My Genre-tini: A dash of adventure, a drop of romance, a shot of mystery, shaken not stirred…

I hope you all paid attention to Jacqueline’s blog last week on how genres came about and how they function in the book industry. Because if you don’t understand that, then the ‘mixology’ of combining two or more genres is only going to muddle you further.

The plain fact of the matter is that almost every commercial fiction novel on the shelves today is a mixture of more than one genre. The plainer fact of the matter is very few authors or publishers will admit to that.

The why is…::points to first paragraph::. The why is why genres exist in the first place. I’m not going to discuss that.

What I am going to talk about is taking the plunge, coming out of the genre closet, breaking free, rising like a phoenix and any other bad cliché you care to throw in here. I’m going to talk about starting out admitting that yes, my book fits the bill for two or more genres. It’s a genre martini.

"Cross-genre” we’re often called when in reality, combi-genre is probably more accurate. In my case, it’s science fiction and romance and—with my current WIP, The Down Home Zombie Blues—science fiction, police procedural and romance.

Why do I do that? For one thing, real life is combi-genre, isn’t it? Your morning might be a comedy (What? No clean underwear? What? The dog puked in my purse?), your first few hours at work could be a thriller (What is that weird moaning noise coming from the copy machine?), your lunch hour might be a western (Get a long little hot doggies!) and your after work stop at the local bar might, just might, be a romance.

When I decide to craft a story, I’m very aware that all these same episodes may well occur in my character’s lives. What particular part of their lives I highlight in the book inevitably defines the genre—or narrows down the genre because, as I said, any commercial fiction novel contains multi-genres. So I highlight certain aspects of a character’s life—let’s say, Trilby Elliot in my Finders Keepers (RITA Award Finalist!) and because Trilby was a starfreighter operator, and because the opening scene takes place on a distant planet, and because Trilby’s sidekick is a very C3PO-like ’droid, Finders Keepers is deemed science fiction/speculative fiction. But when Trilby and the male protagonist, some pushy guy named Rhis, suddenly decide to stop fighting and start kissing, whoa, Nellie! We’ve got ourselves a romance.

Now, in The Down Home Zombie Blues, Commander Jorie Mikkalah is an intergalactic zombie hunter (check: science fiction), who arrives on this planet (we call it Earth and Jorie finds it apt that such a boring place is named after dirt…) via a starship (a Red Star Class Three Intergalactic Combat and Recovery Vessel, to be exact), then the genre powers that be would deem the book to be science fiction. But wait! The male protagonist is a Florida homicide detective sergeant. And he’s investigating the suspicious death-by-mummification of an unlucky human. So, hmm, we’ve got police procedural here. But wait, again! The intergalactic babe and the hunky cop start locking lips a few chapters in. Romance!

So what is it?

My answer is, why should it be just any one thing or genre? You’ve never had rum raisin ice cream? You’ve never had mocha fudge mint chip ice cream? Must books be only chocolate or vanilla? Or how about a Cosmo Martini? Or Mango Mojito: mango rum, sugar, crushed ice, mint leaves, club soda. Our culinary palettes have expanded. Why not our literary palettes?

It really wasn’t any big deal for me to craft Zombie Blues. I didn’t sit down one day and decide, hmm, I’m going to write an SF Romance Police Procedural. I sat down to write Jorie’s and Theo’s story. Just like I sat down to write Rhis’ and Trilby’s, and Mack’s and Gillie’s and all the rest.

Why I chose homicide detective for Theo’s profession was two-fold: 1) one of the opening scenes is the discovery of the mummified body (who is Jorie’s teammate) and without that discovery, there’d be no story and 2) I wanted to play the law enforcement mind set against itself. In Finders Keepers, Trilby was the independent in more ways than one. She was not just an Indy freighter captain, she was an independent personality. A loner. Rhis was the military, in control person. In Zombie, both Jorie and Theo are—by the nature of their professions—used to be in control. I wanted to put the two together and see sparks fly.

I’m a character-driven writer. If you’re a character-driven writer, I think you shouldn’t shy away from a certain professions for a character just because it might add another element or taste of another genre to your story. All science fiction doesn’t have to star scientists or spaceship captains. (I wouldn’t deliberately force a profession onto a character just to add a genre, either. It has to be natural to the character and the storyline.)

In Jacqueline Lichtenberg’s terrific Those of My Blood, one of her main characters (Titus) is vampire-like and a scientist. Most of the story takes place in a science station on the moon. Scientist-science station-vampire all bespeak science fiction.

But what if her main character wasn’t a scientist but a cop or a private detective? That could bring a whole new element into the story, possibly turning it into something like the detective/science fiction of Kristine Kathryn Rusch and her (wonderful) Retrieval Artist novels. Yes, science fiction. Yes, police/detective.

But Jacqueline’s character’s profession as a scientist was required for the character to know and do the things he did. It wasn’t a slapped-on career. It was an integral part of the plot which yes, also contained romance.

Just as Theo’s profession as a homicide cop in Zombie is essential for the plot to go where it has to go. Had he been a professional ice hockey player or an attorney, the story—and his interaction with Command Jorie Mikkalah—would be completely different.

In my upcoming February release, Games of Command, the story absolutely would not have worked if Sass hadn’t also been Captain Tasha Sebastian and Branden not also been Admiral Kel-Paten. I needed to use their ranks as well as their duties as military officers in order to create much of the conflict and tension between them. If Sass had had Trilby’s job—and Indy freighter operator—she’d not have as much to lose. And the admiral wouldn’t have the reason to interact with her as much as his did. Another genre mix: space opera and romance, with a touch of woo-woo paranormal.

Our daily lives are not all one theme: comedy or tragedy. Our flavors of ice cream are varied. Our alcoholic libations are equally as blended. Why shouldn’t the stories we enjoy be just as varied?

Feeling adventurous? Why not sit down and mix yourself a genre-tini. Let your characters live on the edge in your novel, exploring their limits and their conflicts using your full creativity. Keep it texturally rich and potent. And as always, shaken not stirred.

Just be aware that the marketing teams of the NY publishers can get mighty confuzzled when you do so. And dealing with that is a topic for a whole ‘nuther blog.

~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com

Thusness (and the importance of a jolly good ending)

I don't see "Thusness" being talked about very much. One of my English professors at Homerton College, Cambridge, taught me the expression and the concept, and I've never forgotten it.

At the time, I believe we were studying Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Epic poetry. Medieval Fantasy SpecRom opera with never-ending quests for the Holy Grail, swords, sorcery, treachery, maidens being surprised in their bathtubs by horny rotters. Inspiring stuff, really! That's what I remember. But it could have been Browning, or Coleridge.

Maybe someone will want to tell me that the Arthurian legends aren't SpecRom. I might answer that it all depends who is retelling them, and how.

The bottom line with "Thusness" --as I internalized it-- is that all the interwoven story threads are tied up so neatly by the end of the story that the reader is left with a feeling of great satisfaction and justice. Not only is everything explained (that needs to be explained), but there is harmony, balance, and maybe that forehead-slap of enlightenment.

"Thusness" makes a story memorable and thought-provoking (in a pleasurable way) after the last word has been read, and the book has been put away... or returned to the library. The ending is "right" and has a quality of inevitability. Of course, in a romance, it is generally accepted that, inevitably, the hero and the heroine will live happily ever after together.

That's not quite what I mean by "inevitability."

Perhaps "thusness" is like the old definition of obscenity. "...I know it when I see it."

If that is the case, how does a writer achieve "Thusness"? Some of us are plotters, outliners, linear writers. Others are pantsers, channellers. Some do both. Some put a book together like a jigsaw (I do). Some plan it like dinner... you know, it has a beginning (starter), a middle (main course), and an ending (the pudding).

"Pudding" might not be entirely felicitous. Some end with a Bombe Surprise, or cheesecake, others with a swiggable yoghurt or quick coffee. It's all good, but probably it's most satisfying if it is a balanced meal.

I try for thusness. If I have three prologues (of course, they cannot be called that), I need three epilogues. This might mean that a lot has to be cut from the middle to meet the publisher's page limit (about 400 double spaced pages at 250 wpp).

Once the ending is written --and not all authors know the details of how their heroes' stories will end when they begin-- well, then you have the linear warp, but not the weft (weaving imagery). Then, knowing how your story ends, you go back to the beginning and weave in the almost-invisible details at regular intervals.

Perhaps your editor wants the villain to be badder. (Given that badder is good English). For "Thusness" as I see it, it isn't enough to put super bad thoughts into his point of view one scene before he gets his come-uppance, though that would be the quickest and easy edit... and on a deadline, quick and easy is very tempting! In my opinion, the first time the reader sees this villain he has to be doing something bad, although it could be stealth wickedness. We may not recognize his evil for what it is, after all, he hasn't been caught.

And so it goes. A hint is woven in, and it has to be repeated, not necessarily every seventy pages, but that's a reasonable rough guide. The Imperial March was a pretty cool tune. They say the devil gets all the best tunes. It took a while before we realized that it meant that the bad guy was up to no good. Same with the Jaws horn riff. (If horns can riff).

Because Jolly Good Endings and striving for "Thusness" is important to me, I was thrilled with a recent review by "Bookmaedin" posted at http://www.ibookdb.net/review/58607

Excerpt
"This book also has one of the best ending sequences. Everyone in the story pulls together against a common enemy. Ms. Cherry has created a seriously evil villain. What goes around comes around, and it definitely came back on this villainous specimen.

