Scutwork in the Future

Here's a link to an article by Ruth Rosen, "Why Working Women Are Stuck in the 1950s," on what she calls the "care crisis," connected to the way our culture has defined as "women's work" the routine maintenance of a household:

http://www.alternet.org/story/48370

Linguist and SF author Suzette Haden Elgin's blog recently discussed this article over several days, generating hundreds of comments. Go to http://ozarque.livejournal.com and check the archives beginning March 3.

How will our descendants deal with this issue? The most optimistic images of the future envision true equality between the sexes. Later series in the Star Trek universe portray women filling the same professional, military, and political positions as men. I don't remember ever seeing a cleaning crew on any of the Enterprises. Probably robots performed that function. Replicators produced food, at least later in the chronology of the universe, although Neelix on Voyager often cooked from fresh ingredients. Surely not all civilians could afford replicators and robots, though. The protagonist of Robert Heinlein's DOOR INTO SUMMER invents cleaning robots, intended for the average middle-class family, but his earlier models do only a few specific tasks. In J. D. Robb's futuristic mysteries, set in the 2050s, women perform the same kinds of work as men (women officers are even addressed as "Sir"), and droids do household labor. In this universe, such inventions serve only the affluent. In less prosperous households, some human being must be doing the scutwork (defined by Peg Bracken in her I HATE TO HOUSEKEEP book as "chores any boob can do"). American society in Robb's universe includes an official, paid (presumably by the government) career of "professional parent." (A concept I approve of, since it would remove the "welfare leech" stigma for the subsidizing of stay-at-home parenthood, while recognizing that people who choose to bear children are performing an indispensable service for society as a whole. SOMEBODY has to produce a younger generation to keep the economy going when the rest of us get too infirm to work full-time.) But it's not implied that this person necessarily does all the cleaning and other chores as well as parenting. And even with robots (or human servants, for that matter) somebody has to organize and direct the work, maintain the schedules for family members, etc.

In the future, the achievement of true gender equality would, one hopes, render obsolete the assumption that household upkeep is "women's work" -- her responsibility to arrange, even if she doesn't personally do most of the tasks. It would also be nice to see the "scutwork" decoupled from the primary-parent role. If parenthood is recognized (with or without pay) as a full-time job, then it should follow that the person in this role shouldn't necessarily be expected to handle all routine maintenance just because he or she happens to be hanging around the house. Until the advent of universal access to robot servants, though, who will do this work? Would chores be divided according to the number of hours each adult works outside the home? Inversely proportional to income contributed to the household? According to personal preference? (What about the jobs nobody likes?) By a rotating schedule, a point system, or a lottery? These are a few potential solutions discussed on Elgin's blog.

As for the "care crisis" in general, one way to ameliorate the situation would be to make polyandry legal. Aside from moral and spiritual considerations (as a Christian, I of course believe in monogamy), a marital unit of one woman and two men would pragmatically solve a number of problems. (Why not polygyny? Because the female is the reproductive bottleneck, so to speak, and more women in a household would mean potentially more babies, so care-crisis-wise you'd be right back where you started. Besides, historically the harem system has NOT been associated with female empowerment.) Three adults per household would provide three incomes, a big plus in areas with high housing costs. You'd have three people among whom to divide the tasks of daily life. If babies and small children needed care, the role of stay-at-home parent could be rotated, with two income-producing adults always working. Moreover, the average man can't keep up, sexually, with the average healthy woman. Two men to one woman would be just about the right ratio. (Of course, there are down sides to this system. We'd end up with an even greater imbalance between single women and eligible men than we have now. And the male biological tendency to sexual jealousy might disrupt a polyandrous marriage. We can't expect all adult males to behave like the blissful participants in the group marriages of such novels as Heinlein's STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND and TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE.)

Anyway, unless we eventually become cosmic disembodied intelligences as in Arthur Clarke's CHILDHOOD'S END (a prospect I don't find at all appealing), we'll always have the scutwork to deal with somehow.

The Dresden Files Interview with Jim Butcher

Folks:

Sunday, I spent an hour with Jim Butcher, creator of The Dresden Files then sat through his talk at a local bookstore, The Poison Pen in Scottsdale AZ. (he's a very good speaker -- and very funny too!)

It was very informative and enjoyable -- maybe 45 or 50 people turned out in a smallish bookstore.

He was born in 1971 and grew up on Anime, Spiderman movies, and modern adult fantasy - thinks visually of story in Anime and film terms and likes the Anime style of deep relationships and screaming hot action.

Patric asked a good question which I posed to Jim:

Is he satisfied with how his books were translated to the screen.

Jim said yes he is, the only real changes were cosmetic and for practical TV filming purposes.
The two we discussed were the switch from Dresden driving a VW Beetle to a Jeep -- and the reason was that a 6Ft+ guy getting in and out of a Beetle on screen would be funny/awkward every time it was shot whereas in his novels he can play it for laughs only when appropriate.

The reasoning for choosing a Jeep was consistent with the background point that Dresden's body field fries fancy electronics. Also the VW Beetle would be harder to shoot from various angles and catch Dresden's image inside -- but the Jeep is easy and thus cheaper. So he accepts that change.

The other visual change was the long duster changed into a fireman's jacket -- and Jim says that's fine since it's in keeping with the way Dresden uses fire. On the other hand he and I agree the jacket just doesn't have the right look -- the flowing leather duster would look better. I'm not sure of the reason for that change.

The wand becoming a hockey stick he can live with easily enough. The blasting rod we didn't discuss -- we only had an hour. But basically I agree that so far the TV version has only superficial changes necessary to make the budget work (fewer characters, less animation, fewer sets). If they do a second season and onwards I do hope they can increase the budget.
I have philosophy and writing-lesson material for several columns and the final episode of the first season airs tonight. I want to see that and then write some columns. They'll decide by June whether to do a second season - no word on the DVD yet. Of course as author of the books, Jim is the last to know!

I'm working on the July 2007 column and a few more that will feature bits from this interview.

My review column, ReReadable Books (because it's not worth its cover price if it's not re-readable) is published on paper in The Monthly Aspectarian, then posted to their website lightworks.com then archived on simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/ so you can always look up prior columns.

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Creator of the Sime~Gen Universe
where a mutation makes the evolutionary
division into male and female pale by comparison.

