence" for the validity and verification, the credibility of witnesses, etc. -- pounding away at trying to prove (to an audience of true believers) that UFOs are real.

So afterwards, I listened to everyone reinforcing their true-belief, buying the autographed book, and treating the author as if he were important.

I waited for most to leave, then asked him why, if his case actually convinced him, he is still trying to convince people.  If these visitations are real, then accept that and move on to the next logical step -- or to debating what that step should be.  If it's true, act as if it's true.  If it's not true, shut up.

I've never before or since seen such a totally flummoxed speaker.

He simply had no answer, and as far as I could tell, had never considered that option -- assuming what he knows to be true is in fact true, and going to the next step.

So, I'm still a wide-open question on UFOs in general, kidnappings in particular.  It seems to be the reason these people write these "non-fiction" books is to make money. There's more profit in manufactured or exaggerated evidence and sincere insistence on the impossible than there is in the truth.

And that gives you a formula for a hot-hot-hot Romance Character, a UFOLOGIST who doesn't know he doesn't believe what he's peddling.

To write such a story, you need a theory of reality built by ripping items from the headlines - using newspaper stories widely believed as if they are fact.

And you need a theory of existence that explains how and why Tarot and Astrology work, how they are related to each other, and what Aliens From Outer Space have to do with that.

Astronomy and Astrophysics are barreling toward Astrology and Tarot (yes, Tarot is more like Astrophysics, if you look aslant the right way).

Here's a TOY BOX item for you:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-the-many-worlds-interpretation-of-quantum-mechanics-has-many-problems-20181018/

Subtitle of that article:
The idea that the universe splits into multiple realities with every measurement has become an increasingly popular proposed solution to the mysteries of quantum mechanics. But this “many-worlds interpretation” is incoherent, Philip Ball argues in this adapted excerpt from his new book Beyond Weird.

Tarot is all about decision points in life, and what you USE of your interior, spiritual, innate or learned skills and resources to navigate the white-water-rapids of life's decision points.  This article discusses the new mathematical and quantum physics view of multiple universes -- which has been a staple of science fiction since before JACK OF EAGLES by James Blish (author of the first STAR TREK novel published, SPOCK MUST DIE):

https://www.amazon.com/Jack-of-Eagles/dp/0380611503/

Today, people believe in science even without understanding all that hard stuff.  Science has produced usable results (smartphones for one), so people believe in human interference with the cyclical climate surges (glaciations followed by polar melts over millions of years) because it is settled science.

With the setting aside of religion in most organized forms, humans search for things to believe in.  UFOs, Romance, Science, multiple universes, all have their share of true believers.

To write science fiction romance of the caliber of James Blish's JACK OF EAGLES, you need to grab and incorporate a bit of speculative science and weld it to a bit of speculative occultism, then build your entire world selecting every detail to symbolize or illustrate that composite element.

Psychics have long predicted, in the New Year's Prediction issues of the papers, that this year Aliens will arrive, reveal themselves, or that we will get a signal from outer space proving there are people out there.

So, to get your readers to suspend their disbelief, you must accept your belief in your fictional world as real.

STAR TREK the original series, (all cardboard sets and flat colored backdrop paintings) as popular and gripping because the actors were able to treat what they were doing as REAL (even when it was using a salt shaker to detect an Alien's state of health).

Writing is a performing art.

Accept the reality of your fictional world, your specific blend of the Esoteric and the Scientific, and sidestep reader disbelief.

Your readers believe in Romance, and believe in Science, and some believe in UFOs (at least during August).

Accept what they believe as actually real.  Don't be like the UFO lecturer and be unable to understand what is implied if the belief is real.  Accept the reality, and plot onwards through the next action, and the next.

Your characters have to implement their decisions out of the unconscious assumption that these elements are real.

So, suppose your Character is to meet up with (or be kidnapped by) a UFO alien.

What is this Alien?

Use widely believed science to answer that question.

We are now (with orbital telescopes) discovering the size of our Universe,

https://www.cnet.com/news/hyperion-is-an-ancient-cosmic-beast-formed-2-3b-years-after-big-bang/

Another outlet, Gizmodo, (probably working off the same publicist's press release) gives more depth, pointing out Hyperion's relationship to the supercluster Earth is in, Laniakea.

https://gizmodo.com/trying-understand-the-size-of-this-new-space-discovery-1829824870

I discussed Laniakea here:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-18.html

For decades, science fiction has been speculating about parallel universes (and anti-matter ones -- do read the STEN series).