Trust me, INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL is a book you don’t want to miss. Be sure to check out the back-story in Rowena Cherry’s previous book, Forced Mate.

~Review by bookmaedin for iBookDB Review: Insufficient Mating Material"

INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL will be in bookstores on January 30th.

Predicting the Near Future

I've been thinking a little more about predicting the future of society and technology, in between reading bills, etc., for the Maryland General Assembly at my day job. It's “crunch” time, so don't expect great coherence from me, I'm afraid! Recently I read IMMORTAL IN DEATH by J. D. Robb (aka Nora Roberts), because so many people have mentioned how good this near-future police procedural mystery series is. Police detective Eve Dallas is a strong, interesting character, so I do want to read more of these novels. I admire the way the author handles the setting, around the year 2050. Relationships and social institutions are familiar, but the technology is just advanced enough to make us aware we're not in our own time, without being jarringly far-out. No extremely Jetsons-style futuristic gadgets. (Personally, I'm still waiting for the robot maid.) There's casual mention of Eve's ultra-rich tycoon fiance making business trips off-planet, but the onstage narrative remains firmly earthbound. Speaking of culture rather than technology, who in 1950 would have predicted most of our currently predominant mores? Forward-thinking people would probably have expected racial equality (perhaps to a greater extent than we have achieved), but how many would-be prophets would expected premarital sex and open homosexuality to be acceptable to mainstream opinion but smokers to be publicly shunned? Or red meat to be viewed with suspicion? As for technology, only science fiction writers expected computers in every home, and even most of them didn't envision the compact machines we now take for granted. And in Robert Heinlein's HAVE SPACESUIT, WILL TRAVEL, in an imagined future when a colony exists on the Moon, his teenage hero owns a slide rule! Visionary authors have been writing about advanced reproductive technologies for decades, but what direction will these methods take us in, now that they are becoming reality? What will the mores of 2100 be like? Or even 2050? Will social laxity (as our grandparents would have viewed it) run rampant, or will we experience a backlash similar to the more restrained middle-class Victorians' reaction against what they saw as the loose lifestyles of their 18th-century grandparents?

Genre: The Beginning

Folks:

I'll begin this discussion/explanation of genre and how a writer can use it and what a reader can do with an understanding of it -- with a personal annecdote.

There are two things I've learned about GENRE in my career that "changed everything" for me: a) it's origin and b) it's definition because of that origin.

Where did I learn these two vital things?

Believe it or not, reading Star Trek fanzines incessantly and obsessively -- and watching the field of media fanzine (on paper) publishing evolve right before my eyes. This is a 20 year phenomenon which has now shifted almost entirely to the Web.

The economics of fanzine paper-publishing are identical to the economics of Mass Market paperback publishing except that the fanzine publisher can't make a profit (i.e. must not sell at a profit material based on someone else's copyright).

Fanzine publishers doing TV show pastiche are using the "fair use" clause in the copyright contract and that applies only so long as they don't do it for profit.

That's a big difference, to be sure, but it highlights the origin and purpose of genre in stark relief.

Fanzine paper publishers must (and I mean must) break even or almost even when their 'zine has a distribution of about 1,000 copies. Nobody can afford to subsidize a 2,000 copy print run out of pocket indefinitely (unless they're Bill Gates!).

So they have to charge the cost of paper, printing (offset press printing or copying used to be even more expensive than today), postage, and office supplies such as envelopes, file folders, etc. But they can't charge for the writing. That, they give away, just as they do today online.

Immediately, this vast expense puts the fanzine publisher into "business" figuring costs against the probability of sales to cover those costs. To get the sales volume to cover costs, they start to think about content and pleasing their readers to get repeat business.

Unlike Mass Market publishers (of olde!) fanzine publishers would get LETTERS OF COMMENT (LoCs) lambasting them for including distasteful stories or poorly written or copyedited stories along with the "good" ones.

This reader feedback caused publishers to separate one type of story from another and publish them in separate 'zines with clear labels so readers would buy only what they wanted.

PRESTO! They re-invented genre in response to exactly the same market forces that Mass Market publishers respond to! Economics prevailed.

And in response to that genre invention, readers bought even more copies, guaranteed of a good read.

So fanzine publishers did more of it and the readers invented terms for each of the sub-genres.

Then came the backlash. Once in a while a publisher would include a story from another universe, or a cross-universe story (Star Trek/ Dr. Who, for example), in a 'zine, and little by little in response to reader feedback, publishers went to the "Gen 'zine" -- a general fanzine that could have stories from a long list of TV shows. Or even stories based on novel series such as Sime~Gen (Dr. Who/ Sime~Gen was invented this way.)

It's READERS who invented and named genre in defense of their pocketbooks.

It's publishers who responded by separating genre stories into separate publications and labeling them.

And exactly the same thing happened in the previous hundred years or so in Mass Market publishing. Reader pressure forced publishers to invent genre.

But throughout the decades, readers keep forcing Mass Market publishers to GUESS what they want, to guess the rules the readers want followed.

Hence the invention of the Western Romance, one of the first cross-genre innovations.

Now for the SECOND blinding insight into Genre that changes everything.

This is really more for writers than readers.

What is the core element that defines or distinguishes GENRE in the eyes of the publisher who could pay you money for your book?

Remember, this question first arose because someone asked on another blog how a writer who has an idea for a story selects what genre to write that story in. And here is the biggest piece of the answer to that question.

A Romance writer came to me with a werewolf story she (a well established professional) had been unable to sell. I read the draft she'd been submitting, and told her what to do using this insight into the definition of genre, and she sold the book and its sequel to an sf/f publisher.

Genre is defined in Mass Market publishing today not by what is included but by what is EXCLUDED from the work.

Note how I explained above that fanzine publishers got tons of letters (snailmail in those days) from readers offended by the inclusion of a story that included material they didn't like in a zine full of stories they did like. Fanzine publishers learned to EXCLUDE material of one type from a zine filled with material of another type.

And that's the origin of genre - "don't turn your readership off!"

But editors and Manhattan publishers look at it differently, especially since the advent of computerized tracking of sales.

Editors believe that if you include an element that doesn't belong in the genre (i.e. put a werewolf or vampire (horror genre) in a romance story) you exclude two readerships and can sell the book only to the portion of the two readerships that overlap. (think of the Venn diagram of two overlapping circles -- the greater part of the readership is excluded by the inclusion of "foreign" genre elements.

That's what they believe and they believe it (well, used to believe it) because of sales statistics generated by computers.

It is that belief on the part of editors and publishers that rigidified the genre structure and proved to be such an obstacle to those of us writing SF/Romance, Fantasy/Romance, SF-Fantasy, and so on.

For an editor, to publish books that fail in the marketplace is to lose a job. In judging whether to buy a Manuscript or not, the editor is using a very personal criterion -- will I lose my job over this? Better safe than sorry -- therefore genre is defined by what is excluded rather than by what is included.

A werewolf story that consists of one bedroom scene after another has the structure of a romance which (was at that time) EXCLUDED from SF/F imprints. A Romance that has the EXCLUDED horror element of a werewolf in it (no matter how handsome, gentle, kind, and tormented) was excluded from the Romance imprints.

So what happened? I told this romance writer to get the story out of the bedroom and narrate directly some of the action that took place offstage, get the woman involved, etc. She did and it sold -- but HER FANS (romance readers) went after that book. Publishers noticed the sales stats in the computers. New writers began to imitate her.

Now that wasn't the first time such a thing happened. A number of SF writers moonlight as Romance or Mystery writers and vice-versa. Authors write different genres under different names.

But now, as readers have demanded changes, publishers have begun to shift what has to be excluded in order to qualify as this or that genre.

The changes are enabled by the Web and forums and Lists and newsgroups. Publishers are getting feedback now the way fanzine publishers used to - fast, and direct.

The change in readers habits is forcing changes in publishing. I believe I alerted you to the meltdown in the distribution sector a couple weeks ago. Yet another large distributor went into Chapter 11.

This last week, several publishing announcements show us the counter moves in publishing.

Here is a headline from the Wall Street Journal (subscribers only get the article).

Publisher Perseus to Buy RivalAs Book-Industry Deals Pick UpBy JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERGJanuary 11, 2007; Page C3

In a move that quickens the pace of consolidation in the troubled book publishing industry, Perseus Books Group, an independent publisher owned by Washington private-equity firm Perseus LLC, has signed a letter of intent to acquire rival Avalon Publishing Group Inc.

-------------------

Here's the Perseus article free online from another source (if it turns up in 2 or more places, it's important). This is from Canton OH.

http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=329569

-------------

And here's one on HarperCollins in a deal with LibreDigital to create a services company to help paper publishers produce and market digital books (i.e. e-books, downloadable books).

http://www.dmeurope.com/default.asp?ArticleID=21079

This is PUBLISHING's response to the Distributor meltdown. Does anyone need a detailed explanation of what this does to a writer's existing contracts with a publisher?

Now these changes in publishing aren't just due to changes in readers' tastes in genre formulae.

There are a number of forces converging on publishers and distributors and retailers such as Barnes & Noble which is closing stores because this last Christmas season didn't keep it afloat.

But it is these economic shifts that are leaving publishers willing to explore the potentials of cross-genre -- or INCLUSION of foreign elements in a genre book.

So ask your questions and I'll answer here next week. What else do you need to know about genre?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com

Talk to me, my darlings...