More from the Cutting Room Floor : Games of Command

More from the "cutting room floor"...deleted scenes from GAMES OF COMMAND:



ADMIRAL’S OFFICE, I.H.S. VAXXAR

He knew how she took her coffee just as he knew how she took her gin and what vegetables she liked and how seedless black grapes, chilled, were one of her favorite snacks. After eleven years of following her, challenging her and studying her, he knew all of those minute, concrete details.

But he still, no matter how hard he tried, didn’t know how to read between the lines of those light-hearted quips of hers. You promise me coffee and I’ll do anything.

He wanted desperately to believe that even a mild flirtation existed in those and many other things she said to him, as he tried to ignore the fact that she also frequently traded quips with others. He wanted desperately to believe he wasn’t the “Tin Soldier” to her, was not a cybernetic construct that so many of his crew viewed as simply another extension of the ship. He wanted to be real and warm and as human as he could to her, and had no idea how to do that without making more of a complete fool of himself than he already had.

So as much as possible, he kept her with him, in unscheduled meetings, extended conferences, detailed inspections and whatever other ways he could think of to commandeer her time.

He heard her step through his office door just as he was retrieving two hot cups of coffee from the replicator set in the far wall. He held one out. She accepted it with a bright smile and sipped at it gratefully as he stood in silent, appreciative appraisal in front of her. Then she moved towards the chair in front of his desk, and there was the light, seductive scent of sandalwood in the air around her. He could see where her short cropped hair was still slightly damp around at the nape of her neck. He had to willfully restrain himself from reaching out to touch it.

He took his own chair and placed his cup on the desk to the right of the datafiles he had pulled as an excuse for this discussion. He granted himself another moment of the silent pleasure of just looking at her before clearing his throat, and selecting a thin crystalline file, pushed it into the appropriate data slot. “As long as we have to be on Panperra, we might as well acquaint ourselves with some of the Adjutant’s recent projects.”

Sass groaned loudly and leaned back in the chair. “If this is one of Kel-Farquin’s reports, I’m going to need a lot more than just coffee to get through.”

“If this were Kel-Farquin’s, I would have brought pillows,” he replied blandly, his tone hiding the deep pleasure he felt at her responding wide smile. “No, this is some data on the recent ion storm activity which Panperran sensors were in prime position to record. Now...”

And then Sass leaned forward, as he knew she would, in order to better read the data on the desktop monitor. And for the next forty minutes he had her total attention, and physical presence, all to himself.

www.linneasinclair.com

Sarcasm, Irony... aliens don't "get" it

You Earthlings (humans, Terrans) are a funny lot. You don't speak the same language. You fight incontinently. You don't have a one-world government. You can't decide on one individual to lead you all --you don't even try!

It's no wonder we aliens shrug and go home when our extremely reasonable request "Take Me To Your Leader" causes such confusion and such unsatisfactory and inconsistent responses.

It's never the same leader. It usually turns out that whoever the leader is, he's not the Leader of all leaders. There was once a "she"... We had hopes of her.

And then, there's the human sense of humor. It makes no sense to us. In fact, there isn't just one sense of humor shared and enjoyed by all humans, which would be logical.

Any sentient being can understand that sudden bursts of malodorous gas and floating droplets of unmentionable matter in a confined space (and almost no gravity) are just cause for venting one's strongest and most appropriate swear words or else for laughing in manic despair.

But some of you cannot even talk sense. How is a highly intelligent alien supposed to know when you are using sarcasm or irony?

Do you mean what you say, or don't you? Sometimes, an alien could be forgiven for his confusion. It would be helpful to your alien cousins if you would show your teeth and heave your upper bodies to show that you think you are being pleasantly funny, and that you either do --or do not-- mean what you just said.

Sarcasm is when you Terrans say exactly what you mean, but in such a way that it makes your auditor uncomfortable.

The modern "Duh!" is much more useful.

"No sh-t!" is an obscenity which offends us beyond words, for reasons this alien has delicately hinted at above.

A --presumably rhetorical-- question, such as "Is the Pope Catholic?" or "Does a bear sh-t in the woods?" presumes that aliens have a wide understanding of your different cultures and the sanitary practices of wilderlife.

Besides which, a polar bear on an ice floe probably does not have that luxury. Nor for that matter does a captive bear in a concrete habitat mysteriously known as a zoological garden.

Irony is when you Terrans say the opposite of what you mean, but in such a way that it makes your auditor uncomfortable.

Making someone else uncomfortable, or finding "humor" in thoughts of another's discomfort seems to be a repeating theme.

Now this alien thinks about it, "pleasantly funny" may be an oxymoron ... a logical contradiction in terms.

We will leave you now. But We will be back!


Posted on behalf of a fascinated alien by,
Rowena Cherry
author of the Gods of Tigron trilogy
(Forced Mate, Mating Net, Insufficient Mating Material)

Talking with the Animals

I've just bought a DVD of the live-action film of CHARLOTTE'S WEB, one of my favorite stories. Its theme (as explicitly stressed in the voice-over of this new version) is the value of friendship. I especially like this book because of the way it portrays friendship across species lines, centering upon the marvelously improbable devotion between a pig and a spider. Eventually, all the inhabitants of the barn, even the unsavory rat Templeton, get drawn into the circle of friendship. Here's my pet theme of "intimacy across gulfs of difference" again, or as Spock would say, "infinite diversity in infinite combinations."

Tolkien says in his classic essay "On Fairy-Stories" that the other creatures of nature are like foreign countries with which humankind has broken off diplomatic relations. He suggests that one desire satisfied by fairy tales, through the motif of talking animals, is the yearning to re-establish that lost connection with the other species who share our world. A taste of dragon's blood gifts the mythic hero with the language of beasts, thus helping him in his quest. Dr. Doolittle talks to the animals and gains a fresh perspective on the human race. WATERSHIP DOWN immerses the reader in rabbit culture and language. In CHARLOTTE'S WEB, Fern is still young enough to understand the animals' conversations, although it's implied that she is poised on the cusp, soon to outgrow that connection with nature. Primate researchers conduct simple dialogues with symbol-using apes. Many people believe dolphins have true language.

Of course, we might not like what we'd hear if our pets could speak to us. Garfield thinks of Jon as "the man who cleans my litter box." Still, imagine what we could learn about our world if we could communicate with creatures (like cats, with their night vision, and dogs, with their extraordinary noses) whose senses perceive the environment so differently from ours.

Once an Alien Lover, Always an Alien Lover

Of all the questions I’m ever asked now that I write alien romance, probably the most common one is how or why I came to the genre. So I thought it would be fun to talk about my longstanding ties with sci-fi romance, and how I finally decided to put all my crazy ideas on paper.