Here are entries where I discuss the STEN SERIES.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-10-use-of.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/theme-character-integration-part-1-what.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/acquiring-new-techniques-part-1-pun.html

So what sort of Alien arrives by UFO (yes, I do love both THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and STARMAN), and kidnaps a human?

Once you determine what sort of alien, you should be able to derive why he would do such a thing.

Keeping in mind the size of the Universe we are now exploring by reading energy particles that are billions of years old, and keeping in mind all the new science produced from putting humans in weightlessness on space stations (showing how humans can't survive a trip to Mars or living there - we are gravity dependent and cosmic-ray sensitive), think hard about an Alien poking around Earth.

If we can't go to their planet (because settled science says so), then how could they come here?

Your readers keep their UFO knowledge in their toy boxes.   Make them take that knowledge out of the toy category.

How are we going to go visit Aliens who lived billions of years ago, and will be long dead by the time we get there?

Look around at current science headlines.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/#570035995a67

And look at what Forbes has been reporting on Artificial Intelligence

https://www.forbes.com/insights-intelai/ai-issue-2/

Forbes -- a financial organ -- talking about the size of reality and the nature of consciousness, intelligence, and robots as tools.

If we can create Artificial Intelligence, we can begin to determine if intelligence is related to the Soul -- and therefore what makes a Soul Mate.

Before we get to such spiritual questions, it is very likely we'll be sending AI entities to Mars and/or Venus - maybe to explore, to send back resources, to terraform, to build a habitat humans can live in.

Remember, with the nailing of the Higgs Boson, we are starting to get a handle on mass, weight, and perhaps one day, artificial gravity so we can take our fragile bodies out to the stars.

One might expect "Aliens" to haul their habitat around with them, too, but likewise to send ahead a wave of Artificial Intelligence -- not just robots programmed to do things, or remotely controlled as we try to do, but AI that can learn, think, reason, conclude and act.

Perhaps an AI explorer was sent out as an ordinary Intelligence, but along the way somehow acquired a Soul?

Perhaps your Main Character is kidnapped by an Alien AI with a Soul, and the experiments described in so many UFO books are actually an investigation into whether humans have Soul, and if so what Soul might be, where it comes from, and how it can be lost.

Or perhaps the UFO denizens are just trying to find Soul Mates?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tattoo Troubles

Would you permanently affix someone else's copyrighted intellectual property onto your body, so that  you might have to pay that copyright owner royalties every time you exposed their property to public view in the course of your own commercial activity?

If you have artwork "inked" onto your skin, you might be in that situation.  If you write about a hero or heroine with tattoos, they might have interesting problems.

Nicole Smalberger, writing for the South African legal firm Adams & Adams explains the complex legal issues around original ink art in "Listen: Who owns the copyright to the tattoo on your body." When you pay for your tattoo, you pay for the placement of the artwork but not for the copyright of the art.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1666807c-a96b-45eb-8f45-a8a25ef3bdbe&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2018-11-21&utm_term=

If you aspire to fame, and may one day be photographed as part of your business activities, be sure to buy the rights to whatever permanently decorates your face or bod.

Whatever would be the situation if you got the lyrics of your favorite pop song tattooed on your back? You'd be a walking infringement of the pop singer-songwriter's copyright.

Happy 2019

Rowena Cherry

Alternative Christmases

When is Christmas not Christmas? When its equivalent appears under another name in a holiday episode of a TV series or movie franchise. TV Tropes has a page on this phenomenon:

You Mean Xmas

It's not unusual for TV series to have "Christmas" episodes even if they're set in a time or place where Christmas doesn't exist. An episode of XENA, WARRIOR PRINCESS featured "A Solstice Carol." MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC has "A Hearth's Warming Tale," set on the holiday celebrating the occasion when the three types of ponies worked together to save the fledgling realm of Equestria from the terrible Windigos. (This story combines elements of A CHRISTMAS CAROL and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE.) Then there's the infamous STAR WARS holiday special, set on the Wookie home planet at the season of Life Day. (I've never seen this film, so all I know is what's summarized on TV Tropes; it has never been re-aired, because it's so abysmal that Lucas himself loathes it.) The inhabitants of Fraggle Rock celebrate the Festival of the Bell in "The Bells of Fraggle Rock," at the time of year when the Rock slows down and would freeze forever if the Fraggles didn't ring their bells to awaken the Great Bell. The characters in DINOSAURS have Refrigerator Day, appropriately commemorated by lavish feasting. Although BEAUTY AND THE BEAST takes place in the world as we know it, members of the secret underground community where Vincent (the Beast) dwells celebrate "Winterfest" instead of Christmas. Print fiction features a similar phenomenon. There's a Midwinter Festival in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar universe. The people of Discworld have Hogswatchnight, as portrayed in detail in Terry Pratchett's HOGFATHER. The world of Steven Universe is an exception to this pattern. Its canon establishes that the invasion of the alien Gems thousands of years ago altered Earth so radically that Christianity doesn't exist, so there's no Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, etc. However, virtually every temperate-zone culture in the world has a winter solstice celebration with such elements as feasting, lights, greenery, and bells, so it seems likely that the people in this series would have one, too. If they do, apparently the producers and writers simply haven't considered it necessary to mention.