First a bit of BSP but with a purpose. I'm teaching some on-line writing workshops in the next two months and, as a number of you have emailed me about how I write, here's your chance to find out, for real. Please note these are TWO DIFFERENT VENUES. Oh, and the February one (Florida Writers), the website reg info is wrong--Paypal is offline. Registration is checks only for everyone until it's fixed.

FEBRUARY 2007

February 1 - 15, 2007 - Pitches, Tag lines & Blurbs, Oh My!, Linnea
Sinclair, MINI

http://floridawriters.net/wgrps/eregion/e-workshops.htm

Description:

It’s the three-liner on the front of the book that catches your eye. It’s the two paragraphs on the back of the book that tickles your interest. It’s opener of your query letter and it’s the phrase you have at the ready when a top NY agent asks you: “So, what’s your book about? Tell me in less than three minutes.”

Pitches, blurbs and tag lines are those indispensable tools every writer must have in order to sell a book. They’re pithy, they’re short, they stay in your mind. That’s why they work. They also help you craft your marketing plan once you sell. Learn the formula for creating pitches and tag lines that will sell your book to agents and editors at conference pitch sessions or via queries, from award-winning NY-published author and former news reporter, Linnea Sinclair.

Speaker Bio:

Linnea Sinclair is a former news reporter and retired private investigator turned science fiction romance and fantasy novelist. Her books include Finders Keepers, Gabriel’s Ghost and An Accidental Goddess, with three more titles due out from Bantam/Random House in 2007. Her books’ have won or finaled in the RITA, Prism, Sapphire, Pearl, Dream Realm, FWA Royal Palm and several RWA chapter contests. Her essay column for Futures magazine was a Pushcart Literary Nominee in 1998 and in 2002-2003 she was a John W. Campbell award nominee. She can be reached through her website at www.linneasinclair.com.

Registration Deadline: January 25th


MARCH

http://www.writersonlineclasses.com/

March 1-31, 2007
Character Torture 101
INSTRUCTOR: Linnea Sinclair
Cutoff date to receive registration and payment: February 27, 2007

CLASS SUMMARY:
Writing Guru Dwight Swain said that it’s the author’s job to manipulate the emotions of the reader. There’s no better way to do this than for the author to put his characters through one roller coaster episode after another, taking the reader along for the ride. But how much conflict, how much character angst is too much? How can an author keep the action from becoming cartoonish? Bantam Spectra author Linnea Sinclair answers those questions and more in this fun and fast-paced (because torturing students is good, too!) workshop that explores the importance of conflict in today’s commercial fiction novels.

INSTRUCTOR BIO:
A former news reporter and retired private detective, Linnea Sinclair has managed to use all her college degrees (journalism and criminology) but hasn’t soothed the yearning in her soul to travel the galaxy. To that end, she’s authored several award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels, including FINDERS KEEPERS, GABRIEL’S GOHST, and AN ACCIDENTAL GODDESS (all from Bantam-Spectra), and her upcoming 2007 Bantam releases including CHASIDAH’S CHOICE and THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES (a sci fi romance procedural). Sinclair is the winner of the Sapphire, PEARL, EPPIE, a 2006 double RITA nominee and RITA winner! When not on duty with some intergalactic fleet or deep space security agency, she can be found in Florida with her husband and their thoroughly spoiled cats.
~ ~ ~ ~

The other thing I want to mention is that authors love hearing from readers. It's one of the reasons we do this blog. I know a number of my readers read this but don't comment because--they tell me--they didn't think I'd be interested in what they have to say. OF COURSE I would! I wrote FOR you, so your thoughts and ideas interest me.

So whether you're a writer wanting to improve your skills or a reader with questions about my books--TALK TO ME. I'm here for ya'. And I love talking writing theory/ideas and I love talking about my characters.

~Linnea (getting over the flu and on medication and antibiotics now--hence the late blog. Was at the Walk In Clinic most of the afternoon...)

www.linneasinclair.com

Time Wasting, The Twin Paradox (and SFWA and MySpace)

I need to start with this humble caveat:

I got a B grade in Biology Ordinary Level examinations --which was a pretty good grade in my day--, but the chemistry teacher competed with the music teacher to dump me (ie. both encouraged me to elect to study with the other).

The chemistry teacher lost out, in that I elected to inflict my youthful self upon her class for another year. She had what might now be described as a "snarky" streak, and I enjoyed her barbed wit, even when it was directed at me, more than I enjoyed sitting in the front row of the music class watching the music mistress's bare toes jerk in time with Beethoven's Fifth.

As you may infer, I've been a "Manwatcher" most of my life.

I write futuristic romance with a strongish bias towards character (over events, ideas, milieu). I've got my own under-the-stairs research library with fabulous resources such as The Physics of Star Trek, The Science of Star Wars, NASA handbooks about mining on the Moon, about a dozen Writers' Digest reference books on aliens, classes of stars, and worldbuilding...

In Insufficient Mating Material (out January 30th 2007) there's plenty of biology --after all, a significant portion of the story takes place on a deserted island-- and only a few NASA-inspired tidbits.

Shameful though it is to admit, I have a hard time with some aspects of science, like relativity. It doesn't help that "what is known" changes from time to time. Occasionally scientific theorists are discredited... or reinstated. It's not easy for layperson to keep up!

Actually, I occasionally have trouble with the deeper meaning of putting clocks forward and back, and the small examples of time travel in our everyday lives.

Last week, I did a bit of TimeWasting.

I googled NASA and Ask An Astronaut, to see what I could find out. What a wealth of fascinating insights, including definitive proof that projectile-firing weapons are not currently smiled upon in spaceships! (Great news for those who find sabers cool!)

My Search skills may be lacking. I had difficulty honing my search and only reading facts of immediate relevance to an alien hero revisiting Earth, who needs to know if his childhood friends will still be "the same age" as he is. I should have gone straight for The Twin Paradox (only I didn't know what it was called) or Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

That could be a useful tip, if anyone else at the moment is contemplating their own fictional heroes and heroines leaving Earth at light speed or faster, and coming home again after some time has elapsed.

I happen to be a member of SFWA -- www.sfwa.org -- and I should have asked a question on their message boards first. In fact, I asked on the MySpace Bulletin boards.

"...as the traveler approaches the speed of light, according to Einstein's theory of relativity, time would begin to slow until stopping soon after reaching the speed of light."

Helpful links that were suggested to me:

http://www.npl.co.uk/publications/metromnia/issue18/#article2

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/22mar_telomeres.htm

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/hotsciencetwin/

where you'll find a "game" to plug in the velocities and so on to find
out how much a traveler would age compared to his/her twin on earth.

After all this research, I may end up giving my hero a Swiss bank account!

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

Does Human Nature Exist?

Thinking about prediction last week reminded me of Isaac Asimov's robot novel THE NAKED SUN. In this book, human detective Elijah and his robot partner solve a murder on a world where people very seldom interact in the flesh. "Meetings" usually occur by means of holographic projections so refined they look real. Even married couples spend very little time physically together. Nothing is said about sex, but one must assume it's customarily of the virtual type. Reproduction is accomplished in vitro, and offspring are brought up in public creches rather than family homes. Babies, of course, are still born with the instinctive need for touching (so we know these are normal human beings, not a mutated subspecies). This "impolite" behavior is trained out of children at an early age. Yet, as far as we can tell, the people of this outwardly idyllic world somehow grow up more or less normal aside from their distaste for physical contact—instead of turning into the emotional cripples, perhaps even sociopaths, they assuredly would become in a real-life equivalent of this culture.

The fact that Asimov and his contemporary readers accepted this society as plausible illustrates a belief prevalent through much of the twentieth century and deconstructed by Steven Pinker in his penetrating book THE BLANK SLATE, the assumption that human nature is infinitely malleable. The same idea lay behind the devastating experience of the boy whose story is told in AS NATURE MADE HIM, whose penis was severely damaged in a botched circumcision during infancy. Doctors recommended that the child undergo sex reassignment surgery and be raised as a girl. Despite being treated as a girl throughout childhood and given female hormones, he/she never felt or behaved "feminine." Eventually learning the truth, he chose to be restored to his original male sex, since he had thought of himself as more boy than girl all along despite never having consciously known what had been done to him. Apparently, contra the behaviorists and their followers, there IS such a thing as "human nature." While we certainly aren't completely controlled by our genes, we can't ignore them, either.

The "blank slate" ideology underlies so much literature of the mid-twentieth century, even among authors whose philosophies are radically dissimilar. For a few decades it seems to have been one of those shared cultural assumptions no one even thinks to question. Despite their vast philosophic differences, WALDEN TWO (by B. F. Skinner), BRAVE NEW WORLD, 1984, and C. S. Lewis's nonfiction THE ABOLITION OF MAN all assume that “conditioning” can mold people into anything the conditioners desire. Skinner viewed this prospect positively, while the other authors mentioned deplored the idea, but none of them seemed to doubt that it could be done. On the contrary, we now know that certain human traits really do seem to be inborn. Babies enter the world with individual personalities rather than “blank slates,” and on a wider scale, a common set of basic reactions, emotions, and social institutions can be found in cultures and ethnic groups throughout the world. No matter how much technology changes, it's probable that our descendants two or three centuries from now will be, in the essentials that make them human, fairly similar to ourselves.

Request for a discussion of genre

Folks:

I was asked to discuss genres -- how a writer would decide which genre to write a particular idea in -- how a reader can figure out from the publisher's labels what books they really want to read (or avoid!).