For me, it all started that summer back in the 1980’s when the original Star Trek aired in reruns every afternoon at four p.m. I mean, before that I’d certainly loved Star Wars, had read a little Arthur C. Clarke, but Trek was a new dimension. It tapped into my imagination, to those parts of me that loved King Arthur lore and believed in other realms—and probably into my sixteen-year-old hormones. I mean, come on! Who can’t love a brilliant, emotionally rigid alien who goes wild during his mating cycle, right? Ah, Spock and his Pon Far mating needs. When you’re sixteen, that’s heady stuff. Super intelligent, geek reaction? Maybe not, but I ate it up.

Of course, it was far more than that too. Spock mentally bonding with the horta? Realizing she was just a mother protecting her young? My brain was in overdrive. Aliens, with their supernatural abilities and natures, were capable of things I’d never imagined. Forget PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, forget WUTHERING HEIGHTS (my earliest romance roots, plus approved summer reading!) I had TREK! That fall when school reconvened, I was amazed to discover that a whole cadre of my fellow geeks had also discovered these reruns. Next thing I knew three of us had formed a power triumvirate, trading black and white headshots and debating whether Spock or Kirk was the hottest one. Interestingly enough, of the three of us, I now write sci-fi romance and another went on to write for Buffy.

Something started for me then, a new place in my writerly development. I’d always made up stories, passing the time as a lonely child of divorced parents by living in the make-believe realm of my imagination. But that summer of Star Trek, the stories inside my mind shifted, became other-worldly oriented. It just took fourteen years for me to translate the crazy ideas inside my head to paper. I wrote and wrote in the interim, but somehow—for reasons I can’t understand looking back—it never occurred to me that I could write what I loved and thought about the most. Maybe I needed permission? Maybe we all do with our creative selves.

I give all the credit to a little known, compulsively watchable show of alien romance, Roswell. From the first episode I saw in 2000, it was as if every idea I’d ever had floating in my head coalesced. Romance, aliens, sci-fi… it could all come together. This was a massive sea change for me. Within months I began writing fanfic (no, don’t run and don’t hide!) It’s amazing how many of my fellow sci-fi romance writers began just the same way. I think fanfic is a fabulous way for new writers to push their boundaries, to realize what they can get away with. It taught me to take crazy chances and not worry who went with me—even my fanfic readers. And trust me, there were times when, with my unconventional romance pairings, very few followed me. I guess I’m saying that fanfic toughened me up. And it gave me confidence to trust in my writer’s heart.

In 2004 I’d finished my first novel. Big clue to self: It had absolutely no elements of the paranormal. It was a deeply felt, emotional women’s fiction novel, and although it was well-received by many editors, was simply too edgy to sell. Twenty-two rejections later I decided that maybe—just maybe—some killer clue lay in my sci-fi writings. After all, that was what I’d spent four years writing in the fanfic world. It was what first stirred my imagination with Trek. Even though it seemed odd after trying my hand at a literary novel, I poured all my energy into the proposal for the Midnight Warriors series. And guess what? Being true to yourself pays off: The series sold very fast.

Lesson learned? Go with what you love. Trust your fantasies and the passions that drive you. No matter how off the wall, or unconventional, I think being real and writing what you love will—in the end—bring you success. If you’ve read my books, you’ll see shades of Spock and Pon Far still shining through. Because once an alien lover, always an alien lover… and I’m proud to carry that ID badge.

Deidre Knight

author of:
Parallel Heat
Parallel Attraction
Parallel Seduction

Where it all began--PART 2

Continuing our foray into my old GAMES OF COMMAND/COMMAND PERFORMANCE files for purposes of backstory, here's more of the original, circa 2001 Chapter One file on Captain Tasha "Sass" Sebastian and Admiral Branden Kel-Paten.... Please note these are OLD ORIGINAL UNEDITED files.

Have fun! ~ Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com

(from the original Chapter One... and the cutting room floor)

Sass... Captain Sebastian arrived at exactly 2034.43.2, her bright pink cropped t-shirt top and side-slit work-out shorts still damp from her recent exertions.

Something heated flared correspondingly inside Kel-Paten, his gaze taking in far more of her than he was used to seeing. At least, not while he was awake. He didn’t miss her playful tap on Dr. Fynn’s arm with the tip of her racquet as she strode by. “Whipped his ass, 5-4!” she rasped, still somewhat short of breath.

The CMO hid her laughter behind a well-timed coughing fit as Sass plunked down into the chair next to his own. She wiped her face with a towel draped around her neck. A series of soft chuckles followed around the room as the lettering on the Captain’s t-shirt became obvious for all to see:

“My name’s No! No! Bad Captain!
What’s Yours?”

“Sebastian.” Pause. There was always The Pause. “You’re--”

“Late, I know.” Sass held up one hand as if to stave off his reprimand. “I apologize, Admiral. I’d every intention of being here on time. Even recheduled my game two hours earlier. But we—”

“And you’re out of uniform,” he cut in and made sure he didn’t allow his gaze to travel lower than Sass’ face. Interesting what dampness does to certain thin fabrics.

“I’d be later if I’d taken time to change,” Sass was pointing out. “But before you have me vented out the starboard exhausts for a total inattention to duty, at least allow me to state that I have read the entire packet and,” she said, swiveling one of the comp screens attached at regular intervals down the middle of the table, “my report has been filed and already disseminated to the staff.” She tapped at the “Report Waiting” icon flashing on the lower left.

“I assume you’ve all used the...” and she stopped, glancing at her watch, “...four minutes and forty three point two seconds that I was delayed to retrieve and review my report?”

Five faces, including his own, turned blankly to her. Only Dr. Fynn grinned back. Kel-Paten didn’t know if the CMO was just used to the petite green-eyed blonde’s diversonary tactics, or had known beforehand the report would be there. It didn’t matter.

From the conspiratorial nature of her grin, it was obvious she was the only one who’d read it

"Well, good, then it shouldn’t take the rest of you, Dr. Fynn excluded, more than four minutes and forty three point two seconds to do just that. And in that time,” Sass added, rising, “I’ll jog down the corridor to my quarters and grab a sweatshirt. Imperial issue of course,” she added, “before I freeze my butt off in here.”