In the animated special ARTHUR'S PERFECT CHRISTMAS, Arthur's bunny friend gets so stressed out by his divorced mother's frantic attempt to make Christmas perfect that he wants to invent their own family holiday instead, "Baxter Day." An episode of SEINFELD popularized the anti-Christmas holiday of Festivus, which includes the Airing of Grievances (when everybody complains to everybody else about offenses committed through the year) and an aluminum pole instead of a tree. In short, the human spirit seems to crave festivity at the dark of the year.

A satirical essay by C. S. Lewis imagines what the ancient Greek historian Herodotus would have made of the modern British Christmas. Herodotus concludes that Exmas and Crissmas can't possibly be the same holiday, because even barbarians wouldn't go through all that expense and bother for a god they don't believe in:

Xmas and Christmas

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

How To Use Tarot & Astrology In Science Fiction Part 2 - Now Speculate

How To Use Tarot & Astrology

 In Science Fiction

Part 2

Now Speculate

Part 1 is found at:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in.html

In Part 1, we looked at how to do science using Astrology and History.  The process is simple.  Use what science (archeology, paleontology, literary preservations (such as stone engravings, or the Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls) is using for best current theory, then correlate that with a speculative application of Astrology.

Astrologers aver that planets have no effect on humanity (or do not correlate with Events in history) before they are "discovered."  The "What if ..." we are playing with here, is "What if modern Astrology is all wrong?"

What if there's something to Astrology, but it isn't what the experts think it is, and it isn't what marketers of astrological "wisdom" peddle it as?  What if ...?

What if this speculative idea depicts the actual real world, not some alternate or fantasy reality?

So we are exploring what if planetary movements have indeed correlated with historic movements for thousands (even millions?) of years.

One of the most recently discovered planets is Pluto -- and even recently, after decades of calling it a "planet" astronomers voted to demote it from planetary status (for various reasons, all of them perfectly comprehensible).

Neptune and Pluto are in fact different from the rest of our Sun's planets, but as far as their timing the cycles of human history goes, that probably doesn't matter.  Or it might matter when we find out more, and see how their orbits correlate with some mystical energy ebb and flow -- who knows?

Since nobody knows, we get to speculate.

So we pointed to History (as well as it is known) in Part 1, and correlated the general outline of the pattern of Events in the current news with Events of centuries ago.

Human mass migration (and subsequent interbreeding), conquering, flowing around the globe, often prompted by glaciation, usually in response to a search for resources (and riches), has been mapped by paleontologists and archeologists.

The search for the origins of humanity, or modern humanity, is going on using DNA to trace population movements and interbreeding.  We all bear traces of pre-modern-human DNA.

So humanity survives while thousands die, even huge percentages of a population can die off and humanity still survives (civilization not so much.)

We look at the Headlines of 2018, and look back for when "this" happened before.  We have to think in terms of generations, even centuries, to see the patterns we can use to speculate about.

Currently, humans are once again upending the forms and purposes of government.

https://www.ozy.com/immodest-proposal/countries-are-dead-so-its-time-to-think-differently/89911

We've noted how this urge to invent or reinvent governing forms has happened in cycles of about 248 years (irregularly!  Pluto's orbit is long ellipse - speculated to be a "capture" by our Sun).  It's "speed" in orbit is not regular -- it goes faster, then slower.  If we can't think of something new, we stage a revolution and behead the King, get a new King and start over.

The USA is about up to its Pluto return (where Pluto is at the same degree it was when the country was born.)

https://www.avclub.com/in-1798-the-u-s-went-to-war-with-france-sort-of-1829615962

Meanwhile, the other planets have whizzed around more times than in any one human life-span, creating all sorts of "well, it's different this time" Events.

Yes, it's always different -- but underlying, there is a trace of a repeating pattern.