This is a big topic and I'm way out of time for today. But I do have a great deal to say about genres - where they come from, what they're good for, and why the commercial establishment adopts them then defends them beyond all reason.

We are, as I noted last week, in a vast seachange in the Fiction Delivery System - paper publishing melting down.

And genre barriers that have been absolute and rigid are finally starting to melt down too.

Now is the time for writers to jump in there and create new genres -- and readers need to help.

If you're interested in this area of discussion, please drop a comment here and ask your questions. It's a huge topic - I'd like to carve it up into small pieces.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Writing Real Life

One of the fun things about writing fiction is you get to make shit up. One of the funner things about writing science fiction and fantasy/romance is that you get to make funner shit up. If fiction engages the imagination then science fiction/fantasy/spec fic romance engages the imagination plus.

One of the tougher things about writing science fiction/romance based here, on this planet, in present day is that you have to be real careful about the shit you make up.

I'm finding this out the hard way as I come down the home stretch with THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES.

I know. GAMES OF COMMAND's release date in the end of next month and here I am talking about a book that won't even be out until Fall 2007 (later, if I don't get it finished!) but it's the one I'm working on and hence, it's in the forefront of my mind.

THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES (hereinafter DHZB), as some of you know, is my science fiction/romance/police procedural book. It's the first one I've done that's based here and (give or take 15 years hence) now. It's based in Florida in a city that's suspiciously like St. Petersburg, where I lived and worked as a private detective for ten odd years (and damn, was they odd!).

The hero is a homicide detective sergeant named Theo Petrakos. And therein lies the focus and point of this blog: writing a real life law enforcement officer. Being a retired PI, you'd think that would be a cake-walk for me.

Not. The two professions may interact (more infrequently than television and movies would have us think) but they operate from totally different perspectives and venues. So in order to write Theo and his department--the Bahia Vista Police Department--I found I needed to do research. A lot of research.

This has slowed my progress on the book enormously because--for one thing--cops don't easily talk about what they do and how they do things (for some very valid security reasons, in many cases). For another, I'm an admitted research junkie. Once I found a website or source that could provide the information I need, it was easy for me to get sidetracked by all the other aspects of what it takes to walk in a cop's boots on a daily basis. Quite honestly, fact--in the case of what many law enforcement officers deal with as part of the job--is far stranger than any fiction I could write (well, almost).

From an author's perspective, that hard part comes with melding the fact with the fiction. I wanted DHZB to have an authentic feel as to what Theo goes through and as to who and what Theo is. But I didn't want it to become a manual of police procedure or homicide investigation. I write--and I say this with all pride--space opera romance or, in this case, space opera police procedural romance. I didn't want to lose my science fiction readers or my romance readers by getting too wrapped up in the methodology of a well-executed chokehold. But I also didn't want any mystery readers who pick up the book to helicopter it because I've ignored the realities of call outs, shift work, the law enforcement chain of command and--most important--the law enforcement mind set.

I tried to approach crafting DHZB in the same manner as I would any of my other books. Let's face it, world building is world building. Whether I'm working with Port Rumor--a totally fictitious city somewhere three left turns past the center of the galaxy--or Bahia Vista, Florida which is in reality St. Pete, I'm still working with maps and charts of where things are. I'm still sketching out interiors of rooms--be they kitchens or starship cabins. I'm still working with characters whose lives have been shaped by their cultural beliefs (and I have to know those cultural beliefs). Gillie in AN ACCIDENTAL GODDESS was Raheiran, raised with spells and chants and who spent a fair amount of time on her butt in a temple. Theo Petrakos is a Greek-American who grew up diving for the cross each January in celebration of the Ephiphany. GABRIEL'S GHOST'S Chaz Bergren grew up on a space station and learned that an upside down beer bottle stuck in a corridor railing meant it was Party Time! Theo grew up playing softball on palm tree-shaded sand lots and skim boarding with friends in the Gulf of Mexico.

Contrary to what you might believe, it has not been easier writing Theo because of the very fact that he is "here", in the sense of a world that you all have been to. None of you can go to Port Rumor unless I take you there. But you can go to Bahia Vista (St. Pete) and then write me a letter and tell me the police station is NOT on Central Avenue--as I have it depicted--but on First. I know that. I turned the building around to face Central because I wanted to. It IS fiction.

Which brings me to another point. I recently received an email from a reader who deemed me "a pretty good writer" considering all the flaws in my books, one of which he stated was the way I structured my militaries, my space fleets. He instructed me to read and study David Weber's Honor Harrington series so that I can learn to improve. News flash: I'm a long time Honor Harrington reader and am well aware that Weber uses the "Horatio Hornblower" military structure for his fleets. Second news flash: my books--save for DHZB--are not Earth-based and the space fleets I construct are not 'far future' extensions of the US, Canadian, French, Chinese, Russian, Horatio Hornblower or any other military on this planet, as Weber's are.

The reality of writing UNreality--to me--is consistency. World building must be consistent WITHIN THE BOOK ITSELF. Not necessarily a duplication of what is Here and Now. If I'm writing a book set in Florida, USA, yes, you will find it to be accurate to your present experience. Though be warned! I will turn the police station around to face the other direction because I want it to. Because it is fiction.

The UNrealities I create are as detailed and researched as the reality of law enforcement procedure I've recently immersed myself in for DHZB. Do I take liberties? Absolutely. But to the best of my abilities--which I'm the first to admit are no where near perfect and never will be--my liberties have consistency. That, to me, is the goal of my world building, whether it be the officer's mess on board the Vaxxar in GAMES OF COMMAND or the interior of an unmarked police car in DHZB.

And the goal of my books? Fun. Plain and simple. I write space opera romance. If it gave you a grin and a giggle, then I'm good to go.


~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com

Grandmothers and Insufficient Mating Material

It wouldn't be true to say that I cannot imagine a world without grandmothers.
I can. However, a world without grandmothers doesn't interest me, and it has been done before.

How dysfunctional were the "futuristic" societies of the sort of fiction we studied as "The Moderns" in the 1960's? I remember a rather bleak world view, when infants were incubated outside their mothers' wombs, and brought up in institutions, and segregated according to where on a Greek alphabetical scale their were judged to be in intelligence, physical ability, and career potential.

A bit like ants, really!

I like grandmothers, and family trees, and primogeniture because I think those are great ingredients for a good story, even if it is set in an alien world. When building a new world, I heartily recommend spending the time to draw up a family tree at least going back as far as the great-grandparents.

(But, don't publish dates!)

As it happens, my alien Empire is a little bit dysfunctional... and I can account for that if I wish, by claiming it is because all the protagonists' grandmothers seem to be exiles or fugitives or else they were not emotionally cut out to be our ideal of motherly when motherhood or grandmotherhood was thrust upon them.

When FORCED MATE came out, some readers were uncomfortable with Grandmama Helispeta's formal --ever so formal!-- speech. She never used contractions or abbreviations, and she always addressed other people, even her grandchildren, by their proper given names.


One of my grandmothers used to have a kind way of calling a halt to my childish dramatic, poetic, or vocal performances.

"I think that you have delighted us sufficiently..." she would say.

Another grandmother used similar phraseology to announce that we had eaten enough of her expensive Sunday roast.

"We have had an adequate sufficiency..."

That probably influenced my "Voice" when I attempted to bring Grandmama Helispeta to life. MATING NET was the story of the biggest mistake of her youthful life. It was a short story. One day, maybe there'll be another chapter. Her role is much expanded in Insufficient Mating Material, as she considers it her duty to interfere in her grandson's life.


Have a good week.

Rowena Cherry

Hazards of Predicting the Future

There's an essay by author Micheal Crichton called "Aliens Cause Global Warming" at:

http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speeches/speeches_quote04.html

The position he's maintaining is that UFOs, global warming, and the lethal dangers of secondhand smoke, among other beliefs, are all examples of junk science or, more precisely, unsound arguments posing as science in support of an agenda. As far as I have enough information to be entitled to an opinion on the topics he discusses, I disagree with him on most of them. I do agree, of course, that facts shouldn't be distorted for the sake of achieving a political or social goal, no matter how worthy, and I agree that dissenting positions shouldn't be squelched. What I find really interesting about this essay, however, is Crichton's discussion of the hazards of trying to predict the distant future, or even the middle-distant future. He offers the example of transportation in 1900. People in that year who considered the future of urban transportation might have worried about a shortage of horses. They might have worried about an increase in horse-generated pollution as the human population increased. But the vast majority of the city planners of 1900 wouldn't have in any way anticipated the automobile-centered culture of 2000. And even those few who imagined the rise of horseless carriages from toys for hobbyists to necessities for all would never have suspected one of the major social side effects of the automobile—the rise of "dating" as we know it (to replace the earlier custom of a young man "calling on" a young woman in her own home, where she and her family, not he, controlled the interaction).

Doesn't one of Yogi Berra's well-known malapropisms remark that prediction is hard, especially about the future?

That's one reason I don't write far-future fiction and am even leery of setting a story more than a few years in the near future. I've read somewhere that in imagining the near future we expect more drastic change than is realistic and in imagining the distant future we make the opposite error. This principle is borne out, for example, by Robert Heinlein's DOOR INTO SUMMER, published in the 1940s or '50s and set in 1970 and 2000. It envisions a 1970 in which cryogenic suspended animation is commercially available (if only to people with a lot of money) and reliable enough that those who can afford it go into deep freeze in confident expectation of awakening in good health on the exact day they've specified. The year 1970 as we knew it wasn't much like that! And I'm still waiting for the inexpensive, versatile housecleaning robots that exist in this book's 1970. (To date, all we have available are rudimentary robotic disks on wheels that vacuum or scrub floors.)