The zip-front black sweatshirt with the Vaxxar’s signature slashed-lightning logo on the sleeves helped, but not much, Kel-Paten noted wryly as Sass returned to the ready room with ten point oh-eight seconds to spare. The sweatshirt, in generic extra-large, fell below the hem line of her shorts so that when she walked in all he saw were sweatshirt and nicely shaped bare legs... and nothing else. Oh, there were socks (also bright pink) and high-top sneakers (white), he knew, but that only made the illusion worse. It was only after she took the seat next to him that he let out the breath he’d been holding. Slowly.

When he turned back to the table five pairs of eyes regarded him expectantly: Kel-Fhay, the First Officer on his left; Kel-Arint, Chief of Tactical next to him. Then came his U-Cee-issue CMO. Her blue eyes held a a hint of amusement, so he passed over her quickly. His U-Cee-issue Chief of Security, Lt. Francisco Garrick, was opposite her. To Garrick’s left was Zahar Kel-Nilos. The grey-haired Commander had been his Chief of Engineering for fifteen years; he trusted Kel-Nilos, trusted him with his life and his ship and the lives of his crew. Hence, he was also trusted to be the only other officer allowed to sit next to the captain.

She, he noted, didn’t look at him but directly at Eden Fynn. He didn’t like the smile on either woman’s face.

Had he been prone to sighing he would’ve done so just then, but instead he eased himself up to his full 6’3” height’, well aware of the image he presented: an imposing figure in black with night-dark hair. Five diamond-studded stars glinted blue-white on his uniform’s high collar and were matched in their iciness, it was often said, only by the hardness of his eyes.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a problem. It sppears we may have to do some damage control.”

The problem’s name was Shadow, or more accurately, Jace Serafino. Captain Jace Serafino though Kel-Paten’s tone as he said the rank relayed just how little respect he had for the often deadly, always flamboyant mercenary.

Serafino had quite a history, most of it conflicting, very little of it documented save for spaceport gossip and ‘tracker' legends. He was the illegitimate son of an Imperial nobleman and a prosti from the U-Cee pleasure world of Glitterkiln. He was defrocked Nasyry from the Warrior-Priest clan. He was a Q’itha addict and escapee from an Imperial Rehab compound. He was a reclusive and mega-weathly entrepreneur with a decidedly unorthodox philanthropic hobby. He was a bio-cybe crechling--one of Kel-Paten’s siblings--who’d been reported to have died at birth.

All were true. None were true. The only verifiable facts known about Captain Jace Serafino was that he had been very, very good at making trouble for the U-Cees and the Empire, now called the Alliance, and their mutual enemy, the Illithians. And he’d also been very very good at escaping from the clutches of all three.

Until now.

Suddenly made patriotic by the prospect of two hundred fifty thousand credits, Serafino had agreed to participate in a little undercover work for the newly formed Alliance. Kel-Paten had been openly against the idea but had been out voted by the Defense Minister and Admiral Kel-Varen. So Serafino had been paid half the money, pointed in the direction of the Illithian border... and vanished.

It had been almost five months and nothing had been heard of him or his ship, the Novalis. However, two weeks after he’d left Kel Station, a lowly ensign in payroll made a not-so startling discovery--the other half of Serafino’s payment was also gone. For all intents and purposes it looked like he’d taken the money, and run. And was probably comfortably holed up in some rim-world nighthouse, enjoying the soft charms of a sloe-eyed prosti. And laughing his ass off at the Alliance.

So the Alliance did what the Empire always used to do when the Empire got pissed: they gave the command to unleash Kel-Paten on the problem.

“Captain Sebastian’s report noted all the leads we have relative to a last known location on Serafino,” Kel-Paten said. “Lt. Garrick, I want you and Lt. Kel-Arint to head up one team; Commander Kel-Fhay and Dr. Fynn will head the second. The captain and I will head the third. If he isn’t found precisely in one of those locations, I have no doubt, based on the accuracy of our information, that we won’t be very far behind him.”

“We don’t have any reason to believe that Serafino will be cooperative about returning to Kel Prime,” Garrick noted. “Your instructions, sir, if we encounter resistance?”

Kel-Paten leaned his black-gloved fists against the table. This answer was easy. “Kill him,” he replied evenly.

Then he straightened, his hands behind him in correct military posture. “You all understand the situation. Dismissed.”

A nodding of heads accompanied the squeaking of chairs as the command staff of the Vaxxar rose almost in unison and headed for the door. Sass swiveled in her chair, followed Kel-Nilos around the far end of the conference table.

He said her name before she could reach Dr. Fynn’s side: “Sebastian.” Pause. “I will require your attention for a bit longer.”

She turned and faced him expectantly. “Admiral?”

Kel-Paten opened his mouth to speak only to find his mind blanking as My name’s No! No! Bad Captain! stared back at him. Sometime during the ninety-minute meeting her workout clothes had dried and Sass had unzipped the oversized black sweatshirt. Her arms, folded casually across her chest, obscured the What’s Yours?

He cleared his throat. “Sebastian.”

Pause.

She looked up. “Yes?”

Damn her, damn her! Two hours ago, he’d chosen what he’d thought was the perfect topic to delay her after the meeting, something important enough to be believable. Something they could discuss, leisurely, perhaps over a cup of coffee. Something that... something that he’d obviously forgotten.

“Your... report was very thorough.” One-point-four-million credits they had spent perfecting his flawlessly synchronized cybertronic brain interface and that was the best he could come up with.

She cocked her head slightly to one side. Perhaps she knew of the amount and was just now realizing what a tremendous waste of funds it represented.

“Thanks. But it was just a distillation of facts. The original report was kind of repetitive.”

“H.Q.’s usually are.”

“Well then, just goes to prove the theory that bureaucrats everywhere share a common DNA. I never read a report out of our H.Q. at Varlow that was worth a damn, either.”

“I can imagine,” he replied and knew that if the fate of the Universe relied on his conversational abilities right now they’d all be in the proverbial shitter.

However, his terse sentence elicited a raised eyebrow from her. “Didn’t think you had to imagine, Kel-Paten. I was under the impression that there was little the U-Cees did during the war that you weren’t directly aware of. I’d thought our reports provided you with the bulk of your bedtime stories.”

Actually, he’d always saved reports on the Regalia’s captain for that particular time of his day. “I was naturally aware of any information deemed to be important.”

“Oh, naturally,” she said, her mouth quirking slightly into a smile. “If there’s nothing else, Admiral?”