This time, we will go exploring Space, trying to live on space stations (do read C. J. Cherry's Foreigner Series), and alien planets.

Here's the Amazon link to the list of books in the Foreigner Series.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FN1PN5Y

The Pluto in Aquarius motivation will carry us into space by the urgent need of the generation born with Pluto in Aquarius to seek FREEDOM, to find identity, to be individually sovereign and collectively free to practice any religion.

The need to get away from other humans waxes and wanes, but when it peaks it is very intense.

One can speculate that Climate Change will make Earth less friendly to human endeavor and drive some of our more freedom-seeking individuals to find a way to get OUT OF HERE.

https://www.sciencealert.com/elon-musk-spacex-mars-plan-timeline-2018

But we have seen that living weightless in orbit is destructive to the human body, cells lose integrity and function, and ills accumulate.  One can speculate that gravity varying too far away from Earth's (maybe the Moon, or Mars?) might be just as destructive to human cells and unlivable.

That's just another problem to be solved -- and our labs are hard at work on mastering cells, and creating whole organisms.  It's just another step toward freedom to be able to re-engineer humans to fit other environments.  Many Science Fiction novels have centered on that.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/fly-reconstructed-genes-140-million-years-ago/

You know the people doing this work on genetics also read/watch science fiction -- they grow up wanting to do what the books depict, just as the current world is largely patterned on a drive toward STAR TREK (except we're trying to sidestep the genetics war).

What do you want this current crop of babies with Pluto in Aquarius to grow up wanting to do?

On the straight line extrapolation from where we've been (exploring and conquering The Americas) to where we are (fighting each other for resources, trying to damp climate change thus depriving undeveloped countries of resources), to where this leads "If this goes on ..." -- we can only see exploring space.

But how do we do that?  What do we try that fails or is too expensive?  What do we invent to sidestep that problem?

A) engineering human genome to withstand broader living conditions (gravity, air, water)

B) sending remote controlled Robots to scout (doing that already)

C) inventing Artificial Intelligence so we can send them exploring?

Well, scientists are madly working on AI, and business people are striving mightily to make enough profit off the first attempts to finance further inventions.

That's where we're going.

But what if AI is more than "Intelligent" -- actually becomes "conscious" and even "self-aware."

What if we send some AI equipped ship out beyond the beyond, and as it goes, it remakes itself and becomes self-aware?

What if biology can't reinvent human cells fast enough to let humans live on Mars?  So we send AI to colonize and mine Mars, the astroids, etc for the raw material we need to fix Earth's climate disaster?

We're close to autonomous cars.  Autonomous AI isn't that far off.  Pluto is slowing in orbit and will be in Aquarius long enough for the general urge to explore to drive us beyond the beyond.

When the departed group (which might be human+AI+whoknowswhat), returns to Earth what will they find? (yes, PLANET OF THE APES scenario asks this question).

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/14/stephen-hawking-predicted-new-race-of-superhumans-essays-reveal

All space travel is time travel, too -- space and time as we've discussed while pointing to various articles, are deeply intertwined. There might, in fact, be no difference between space, time, and gravity.

All of this speculation is to be done with the various novels and series I've reviewed here -- most especially those I've tagged as not being Romance at all.  Those anti-Romance science fiction novels are read by the current people doing the work on genetics and AI that we've discussed here, in Part 2 of this series.

Here are a few of the recent reviews of books where I discuss many of these issues - love stories, yes, but not focused on Romance.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/10/reviews-40-john-dixon-point.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/11/reviews-41-empire-of-silence-by.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/reviews-42-simon-r-greens-secret.html

And this one with a pretty strong setup for a hot Romance:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/reviews-43-late-great-wizard-by-sara.html

And this one with serious Romance plotting:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/08/reviews-39-souls-of-fire-series-by-keri.html

Think about all the other books you've read -- compare those written long ago with those currently being published, and consider two things:

a) where was Pluto when the author was born?
b) where was Pluto when the author's target readership was born?

Here are some of the Astrology Just For Writers series discussing Pluto and how to use Astrology in fiction writing without having to learn any.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/astrology-just-for-writers-part-9-high.html

Re-read this blog entry about Pluto and Expository Lumps in writing:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/astrology-just-for-writers-part-10.html

And here is the key one -- discussing Pluto's position by sign as each generation is born, and how you can use that information to target a readership, and extrapolate what those children will do when they grow up.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

That's a lot of reading, but writers have to read both fiction and non-fiction, so get to it.  Fiction and non-fiction are NOT two different things.  They correlate.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com