The very distant future, on the other hand, will probably hold technological wonders as unimaginable to us as nuclear energy was to most people in 1900. Yet, as far as human nature is concerned, I expect the opposite to occur. I've often been exasperated with writers who assume the structure of human society will change just as radically as technology will. Edward Bellamy in LOOKING BACKWARD, written in the late nineteenth century, visualized the world of 2000 as a socialist utopia. Capitalism, war, disease, greed, and corruption, alas, haven't disappeared yet. I get especially annoyed at authors who create advanced spacefaring societies without religion or with no family and marriage customs similar to our own. In the biblical book of Genesis, we find love, marriage, and family relationships we have no trouble recognizing as the direct precursors of those we practice today. In two or three centuries, customs that have already lasted for millennia are going to deconstruct beyond recognition? As for religion, Christianity has lasted for almost two millennia, Judaism four or five, and the great Asian religious systems even longer. A relatively minor change such as interstellar travel is likely to destroy these faiths, after they've survived the transition from an agrarian society through the Industrial Revolution to the age of the Internet?

For the next few months my blogs will become sketchier, because of the Maryland legislative session that begins next week and continues until the middle of April. I will try to surface once a week and post SOMETHING. Happy 2007, everyone!

Susan Kearney's-- ISLAND HEAT-- book trailer

Oh, my! My baby is finally finished. The book? No, actually that was completed almost one year ago. My newest project a book trailer was my first creative endeavor in the world of book trailers. Sure, I'd helped write my scripts for Circle of Seven before., but this time we did a collaborative project. It all started when I saw this hunky guy at a professsional fight in Tampa. I tracked him down and found out he had a gorgeous wife. Both agreed to model for my daughter a photographer--www.tarakearney.com and thanks to Tor, the shot ended up on my book cover for ISLAND HEAT.

The fighter and his wife looked so good I asked them if they'd be in the book trailer. Lucky for me they said yes. Little did they know they'd have to freeze in cold water and be buffeted by the high winds of a helicopter. Anyway, Circle of Seven agreed to fly in their director. But oh, was I busy. I wanted boats and helicopters and volcanoes in the trailer. I needed, makeup people, costumes, and lots of dirt to put the models in the proper attire. So yeah, I got to smear lots of dirt on the two pro fighters--a tough job, but then you know my publisher likes this promotion stuff. Such a hardship . . .

It was too much location shooting to do in a day, so I asked a friend to shoot some of the scenes ahead of time. Then my fabulous director Joe Grubberman flew in, shot the rest of the trailer, cobbled scenes together, added special effects and music to make it all look professional.

Now, why go to all this trouble? So you will read this, go to my site www.susankearney.com and be so amazed that you next read the free ISLAND HEAT excerpt on my site and buy the book. Better yet, tell your friends about the trailer, because looking is free.

Enjoy,

Susan Kearney

Sea Changes in Publishing

Folks:

Just when you thought your Fiction Delivery system had finally stabilized!

Posted December 29, 2006; see full article at: http://www.sfwa.org/news//2006/amsfiles.htm

Is an item about a huge book distributor filing for Chapter 11 and floating a loan to continue operations normally during the interim. This is Advanced Marketing Services, AMS, which distributes for companies such as quoted from the article, not verified by me, "Random House, which is owed $43.3 million. Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Hachette Book Group are all owed more than $20 million each, while HarperCollins is owed $18 million. The bankruptcy filing includes PGW; among the clients owed money are Rich Publishing ($4.4 million), Avalon Publishing ($2.3 million), New World Library ($1.1 million) and Grove/Atlantic ($1.1 million). "
Those are big publishers, but they can't afford to carry the distributor's debt. This is a financial (and legal) problem at this distributor dating back to 2004.

This Chap 11 filing indicates publishing in general is still melting down -- it's been about 10 years now of serious failures of the fiction delivery system on paper.

However, e-publishers are being founded right and left, though many e-publishers founded around the year 2000 have closed -- some with startling abruptness.

Now you and I know that the SF-Romance crossover story is proliferating -- more and more people are finding it great reading material.

But for a writer to deliver stories to a reader, we need (or do we?) all this advertising, copyediting, editing, printing or formatting, and distributing (or download sites).

More and more it's true that individual authors (who do NOT get the percentage of the sales price to be able to cover the expense) are required to do their own advertising.

As a reader, just how receptive are you to advertising? How do you choose a book to buy?

What behavior have you noted among your friends that might be causing paper-book distributors (and even e-book publishers) to go bankrupt one way or another?

Where is the root cause of this phenomenon? People not reading? Or reading something other than published fiction?

Or is it the $9 pricetag on a paperback that should cost $2? Are e-books overpriced?

Will success come with a cheaper distribution system?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

When Technology Fails... (BTDT)

Some of you may have noticed my absence from the blog the twice in December. It was not, I assure you, planned but rather an issue of circumstances that (in the first instance) involved disgustingly slow and disgustingly pricey internet access on board a cruise ship and (in the second) a short in the telephone wires in my kitchen which knocked out all DSL in my house for four days.

What all that has to do with writing SFR is that it reminded me of a notation made by a reviewer of my Finders Keepers:

“Not for Linnea Sinclair the spiffy, cutting edge man-machine futures of Ken MacLeod, Greg Egan or Charles Stross…” but rather “…this novel is classic space opera, the sort of story in which rough-hewn pilots of either gender chug along space lanes in rickety old ships held together with duct tape…”

Well, yeah. Looked around your house lately? Do you have anything mechanical or electrical that doesn’t work one hundred percent perfectly?

I’m not sure where or why the notion arose that “future tech” means perfect tech. If anything, that kind of environment, to me, smacks of a world building Mary-Sue-ism (and if you don’t know what Mary Sue is in writing, then hop on over to my Yahoo Group where the topic comes up about once a month). Since setting is such an integral part of an SF novel (and an SFR novel), it then, too, should have flaws. A personality. Problems.

Fantasy writers will tell you that magic comes with a price. That is, you can’t have an all powerful magic source or system that does everything for everyone, everywhere. You pay your electric bill monthly to keep your television and toaster functioning. In fantasy, you have to have a magic bill. If a wizard can wave his wand and manifest a castle in a blink of an eye, then he also has to suffer huge migraines after doing so. Or perhaps be required to sacrifice his only child in order to do so. Or bumble through a series of magical missteps as he tries to refine the spell. Magic has a price.

So does technology and part of that price is it doesn’t work—at least, not in my books. Starfreighters are cobbled together with duct tape (quite literally, in Finders Keepers). Lifts break down with alarming regularity on Cirrus One Station in An Accidental Goddess. Weapons jam and plans fail in all my books.

Hey, and your cell phone has never dropped a call?

Failing and funky technology gives your characters a chance to test their mettle, be creative, be resourceful. It also gives your readers a very real point of identification. If you’re reading this then you have a computer, and if you have a computer then I’m 99.9% sure you’ve experienced the Blue Screen of Death (“We Apologize But The Operating System Has Experienced A Fatal Error And Must Shut Down Now—All Your Unsaved Work Will Be Lost…”). So when Trilby Elliot or Chaz Bergren or Jace Serafino suffer the same frustration, you can nod sagely and say, “BTDT. Been There, Done That.” And hopefully, that draws you more into the story.

Neither writing science fiction nor writing romance should mean everything’s perfect—not the protagonists, not the world, not the technology. Kitchen telephone wires short out. Hyperspace drives fail. A mega-million dollar cruise ship with state-of-the-art everything has sucky internet access.

Welcome to my world and my books.
~Linnea

and speaking of technology, let's hope this works:

Games of Command by Linnea Sinclair

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New Year's Eve - Time... ticking away

Timing-wise, I really lucked out this year, if having (alien romance) blogging rights to Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve counts as luck. My wrist watch also stopped for Christmas, which is an inconvenience.

When I was a virgin (there's superstition for you), I used to stop watches regularly. I had to wear them pinned to my breast, like a matron (in the medical sense). Now, it's probably a matter of battery life!

Happy New Year!

I don't consider myself an astronomical heavyweight, intellectually speaking.

My natural, romantic bent is to consider Pink Floyd rather than Cepheid Variables,
a man's reaction to the passing of his life (Time) rather than the fact that a light year is a measure of distance (nearly six trillion miles). The coolness and romance of the idea of The Dark Side of the Moon rather than the possibility of habitable worlds (moons) in tidal lock around a Gas Giant.

Not so long ago, I was seated at a dinner party next to a member of the Pink Floyd, and --naturally-- I asked about the thinking behind The Dark Side of the Moon, which is why I feel free to mention coolness and romance.

Time is rather interesting as part of world building. How would a civilization tell time if they spent generations aboard a space ark? What method would remain relevant? I chose the female reproductive cycle when writing Forced Mate... No doubt it had something to do with my inconvenient effect on wearable timepieces when I was younger.

Looking back, I'm immensely amused by the spoilsports who all said that we all celebrated Y2K on the wrong date (wrong year). I must have spent at least twelve hours watching televised celebrations from around the world: rock stars and sopranos atop magnificent buildings, paper lanterns rising into the sky like miniature hot air balloons, ballet on beaches, fireworks along major rivers...