“Nothing else?” He’d been contemplating the soft curves at the base of her throat. Her usual uniform’s high collar covered that area, and though he’d often seen her in the ship’s gym, it had been from across the room. He’d never been this close to her when she’d had been so interestingly out of uniform. So enticingly out of uniform. The temperature in the ready room shot up a few hundred degrees.

“Yes sir, if there’s nothing else you wish to discuss, I’d really like to go back to my quarters and change out of this gear.” She tugged at the slitted hem of her pink shorts, which only drew his eyes down to her bare thighs. His mind immediately responded by informing him just how quickly one could slide those pieces of flimsy pink apparel down and...

“Yes, of course. I’m sure you want to change.” He turned quickly and took his seat at the head of the table. With a few quick touches on the comp screen, he called up a selection of files of unknown subject matter, only peripherally aware they were there. But at least it looked as if he were doing something productive. “Dismissed, Sebastian.”

Sass inclined her head slightly. “By your leave, Admiral.”

He waited until the doors whooshed closed before he let his head fall wearily against the high back of the chair, his body throbbing. He was surprised the chair hadn’t melted.

He was still in that position, eyes closed, a half hour later when the Vaxxar’s red-alert sirens jolted him back into reality.

He almost collided with Sass in the corridor just as his com badge trilled, demanding his attention. He managed to slap at it with one hand and grab Sass’ elbow with the other.

“We’re right here,” he barked as he guided her forcefully through the double sliding doors that led to the upper-level of the bridge.

The two-tiered, U-shaped command center of the huntership was already frenzied with activity. Voices were terse, commands clipped. Every screen streamed with data.

Sass immediately bolted down the short flight of stairs to the scanner station to check incoming data. Kel-Paten slid into the left command seat and, with a practiced familiarity, thumbed open a small panel covering the dataport in the armrest and linked into the ship’s systems through the interface feeds built into his wrist. There were the microseconds of disorientation as there always was when he spiked in. The last thing his human vision focused on before his mind merged completely with the Vax’s cybermechanisms was Sass’ nicely rounded bottom, clad in fitted pale pink sweat pants as she leaned over the main scanner console below him...

If I had to... could I?

Before I write about my sometimes alien heroines, I research the Earthly equivalent of the situations into which I dump them, and I like to think that if I were their age, in the shape they are in, and in similar circumstances, I could do almost as well.

But could I?

Could I purify and filter water without a commercial tablet or a store-bought gadget on my plumbing as Djetth (Jeth) does in Insufficient Mating Material? I know how in theory, and what I wrote passed muster with my survival consultant.

If global warming reduced my neighborhood to something close to a dust bowl, could I find water by making a solar still? Could I follow my own survival advice that I dish up in Insufficient Mating Material?

If I decided that I no longer trusted prepared, packaged foods from the supermarket, could I make pizza from scratch... on a hot rock?

Well, could I?

Maybe not pizza, if I didn't have yeast, but I might surprise myself. We women may be tougher than we think.

Actually, I used to make pizza when I lived in Dorset. I had a coal fired oven, which meant that I had to shovel coal into the fire box, wait for it to get really hot, and then bake. My paternal grandmother didn't have a refrigerator. She had a slab of marble in a cupboard under the stairs!

But as for doing some of the things Survivorman does.... I'm not sure, and I hope I never find out, but I pay attention, and I'm thinking of buying some of the best fire making tools I've seen him use on his show, and keeping them in my handbag. It won't do much for the shape of my bag, but a bit of extra weight-lifting should keep my arms and my bones in shape.

Insufficient Mating Material contains quite a lot of information from various survival sources and the consultative wisdom of Survivorman, Les Stroud. Like the alien hero, Djetth (Jeth), I took part in competitive life-saving at school. I still have all the badges that I earned. However, when I think back to all the mushrooms we used to gather in the local cow pastures at dawn, and the berries we picked from hedgerows in Autumn: hips and haws, elderberry, crabapples, blackberries, I wonder whether I'd dare to today, if I weren't desperate.

The problem is (for everyday people), practising making shelters by cutting down vegetation is not environmentally responsible, and experimenting with strange berries when I don't have to seems to be asking for trouble... and I don't mean experimenting in the way that Djetth and Martia-Djulia experiment once their alien romance heats up.

Best wishes,

Rowena

J. D. Robb's Futuristic Mysteries

It's been a long time since I've discovered a series that engages me the way J. D. Robb's "In Death" mysteries do. Happily, it comprises so many books that I have a long time before I catch up (i.e., run out). The relationship between New York homicide detective Eve Dallas and her husband Roarke gives the novels their special appeal for me. It's often said that the male and female of the human race view each other as alien (men are from Mars, women are from Venus). A character in one of Heinlein's novels questions whether men and women actually belong to the same species. When Eve and Roarke first meet, they live in different worlds, so they feel "alien" to each other, a blunt-spoken cop devoted to the law and a rich, elegant man who made his fortune on the shady side of the legal line. And if "the past is a different country," so is the future of the 2050s in which these stories take place, making the characters slightly alien to us as readers, too. Robb (aka Nora Roberts) has said that in these books she set out with the intention of telling the story of their marriage, so that the first of the series, in which they meet and fall in love, is only the beginning.

What really fascinates me about their relationship is its underlying similarity to the marriage between Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy Sayers' mysteries. In both couples, a career woman marries a much wealthier man. In each case, both the man and the woman have trauma in their pasts (although Harriet's ordeal of being tried for murder pales beside Eve's harrowing childhood). Both couples met while one of the parties was a murder suspect. Both Eve and Harriet are emotionally gun-shy, finding it difficult to accept the possibility of love and, even after marriage, having trouble saying, "I love you," in so many words. Roarke has a counterpart to Lord Peter's impeccable Bunter, and like Lord Peter and Bunter, Roarke and Summerset went through the wars together, metaphorically. (Lord Peter met Bunter on a literal battlefield, in World War I; Roarke bonded with Summerset in the underworld of the Dublin streets.) A difference is that Bunter likes Harriet, while Summerset and Eve (to begin with, at any rate) share a mutual loathing. Roarke even enjoys, like Lord Peter, teasing his more cautious soul-mate by driving his fabulously expensive vehicle recklessly fast. Eve, like Harriet, sensitive about her husband's wealth, has a hard time accepting gifts. A proud, prickly woman and a suave, self-contained, but deeply passionate man, both of them intelligent and articulate—what a dynamite combination!

What's the common theme in these two series that I find so compelling? So far, I think it can be encapsulated as "trust and love overcoming pride and fear of vulnerability." Also, I'm always drawn to stories of people (human or not) reaching out to each other across chasms of difference to grow from alien-ness (or alienation) to intimacy.

Thoughts on the Non-human Hero

Thoughts on the Non-human Hero
By Jennifer Ashley / Allyson James

Rowena kindly asked me to guest blog here with thoughts about non-human heroes, since lately I’ve been writing many of them: Immortal demigods, dragon shapeshifters, were-panthers, genetically enhanced males, and my own made-up creatures.

I have to say that when I read or write paranormal or futuristic heroes, I never think: “But these guys aren’t human!” Perhaps this is because I’ve been reading fantasy and scifi since age twelve, and I’m used to alternate universes and allegorical worlds, but it never occurs to me to dwell on the non-humanness of heroes (or heroines).

I look at each hero, human or non, as a character. Whether he is a Regency cavalry captain or an Immortal demigod or a logosh from my Nvengarian series, I approach each the same way--he (or she) is a character with a history--wants, needs, quirks, flaws, and strengths. All characters have a background that makes them them. Whether or not they are homo sapiens sapiens doesn’t bother me at all.

Before I start a novel, I love to write my hero’s autobiography, beginning with where he was born, who were his parents, were they good parents or bad (or dead), what he had to struggle with while growing up, and how that shaped him.

It’s amazing what comes out when I free-flow a hero’s bio--I become him for a time. Whether he was raised in a rigid Regency household with an uber-strict father, or he’s a two-thousand-year-old warrior who learned to fight in a Roman legion--each hero’s background shapes him into something unique.

I think the most fun heroes I’ve created are the Shareem characters I write as Allyson James. These men were born in a factory from a mixture of donated DNA (no parents), then they were sexually enhanced and raised for one purpose only--to pleasure women.

The scientists claim they’ve taken all emotions from these men and turned them into the ultimate slaves--but of course they haven’t. Each of the Shareem has a distinct personality and a different way of dealing with their lives and fighting their genetic programming.

I am amazed at how much scope for character the background to the Shareem gave me. These men are not human, or maybe they’re super-human, but underneath, they are the most human characters I’ve ever created.

Do I have a point? Probably not. But I thought I’d share some of my techniques for creating heroes who are richly layered and unique. The alpha hero is the most popular type of romance hero (he really is), but he doesn’t have to be the same-old, same-old.

Dig into his background, figure out what happened to him in all the years before the story, and you’ll have a memorable character, whether he’s human or vampire or were-thing or an alien born in a vat.

Where it all began...GAMES OF COMMAND original files

I've received a lot of fan mail (thank you!) since Games of Command came out the end of February. I'm just tickled that readers so love Sass and the admiral, Jace and Eden. A lot of my fans know--since I'm not shy about it--that the original manuscript ran over 300,000 words...and was a series of emails between a dear friend and myself. Rather a "continuing adventure" just for fun and never meant to be published.

Readers have also been clamoring for all those scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor.

I thought I'd lost a lot of the original, due to computer crashes and such. But I did come across a few files from 2001. They're not the FIRST original files but pretty durn close. I'll share them with you over the next few blogs...

Please note some names/scenes/settings may NOT match the book. This is the seed from which the book was sprouted.


Enjoy! ~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com


ORIGINAL CHAPTER ONE from my notes dated 2001



Sickbay, Triad HUNTERSHIP Vaxxar

There might be worse things in the galaxy than a lethal alien virus. An admiral with an attitude, and an agenda, could well be one of them.

Chief Medical Officer Eden Fynn glanced at the time stamp in the corner of her screen. “Damn!” She increased the document’s scroll rate. There was a required staff meeting in five minutes, and she had fifty more pages to review. A second outbreak of Nar’Relian flu had inexplicably surfaced at three United Coalition spaceports in the past month, resulting in five more deaths. Finding a cure was now a race against time. She’d waited for two days for this critical analysis. Yet when it finally arrives, she had to go play Dutiful and Obedient CMO because Kel-Paten had his proverbial cybernetic knickers in a knot over something. Again.

“Cal, can you load these stats into my medalytic program? Got another command performance with the full staff in the ready room in five.”

The portly, gray-haired doctor smiled knowingly. “He’s overdue by about thirty-six hours this week, isn’t he?”

“The admiral just likes to be efficient,” Eden replied as blandly as the tired grin on her face would allow her.

“The admiral likes to see how high we all can jump, and when.” Caleb Monterro accepted the thin data-disk that Eden held out to him. “Be glad to help. We need some fast answers on this one. But I’ll tell you, I don’t envy your having to go to these meetings of his. Especially this late.”

"The admiral has his own view of time," Eden agreed as she straightened a stack of files on her desk. It was already a half hour into Third Duty Shift, which was Cal’s shift, not hers as ship's CMO. But medical work rarely respected schedules.

“It’s been different working with the Kel Triad these past six months." Cal absently tapped the thin disk against his palm. "Not like on the Regalia, with Captain Sebastian.”

“Tell me about it,” she quipped. A med-tech interrupted any further conversation, handing a new patient file to Monterro to review.

They parted with an exchange of tired smiles.

But, yes, what Cal had said was true. Their captain had her own way of doing things, and in Eden’s opinion, that to a great extent was what caused some of Admiral Kel-Paten’s problems. The other cause was a supposition she’d only recent begun to consider. It wasn’t one she wanted to explore further, right now. Especially because if she were right, and the bio-cybernetic construct in charge of the newly formed Alliance Fleet was actually experiencing emotions. Then she, as Chief Medical Officer, might just have to Section Forty-Six him.

She didn’t think that would go over well in the Triad part of the Alliance. It might even start another war. Then a puzzling virus would be the least of their problems.

The lift door pinged. She spent the short ride up to the Bridge Deck searching for more pleasant thoughts: the meeting shouldn’t take more than an hour and a half, two hours at most. That would leave her just enough time to get back to her quarters, change into some comfortable hiking gear and unwind with a leisurely late-shift stroll through one of the simdecks’ “Scenic Trails of the Universe” programs. It would unkink muscles now tense from hours of sitting. And maybe would unkink a mind tired from staring at medical data that made no sense.

Eden entered the stark ready room, a relaxed smile on her face. She only had to play “dutiful and obedient officer” for another ninety minutes and then she was free to do as she pleased.

Unfortunately, Fate and the Universe, as they often do, were just at the moment making plans of their own.