Obvious as it is to say, tonight, different nations --and different states-- will mark the arrival of 2007 at different times. I'm especially aware of this for a really silly reason. Not because my mother lives in England and will be celebrating five or six hours earlier than I will, but because my publisher's forums are on Central time and I'm on Eastern, and I'm determined to log in at midnight, and help break an attendance record. (forums@dorchesterpub.com, midnight Central).

Greenwich Mean Time is very useful, but we don't all set our clocks by that. Not everyone follows the same calendar. Take the Chinese New Year.

Suppose there were an Antichthon

Would that world measure time in the same way that we do? Would Antichthon have a moon? How likely is that?

Too complicated for me, this morning, is the idea that someone leaving Earth, traveling into outer space, and returning years later would experience the passage of time differently, and may return as a time traveller (not the same age as the friends and colleagues who remained on Earth). It is an issue I must look into before I get much further with my next book, though.

The Sparrow was interesting on time. I know Star Trek measured time in Star Dates, but I don't know how that was calculated. I never noticed time being measured in Star Wars...

Any astronomers want to help me?

Happy New Year.

Rowena Cherry

New Years Resolutions

Its that time of year when we all think about changing ourselves for the better. So here's my list of resolutions.

I resolve to finish the third star book and think of a really great title for it.
I resolve to send off my proposal for my timetravel paranormal which already has a great title. It's called Twist and its full of them.
I resolve to send off my proposal for my YA timetravel.
I resolve to write more, write better and make better use of my writing time.

How bout you? Any resolutions?

A New Twist on Naturally Evolved Vampires

I've just read a first contact novel called BLINDSIGHT, by Peter Watts. It's not quite like anything else I've ever read, packed with enough ideas for three or four SF novels. A starship is sent to investigate an alien artifact that has attacked Earth for unknown reasons. The commander of the team is a vampire, a member of a species (or possibly a human subspecies) recreated from extinction through genetic engineering by using DNA from sociopaths and autistic savants. The team's linguist harbors a "gang" of artificially created multiple personalities. The narrator lost one hemisphere of his brain to radical childhood surgery for the correction of epileptic seizures, an operation that left him incapable of empathy. The aliens, with biology partly based on starfish, turn out to be intelligent without consciousness. The most provocative theme of the novel is the question of whether consciousness is truly an evolutionary advantage or, rather, a meaningless epiphenomenon that actually handicaps the organism burdened with it. This suggestion, to me, tips the story in the direction of horror. If this attempt at describing the book's plot premise doesn't come across as very coherent, blame me, not Peter Watts. This novel stretches and challenges the reader's intellect. Every time I thought I knew what was going on, a few pages later I lost my footing again. And the characters' vocabulary is as advanced as you would expect from geniuses who are experts in highly specialized scientific fields. Naturally, my main interest was in the evolution and biology of the vampire. But he's only one strand in the plot. The author's afterword to the book discusses some of the science behind the story, including a few pages about vampires, but this explanation only scratches the surface. I wanted more details, a chapter's worth of exposition at least. (I'd like to read similar essays about the physiology and psychology of the other characters, too. This is one book in which I'm more interested in the background than the story.) For that, one has to visit the website:

http://www.rifters.com/blindsight/vampires.htm

Unfortunately, there's no text to read. What you do get is a very clever slide show, a simulation of a pharmaceutical company's history of how the vampire race was recreated, with a detailed description of the biological basis of vampire traits. For example, they feed on human prey because the vampire's body lacks a vital protein that must be taken from human victims. They have an aversion to crosses (which, the voice-over points out, is far from solely a Christian symbol) because of a brain glitch related to their superior pattern-recognition abilities. (For example: When we see five or six marbles, we instantly "just know" it's five or six. We don't have to count. If we see fifty-five marbles, we can't tell how many there are without counting. A vampire can.) The right-angled figure of the cross causes neurons in the vampire's brain to fire improperly, causing massive seizures. As solitary, territorial predators, all vampires are sociopaths. They can't even endure the company of same-sex members of their own species. There's lots more information in the website slide show, all delivered in the bland voice of an accomplished PR man yet blithely spouting the most appallingly amoral pronouncements. Hilarious in a subtle and dark fashion.

Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon

Folks:

I'm in the middle of watching a visual feast called Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon. I've seen about a third of it, so this isn't a review.

It's a movie with a D&D plot. There's the ragtag band of heros -- an over-the-hill King whose swordsmanship is rusty, a woman wannabe-mage wife of the King who contracts a curse while casting a spell, an Amazon dominatrix stronger than superman, a comic-relief character who isn't powerless, and so on, the usual.

This is a sequel, so they backfill previous stories real quick -- I haven't seen the prequels.

There's an old dragon asleep under a mountain, his powers siphoned off and imprisoned in a flask somewhere. There's the bad-guy who's gone after the Dragon's powers to cure himself of a curse (of vampirism) that should have been lifted, but wasn't because the caster of the curse died before fulfilling his promise.

What's WRONG with a story like this? There's plenty of aliens and part-aliens, lots of great stuff to look at, fabulous POWERS to play with, eye-candy gallore, shoulders and tushes to die for, eyes to pant over, and real women, heroic women with big problems -- and net-net, the thing is dullsville squared.

WHY? What is it that's lacking that would make this movie just our cup of tea?

The mere presence of sword-fighting and a quest or action-task, villains blacker than black and heroes whiter than white doesn't preclude some interesting stories.

I think in a word, the answer is angst. I'm a big fan of angst. That's what a writer calls internal conflict.

These characters are living their lives entirely on an external level -- all the conflict is external.

What little internal conflict is hinted at has nothing to do with the external conflicts.

Therefore there's no apparent reason for these particular challenges to appear in those particular lives at that exact time. There's no SUSPENSE. No INTRIGUE.

Beyond that, I have major problems with the theme sets used in movies and books like this.

There's this dragon sleeping under a mountain and his powers have been stolen.

Yes, it was done to him by civilization that bankrupted itself building prisons for him and his powers because he rampaged and nearly destroyed them.

But they discover the dragon, and INSTANTLY (without deliberation, council meetings, even a flicker of a handwaving argument) decide they have to either keep him imprisoned, re-imprison him, or destroy him.

There's this villain who tells us right off he didn't DESERVE to be kept a vampire, and when the King hears he's after the Dragon's powers, he mounts a military campaign to destroy him.

Nobody ever considers the bad-guy's side of things, wonders if the bad guy is really the bad guy? Wonders if WE aren't really the bad-guys.

Not one little thought is expended trying to find another way other than destruction.

What if marriages were conducted that way? Where would we be?

What if international affairs were conducted that way? (well, they are sort of)

Why do the good guys have to KILL the bad guys? That's not satisfying to me. Real triumph is to make the bad guys INTO good guys while they're trying to make the good guys into bad guys because they don't think they're bad guys.

Maybe everybody ends up gray-guys?

Bottom line: I don't buy into the concept that destruction resolves conflict.

So for me, films and stories such as this one don't work.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com

Saturnalia and alien religions

I think it was Linnea Sinclair who talked about religion for aliens on this blog. I hope I'm not repeating the same discussion.

History repeats itself. Victors like the conquered to worship the conquerors' gods. Which makes sense, at least in the world of Greek and Roman myths, because obviously the winners' gods were superior (given that both sides prayed for victory).

I've always been fascinated by the way Christmas was deliberately celebrated at the time of, and gradually in place of, the older Saturnalia.

If we (humans) were conquered by reasonably benign aliens, I wonder whether our new overlords would try to be equally clever and considerate. Would they give us a bigger, longer, more amusing, more colorful event to celebrate in late December? (Assuming December remained December).

When I consider how divided humankind has always been over religion, I wonder whether humanity as a whole would react violently or with secret relief. What do you think?

Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, I wish you great happiness, good health, and good friends.

All the best,

Rowena

Merry Christmas

I just can't think about far away places or future happenings this time of year. All my focus is on the here and the now. We're having Christmas at home this year for only the fifth time in our entire life together and we are so happy to not have to travel.

So I spent all day yesterday and will spend most of today in the kitchen. Both of our sons are home and although that is a bit alien its nice. And we did have some aliens in our kitchen last night. No wait, that was just the lobster the dh cooked for his own birthday feast. I had to leave, the thoughts of putting anything alive in boiling water just creeps me out.

I'm as decorated as I can get. My shopping is done. The presents are wrapped. I've got sixteen coming for dinner on Christmas Day and come Tuesday it will all be over with. So I'm going to enjoy the here and the now while it lasts.

Merry Christmas everyone

Reimagining Santa

In this season we hear a lot about Santa Claus. For little kids we have to explain that all those men in red suits at the malls are just helpers, while the real Santa stays at the North Pole to get his seasonal work done. The classic animated feature shown on TV every year identifies him as a foundling child named Claus brought up by a clan of elves, the Kringles. The program offers origins for Santa's names, his toymaking elf helpers, gifts in stockings, the flying reindeer (the Winter Wizard fed them magical corn), Christmas trees, etc. For an adult viewer, elements of this story require robust suspension of disbelief, since we *know* the sources, for instance, of the names "Santa Claus" and "Kris Kringle." Still, it's fun to speculate about Santa's attributes from an SF/fantasy perspective. Clearly the reindeer have levitation abilities. How does Saint Nick visit all the children on Earth in one night? Obviously through a combination of teleportation and some device similar to Hermione's time turner in HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN. He probably has a crystal ball or other scrying instrument to show him who's been bad or good. How does he get down narrow modern chimneys or into houses with no chimney at all? Teleportation again, or maybe a portable wormhole. How can he carry all those gifts at once? He must have a Bag of Holding (from the D&D game), a sack that opens directly into a pocket dimension. Why don't satellite images reveal his workshop and village at the North Pole? (All those elves, plus the reindeer, must need a lot of infrastructure.) Either it's underground with a very well-camouflaged entrance, or he uses a cloaking device. For that matter, how does he manufacture all the gifts, even with a team of elves working throughout the year? A replicator, STAR TREK style? That would explain why he delivers name-brand toys; he uses commercial products as templates.