Ready Room, THS Vaxxar

Admiral Branden Kel-Paten noted the exact time of Dr. Fynn’s arrival in the same way he noted the exact time of every one of his officers’ arrivals: on a digital read-out in the lower left corner of his field of vision. The angular numbers were a bright shade of yellow-green, a color he'd found disruptive at first, as he'd found disruptive many of the bio-mechanical enhancements that had been added to his human form. He’d said something about the color choice to the Bio Engineers, hesitantly, as he'd been young enough then to still experience the emotion of shame. And the engineers had been sharp and caustic in their reply: he was a fifteen year old child and in no position to dictate preferences to these experienced and degreed professionals.

Truth was, he was more than just a fifteen year old child; he and eleven others had been human experiments, lab-bred from the best genetic materials available so that the Triad could produce five Senior Captains to helm and command the Triad’s five quadrants. But out of the dozen crèche-lings that had fertilized in the test tubes, only three had lived past their tenth birthday. And only one -- Kel-Paten, literally “Kel” (for the Keltish Triad) P.A.-Ten -- Paracybernetic Augmented Humanoid Ten -- survived past his fourteenth birthday and into enough human maturity where the mechanical enhancement procedures could begin.

The psycho-synthesizing had started three years later.

Over the years -- almost thirty more of them -- he'd gotten used to the putrid yellow-green color of his visual readouts. So now when he noted his CMO’s arrival it meant nothing, other than she was on time, and Sass wasn’t.

Again.

Oh, Captain Sebastian still had seventy-two point four seconds in which to arrive on time, but he knew she wouldn’t. The look she’d given him over the vidcom when he’d told her to be at the ready room at 2030 hours had portended that. She was off-shift at that time-- as most of his command staff would be-- and was scheduled to play a zero-g racquetball game at 2030 with a certain unmarried commander from Engineering who, Kel-Paten felt, was a little too attentive to Captain Sebastian lately. The info packet he’d downloaded from HQ after they’d cleared the ion storms could’ve waited until First Shift, until the “morning” as dirtsiders would say. There was no reason for a 2030 hours conference, other than such a meeting would keep Sass where he could keep a eye on her. And that was something he lately felt more and more inclined to do.

Sass... Captain Sebastian arrived at exactly 2034.43.2, her bright pink cropped t-shirt top and side-slit work-out shorts still damp from her recent exertions.

Something heated flared correspondingly inside Kel-Paten, his gaze taking in far more of her than he was used to seeing. At least, not while he was awake. He didn’t miss her playful tap on Dr. Fynn’s arm with the tip of her racquet as she strode by.

“Whipped his ass, 5-4!” she rasped, still somewhat short of breath.

(to be continued... more of the ORIGINAL Chapter One next time...)

Strange Brews

I think my aural memory is very good, but sometimes it isn't.

For instance, I was absolutely certain that I knew the opening lines to The Eagles quintessentially seventies song "Life in the Fast Lane."

Mea culpa. I thought the heroine was terminally vain.

I listened to that song a lot while writing about Insufficient Mating Material's fashionista heroine who was so pampered, she could not even undress without the hero's help, and the slightly brutal Djetth (Jeth).

It wasn't my imaginary theme song for the book, but I felt an affinity.

A couple of days ago, I learned that the heroine was "terminally pretty" (to rhyme with "the hard cold city"). How devastating to know that I have been mistaken for more than two decades!

OK. I will admit it. I loved The Cream song, Strange Brew but I never have been clear what it is about. When I was a giddy youth, I didn't read the transcripts on the backs of LPs.

These songs recapture my happiest memories -- well... I should modify that, but the late sixties, seventies and eighties were fabulous, and that's when I had time to listen to the radio, and when I judged potential boyfriends by their record collections.

Did anyone else do that? Or am I truly weird?

LP-Harmony!!!!

I've also been polling my internet acquaintances about their opinions of Newsletters put out by authors, because I am on a panel speaking about the virtues of Newsletters on behalf of the EPIC organization (for electronically published authors) at the upcoming Romantic Times convention.

More than once as my questionnaires came back to me, I heard that readers love recipes in authors' newsletters. Good grief, people are interested in what I eat, whether I cook it, and what ingredients I use! Who knew?

Music, recipes... now add Linnea Sinclair's barman, Sin.

When you write do you follow the What's In Your Wallet? line of characterization?

Some characterization pundits advise authors to make lists of what is in their heroes' pockets.

(I tried that in Insufficient Mating Material, with good reason. My survival consultant, Les Stroud, aka Survivorman always tells the Science Channel viewer what, apart from his multi-tool, is in his pocket when he is stranded on a deserted island or other hostile-to-life spot.)

How about, What's In Your Drink? (I have paranoid, intergalactic superspy heroes who wonder that, too.)

Let's take world-building to an appropriate level. What do your inter-stellar characters drink for survival, for sustenance, for pleasure, and for a buzz?

Is it basically a gin and tonic with dye in it? Is it green small beer? (That's a fraction deeper than you think). Is it Blue Curacao with vodka? Is water the champagne of the future? Or serum?

Who saw Antz? The Bar Scene? Drinking from the aphids' butts (not that I recommend it, but does it have potential for an alien lifestyle)? There was another bar scene in An Ant's Life. Cartoons can be highly creative.

Well, here's the kicker.

Tonight (Sunday 9 -11 pm Eastern), April Fools' Night, with the moon all but full, Linnea, Susan, Colby and Rowena are going to be appearing in character on the Passionate Internet Voices Radio in order to put the lot together.

We'll be in Linnea's Intergalactic Bar and Grille (a franchise thereof) with Sin the bartender making otherwordly drinks. And we'll be planning a big surprise for Earth.

Best wishes,

Rowena

Role Playing

Some of us here at Alien Blog are doing a pod-cast on Sunday night. I'll let Rowenna post the details since my mind is still trying to get around the idea that I will be Princess Arielle of Oasis for the good part of the weekend. After all I've got to get into the zone.



This is Elle. And a little bit about her.

He was the only man she’d ever loved. The one who’d roused her innocent girlhood passions . . . the one she held responsible for her brother’s death. So when Boone’s starship was shot down over a faraway planet, Elle resolved to forget him, to devote herself to her duty as the future ruler of Oasis. She focused her formidable mind on honing her powers, until the day she witnessed a pair of sweat-sleek, breathtaking gladiators facing each other down in the vicious fight-to-the-death of the Murlacca. Here were the two men she’d thought lost to her forever, and one last chance to save them. It was up to Elle to outwit the Circe witches who held Boone and Zander prisoner, so she could claim a love that had once seemed as elusive as . . .Star Shadows

So what does Elle do? She kicks some butt. She's deadly with her Sais. And she's learning that there are things bigger than power...like true love. YOu can read all about her this November. But Sunday night you can find her hanging out in a bar with Hell and Sass and a cat that can't keep its tail out of the beer. Come join us!