In American popular culture, Santa is assisted by elves, the eight reindeer of "A Visit from Saint Nicholas," and Rudolf. In folklore, however, he has many different helpers, such as Black Peter (the Netherlands), Belsnickel (Pennsylvania), and Krampus (a demonic-looking creature from Eastern Europe), mostly with the task of delivering what bad kids deserve. Imagine Santa being accompanied by a soot-blackened, bearskin-clad, or cloven-hoofed sidekick who carries a whip to punish naughty children. Sounds like NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Not a type of character we're likely to see on network TV holiday cartoons anytime soon.

Maybe Saint Nick doesn't actually have to visit every child on Earth. After all, in addition to Santa's helpers, there are many different December gift-bringers throughout the world's cultures. Probably Santa shares the task of distributing presents with characters such as the Italian La Befana and Santa Lucia, Russian Grandfather Frost, Swedish Christmas Gnome, and the Three Kings. Imagine a convocation of all these figures parceling out their territories. (Are Father Christmas and Pere Noel the same person? If not, would they fight over who gets Quebec?) That could make a more entertaining Christmas special than yet another cartoon about a maladjusted reindeer.

The World Is Changing - Again

Folks:

I heard an item on the TV news this morning that Microsoft is creating a website like youtube where people can download and use videogame creating tools and then post their game for others to play.

Microsoft will be uniting the X-box and Windows platforms so that games will play on either, as I understand it. Currently game developers must compile their game for each platform.

What has this to do with alien romance?

Aha! How many Romance oriented games have you played recently?

There was an item in the news a few weeks ago that game developing companies believed they had reached saturation of the game market for boys and young men. They also noted that many women played videogames. And people running the game development companies are now actively targeting women players.

oho! A videogame, by definition (on the CNBC special on the history of videogaming) is the active fulfillment of a dream or fantasy -- people play videogames to be the HERO, to WIN, to experience what they can only aspire to in real life.

So, videogames are stories (something else emphasized on the CNBC special on videogame history). When a story was added, gaming became big business. The same happened with Dungeons and Dragons -- inventing your own story, making it real, living it, becoming part of it, trying on different personalities -- that's what we want!

Now if only I could give you the URL of this website where we can create Alien Romance Videogames.

Oh, the TV interview news item was with a Microsoft official and he said they are looking to have many people post games developed with their free tools. Then the most popular games will be chosen and published -- and he said that could make a game writer into a millionnaire.

Imagine an Alien Romance videogame making an AR writer into a millionnaire! I do think the market is big enough to do that.

Jacqueline Lichtengerg
http://www.simegen.com

WARNING: Contents Under Pressure

One of the things that differentiates science fiction and SFR from other fiction is the genre's inclusion of setting (or world building) as a non-removeable part of the mix. In essence, the setting often functions like a character. This is most easily seen in media SF where ships like the Enterprise or Serenity become as much a part of the storyline as the sentient characters. But it's also found in novels, such as those by Anne McCaffrey with her ships and worlds, and my own Cirrus One Station in An Accidental Goddess .

I was reminded again how and why Cirrus One Station was constructed as I was (once again) at sea, in an 85,000 ton vessel that was--when you really think about it--the only thing between me and the deep dark ocean.

I'm sure most people on a Caribbean cruise don't want to even think about how perilous a situation they'd be in should something serious happen to the ship. Sure, there are lifeboats and such, and the chances of the ship going down a la Titanic are very slim. But a cruise ship--like a space station--is still a solitary, closed environment.

And it affects how people act. Because consciously or not, people know they're stuck there until they make the next port. They're stuck with not having an item they need. They're stuck without having a certain comfort they're used to. They're stuck with other people they may not like and can't actually get away from. Sooner or later they will, yes, run into that same loud-mouth, obnoxious guy because they are on the same ship. They're in a closed environment.

It's contents under pressure. Moreso after two days at sea.

The whole issue of personal space is raised and those dynamics may change, depending on how each person handles that closed environment. Some people purposely become more easy-going. Others ramp up their rudeness factor in an effort to take control. People Day 1 at sea are not always the same on Day 2.

I watch these dynamics with interest because of what I write. And I write situations that incorporate "contents under pressure" because of all the things I've seen after more than twenty-five years of being a cruise ship passenger.

But it's not just the passengers. Ship's crewmembers and staff have to deal with even less space and more pressure. They can't leave their troubles at the office because home is their office. And it's damn hard to tell your boss to take this job and shove it when you're hundreds of miles from the nearest port.

What happens then--in both real life and in my books--are that people must face their problem and handle it. Writing guru Dwight Swain states that a successful novel has characters who "start fires they can't put out." Well, I like to take it one step further in my books and have my characters not only not be able to put out the fire, but they can't even run away from it.

I made sure Gillie couldn't run away from her issue of being an accidental goddess by making sure her ship's damage kept her on station. I put Chaz on a space station with people trying to kill her and her only hope a rescue from a man she'd been trained to hate. And then I took away their only means of escape from the station and put them directly into the hands of a man who could harm them both.

And in my upcoming (February 2007) Games of Command, I strand my characters not only in another dimension but I taunt them with plenty of ships--none of which can survive transit back to their 'normal' space and time.

Because this is SF and the setting, the world, the ship plays an important and threatening part.

Contents under pressure. Trouble confined by four walls. Death awaiting outside.

And you all thought I go on vacations for fun.

~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com

50 ways to help your author

50 ways to help an author (without buying her book)

Originally I had a longer and more accurate title, but I can’t get the song “Fifty ways to leave your lover out of my head”. I’d love feedback, or additional suggestions. The idea is to share all the things that authors can do to help each other, and that authors’ friends and family could do, might like to do, but may never think of doing. For the sake of argument, all authors for the purpose of this blog will be considered female. (No sexism intended).

Help the search engines find her:

1. Google your friend.
2. Ask Jeeves about her.
3. Dogpile her.
4. A9 search her. (That’s the Amazon search engine)
5. Does Yahoo have a search feature?

Even if you know where to find your friend, her blog, and her books, “hits” help. The more visitors the search engine spiders find, the more priority the author's website gets.

6. Visit her website… not just the home page.
7. Visit her blogs.
8. Find her Amazon Connect page
http://www.amazon.com/gp/arms/directory/A/2/105-8737680-2353243#directory

This link is to the alphabetical directory by author’s last name. Click on the name (which is blue, underlined and therefore a live link) and you will go to the author’s Amazon page. From there you can:

9. Invite her as an Amazon Friend
10. Add to your list of Interesting People
11. E-mail the page (about her… to your other friends)
12. Add her posts to your plog

As you explore her Amazon Connect page, you will find:

On the left, under her picture, links to any reviews she has written.
13. Click on them. Read her reviews. If you like them, click on Helpful.
14. If you see an opportunity to comment on her review, do so if you have something nice to say.

If authors write reviews, their books are advertised free in the attribution line, and their links to their page and their books are seen by people who are interested in the products that your friend reviewed.
There’s a link to her own web site.
15. Click on that… just to bump up the site and give it traffic. Then go back to Amazon.

If the author has blogged (written a note about what she is doing/thinking/ or given an insight into her books), there is a blue link to Comment.

16. Comment! Vote that you liked her post (it’s encouraging feedback)

If the author clicked “product” as she wrote her blog, there will be a live link on her blog to one of her books.

17. Click on the cover. Give her book page traffic. Or scroll on down and see her bibliography, who your author friend’s friends are, what reviews she has written, what search suggestions she has made, what “tags” she has created for each of her books, and what tags her readers have added. See her Reminders.

18. If you live near to the author, and she has a reminder on the calendar for a booksigning near you, click on Remind Me Too. Support at a booksigning is always wonderful.

19. While checking out her friends, maybe click on the image of other authors whose books you like. Amazon often pairs up two books by different authors and suggests “Buy Both”.

When you are on a book page, without buying that book, click on links to:

20. Put it on your wish list. It’s extra, free advertising.
21. Tell a friend

Scroll down the book page to Tag this product. (or make a search suggestion)
22. Add a tag. (Loved it! Can’t wait to read it! Soooo romantic! Etc)

23. Join in the Customer discussions. Ask a question. Start a discussion. The search engines pick up on the discussions, and quote interesting responses.

If you have read her book:
24. Write a customer review. It doesn’t have to be long or scholarly. Be as generous with the star rating as you can. Try to be specific about what you liked best about the story or one of the characters. Don’t give away the ending.

25. Ditto all of the above for Barnes and Noble, E-Bay, Borders, Chapters Indigo, Waterstone’s, Amazon uk, Amazon ca, or any other bookstore chain that allows customer reviews, comments, discussions etc. Or, simply search for her name, titles, reviews.

26. If you have a MySpace page (and if you don’t, but really want to help, get one… it’s free) invite your author friends to be your friends there.
27. Write a bulletin about your friend or her book.
28. Add a comment on their profile page’s comments section. Your comment is their opportunity to say something about their book without the appearance of soliciting.
29. Review their book on your MySpace blog.

30. If her publisher has a forum, join it and ask her questions. For instance, Dorchester publishing (home of Leisure and LoveSpell authors) has
http://forums.dorchesterpub.com/

Again, your comment will be seen by hundreds, if not thousands, and it will give your friend a reason to post something interesting and quotable about her book without seeming to be self-promoting.

31. If you see a good review—on any bookselling site that allows customers and visitors to comment on reviews-- click Helpful if it is a helpful review.

Votes help both the reviewer and the author (especially the reviewer’s rankings ).

32. If you see a bad review, click Not Helpful.
33. If you see a personal attack disguised as a “review” click Report This, and tell the author. If enough people click to report ugly remarks, bad reviews come down in 50-60% of the time

If you see your favorite author’s books in a supermarket or bookstore:

34. Facing her books (if there is room, turn one so the cover shows)
35. Tell store personnel how much you like that book, or that the author is local.

36. If you don’t see her books, especially when they ought to be there, ask about them.

37. If you have a blog, publicize your friend’s upcoming signings/author talks/workshops on your blog. Mention her website URL.
38 Link to your author friend’s website or blog on yours
39. Offer a quote if asked--or volunteer if you’re not asked.
40. Do a review for her, asked or not. It doesn’t matter if some people think that you are friends. More often than not, you became friends because you like and respect each other’s talent, or sense of humor, or something you bring to your writing. People do respect recommendations

41. If you belong to readers’ group sites, or book chat sites, or special interest sites, post what you are reading. Plugs never hurt. These are also picked up on RSS feeds and the search engines.
42. Link to other writers. It drives everyone up in the search engine.

43. Ask your library to order your friend's book.

44. Join your favorite author’s yahoo group, let her know where you’ve seen her book in stores, or where you’ve seen discussions of her book, or reviews of her book.

45. Drop in on her online chat to say how you enjoyed her book. Supportive friends at chats are cool because chats can be chaotic, and typing answers takes time.

46. Put her book as a 'must read' on your own Web site, or in your own newsletter.

47. Send e-mails to your entire address list recommending the book.

48. Be her 'friend' on You Tube.

49. Offer to take a bunch of her bookmarks to conventions, or conferences, and make sure they are put in goodie bags, or on promo tables. Or simply visit her table at a convention, and sign up for her newsletter, or pick up her bookmark and tell someone else how good the book is.

50 Offer to slip her bookmarks into your own correspondence when you pay bills, taxes, etc.

51. Instead of quoting Goethe in your sig file, try quoting a line from your friend’s blurb in the week of her launch.

With thanks to the following for their help and suggestions

Kathleen Bacus, www.kathybacus.com

Diana Groe, www.dianagroe.com

Joyce Henderson,
www.joycehendersonauthor.com

Diane Wylie, author of "Secrets and Sacrifices" www.dianewylie.com

Jacquie Rogers, http://www.jacquierogers.com, http://www.myspace.com/jacquierogers.

Deborah Anne MacGillivray, author of The Legend of Falgannon Isle, www.deborahmacgillivray.co.uk Dorchester Love Spell, Kensington's Zebra Historicals

Charlotte Maclay, author of Make No Promises,
www.CharlotteMaclay.com

Rowena Cherry www.rowenacherry.com, author of Insufficient Mating Material, available 1/30/2007.

Rowena Cherry.

Too young, too old or just right?

While writing the third book in my Star series I've struggled with a problem. How old should a hero be? The book starts with my characters, the twin heirs of Oasis, Zander and Elle, on the day before their eighteenth birthday. Boone, Ruben's adopted son is twenty.

Then they do lots of stupid things which are typical for people that age and time passes before they are all together again. But how much time? I don't want to give away too much of the plot but lets just say they all travel in different directions due to the evil Circe.

Boone is the hero of this book and hopefully Zander will get his own story. My idea is to have Boone return at the age of twenty six. So what do you think? Is twenty-six a good age for a futuristic hero?

Suggestions are most welcome.

Creatures of Discworld

Recently I acquired a copy of THE ART OF DISCWORLD. I originally didn't plan to buy it, because I thought it would be mostly graphic art with little text, but it does contain a lot of interesting commentary in Terry Pratchett's own voice. He explains how he developed some of the many different species that inhabit Discworld. For example, he decided to make dwarfs traditionalists who maintain profound respect for their kin who dwell in deep mountain caves and work in the mines, even if they themselves have lived in the city for generations. The dwarven veneration of tradition and love for arguing about how to apply it leads some fans (according to Pratchett) to claim Discworld dwarfs must be Jewish. :) Other dwarven cultural elements include bread that can double as a weapon, a centuries-old feud with trolls, and unisex appearance. (Outsiders can't distinguish females from males, and female dwarfs who shave their beards and wear dresses are frowned upon by their peers.) In creating trolls, Pratchett questioned why folklore says they turn to stone in daylight. The answer: They evolved to live in a cold climate. Heat slows and, at extremes, shuts down their silicon-based brains. That's why all the trolls we meet act so stupid. In below-freezing environments, they become intelligent. Swamp dragons (bred by Commander Vimes' wife like show dogs) emit flames from both ends because of gases produced in their digestive tracts, a physiological feature that makes them dangerous pets. As for Uberwald (a literal translation of "Transylvania"), home of vampires and werewolves, Pratchett drew its inspiration from classic horror films. Since every vampire or mad scientist needs a servant named Igor, there must be countless Igors (and Igorinas), all highly skilled surgeons.

One feature of Discworld I especially enjoy is the diversity of the police force in the great city of Ankh-Morpork. Under Commander Vimes, the force is an equal-opportunity employer, including representatives of all the major races. In a recent book Vimes was even persuaded to hire a vampire. The female werewolf cop, who keeps her nature secret from most people, has a budding romantic relationship with one of her human colleagues.

Other topics covered in THE ART OF DISCWORLD include witches, wizards, Unseen University, the Assassins' Guild, the character of Death, and many additional places and creatures in Pratchett's world. If you're a fan of his work, don't miss this book. It's a wonderfully entertaining glimpse into the creative world-building processes of a fantasy writer's mind. Amazon.com lists it as out of print, but they offer plenty of secondhand copies, and the Science Fiction Book Club carries it.

Seeing the Light

Folks:

Well, this is the Season of Lights -- a whole bunch of faiths do light at the bottom of the year!

On Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover, on the shortest day of the year they kindled a bon fire using a magnifying glass and the power of the very weak red-giant sun.

One of the essential ingredients in good world building is the anthropology and psychology.

Our fictional aliens have to be "accessible" to our human mentality if they are going to be characters. Otherwise you end up with something like C. J. Cherryh's most alien aliens who occassionally do a drive-by spaceship shooting, and can just barely communicate -- but who don't form relationships with individual humans. The most you can expect is a treaty whereby they won't shoot you today.

And we at this blog are all into "relationships" so let's look at the season of Year's Turning -- the winter solstice. Most worlds that have life will probably have an axial tilt and therefore have this metaphore built into their cultures. (OK, there will be worlds whose poles run sideways.)

Last time I talked about abstract thinking -- which includes metaphores, analogies, algebra, along with hypothesizing.

Our favorite books depict relationships between human and alien where the concept "soul mate" comes into play. That is a fated relationship, one where something abstract and intangible draws the two together because they are two halves of a whole.

So what is a soul?

Would aliens have that concept? It's really a very abstract abstraction.

Astrology would be vastly different for the natal chart of someone born in a different solar system. Or between stars -- would such a child even have a natal chart? How could you get a handle on who this person is? How mature the alien soul is?

Well, let's look at it another way. Suppose the alien civilization does have the concept Soul and even the concept Spirit -- and they come from a planet with axial tilt so they have a winter solstice. So they'd have the concept of cyclical seasons, and a winter solstice. How would they get from there to something akin to our concept of Soul?

According to most of our philosophies and religions (at least ones that didn't originate at the equator) -- the "light" Spiritual and Physical, waxes and wanes. The Sun waxes and wanes; the Moon waxes and wanes (and some say only a planet with water and a fairly large moon will develope complex land-dwelling life.)

In astrology there's the axiom, "As Above: So Below" -- that is, everything in this world is a metaphoric image of something else on a different plane of existence.

Understand this world, and you understand the "above".

The soul and spirit are of the "above;" the body of the "below."

And so if the world's light is cyclical, so too would the "light" that illuminates the soul be cyclical.

Thus the magical rite of kindling fire on the shortest day of the year is not to bring the SUN back, to initiate the growing season -- but to bring light back to the soul. "Peace on Earth; Goodwill toward Men." "A Great Miracle Happened There."

In some religions that translates into "seeing the light" -- i.e. coming to believe in the Divine, to see the Divine light.

But I submit that some people somewhere probably look at this magical process of kindling light at the darkest day of the year as the means whereby we ignite our souls to glow outward into the world and give us light to see the world by. (consider those in the southern hemisphere should do this in July for spiritual effect -- what of an alien world where they do it that way?)

"Seeing the Light" would mean to such aliens that you'd turned your spiritual headlights on so you can see to drive through the darkness and avoid obstacles and potholes. That is, you can live a smooth life if you can see where you're going.

Just imagine the range of possible misunderstandings between such lovers who had come "home for the holidays."

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/