The Future of Books

It's still "crunch" time at my day job, so I won't be able to blog at length for a few more weeks. This time, I just want to draw your attention to an essay by Cory Doctorow about e-books in the March issue of LOCUS. He points out that most of the people who claim they won't buy e-books because they don't like reading off a computer screen do, in practice, spend many of their waking hours happily reading off computer screens. What they mean, he says, is that they don't want to read novel-length works on the computer. He maintains that the computer (and even more so, the PDA and cell phone) is best suited for reading short forms that lend themselves to multitasking. “Networked computers. . . have a million ways of asking for your attention, and just as many ways of rewarding it.” The medium shapes the message, as we've been told since the 1960s.

As Doctorow puts it, “The cognitive style of the novel is different from the cognitive style of the legend. The cognitive style of the computer is different from the cognitive style of the novel.” And, to glance back at earlier changes he doesn't mention, the transition from hand-copied manuscripts to print allowed the invention of popular fiction (and many types of nonfiction) as we know it. Likewise, the supplanting of the scroll by the codex (a bound sheaf of pages) must have been a giant leap in convenience for the reader, with the capacity for flipping instantly to any page desired, not to mention making indexing possible.

It's not “that screens aren't sharp enough to read novels off of,” Doctorow says. Rather, the novel isn't "screeny" enough for the computer. (I like that word.) Read the whole article if you can; it's fascinating. Is he right in thinking that long fiction won't become a widespread use of electronic media, at least not anytime soon? Although I'm an e-published author, I admit I don't take full advantage of the technology. If there's an e-published version of a work that's either unavailable or disproportionately expensive in print, I'll buy the e-book. Otherwise, I choose the paperback. One reason is that, although I own a laptop and a Gemstar reader, I'm most likely to read e-books in the nonportable venue of the desktop computer. Paperbacks, I can carry anywhere. However, some people actively prefer e-books because many texts can be packed into a small space, the font size can be adjusted, and backlighting allows reading anywhere without external light. Yet even in the world of STAR TREK, where everyone reads text off handheld devices that look very much like today's e-book readers, some people (such as Captain Kirk) still enjoy collecting bound books.

Jim Butcher's Dresden Series and TV Show

Folks:
There are advantages to being a reviewer for simegen.com!

I have been invited to interview Jim Butcher when he's in Phoenix in mid-April, and I think I've
got an appointment set up for April 15th. (thankfully, my taxes are done and I'll be available).

Now, way back when I started reading the Dresden File novels, I had some questions to ask him, so I'll have to look those up.

Meanwhile, as I've mentioned here, I've been studying screenwriting again, and this morning I saw (thank you DVR inventor whoever you are) the Dresden episode which is a plot-thread fragment of the first Dresden novel, STORM FRONT.

I've also finished reading WHITE KNIGHT.

I should be ready with loads of good questions -- I'm not.

So any ideas you guys have would be most sincerely welcomed. What would you like to find out from Jim Butcher?

Oh, in case any of you can make it -- this will be at (if all goes well)
Poisoned Pen Bookstore: 480-947-29744014 N Goldwater Blvd # 101, Scottsdale, AZ 85251, US
April 15, 2007 - somewhere between 11AM and 2PM -- his book signing is slated for noon to 1PM.

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com

Galactic Gabbing: Confessions of a Word Slut

I’m a word slut. In fact, if there was a Wordaholics Anonymous, I’d be right there in the front row, ‘fessing up to my addiction. So it was with great interest I read Margaret Carter’s recent blog here, WATCHING LANGUAGE.

A professional etymologist, I’m not. Strictly amateur here, from a life-long love of reading and a life-long love of eavesdropping and people-watching. (In fact, consider the word: “eavesdropping.” Wow, what a wacko word when you realize what it actually says. I’d love to know what the lower edge of a roof has to do with being nosy though visually I can rather see it.) See, this is what I mean. I’m easily seduced whilst reading or conversing by a flirtatious set of letters.

I recently taught a writing workshop in the Orlando, Fl area and—not surprisingly—at the luncheon after several writers and I were discussing words (well, golfers talk about golf clubs and golf balls, the tools of their trade!). One gal—and apologies but I forget who told me this delightful anecdote—mentioned her editor (who is an Aussie, I believe) questioned her use of …”All of a sudden.” As in…ALL of a sudden? Show me HALF of a sudden.

Wow, what a wacko phrase. That received a delighted chortle from me. Half of a sudden. ::snort!:: Love it.

So that brings me to crafting languages—as I do in my books—for non-Earth based characters.

I’ve blogged a bit on that last year (in case you missed them). They’re articles originally published by SFROnline. You can find them here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2006/10/part-uno-speaking-in-alien-tongues.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2006/11/part-deux-swearing-in-alien-tongues.html

So I know I’ve warbled on this subject already. However, Margaret’s blog renewed my fervor for galactic gabbing and how it’s done.

It’s done just as we do it here. Depending on how you structure your Not-Earth culture, you hone done or fluff out their language in the same way. If they’re not spacefaring, if they’re xenophobic, then chances are—and I do love the comment by Anon on Margaret’s post—their language won’t remotely suffer from the “cribhouse whore” syndrome. It will probably be predominantly purely their own and—depending on how you structure their religion and politics—there may even be a penalty for using anything but their “pure” language.

Spacefaring cultures, to me, would be the most likely to have a real mixture and far more slang, simply do to the taint of continuous exposure to other cultures. Those would be the most fun to create and write.

The hard part is translating this—kinda sorta—into English. I know someone’s translated Shakespeare into Klingon. But for the most part, a NY publishing house is not going to buy an entire SF novel written in Vekran or Alarsh. So as an SF/SFR author, you have the daunting task of doing all this delightful linguistic work knowing 90 percent of it will be backstory, and never make the pages of the novel.

But you have to do it. It’s as much a part of your required world building as religion or politics. The entire galaxy does NOT speak English. Yes, your novel is written in English (or French or Portuguese or Russian) but you have to be aware, when you’re crafting character, dialogue, etc.., that your character is the product of a Non-Earth culture (if that is, in fact, the case). Your character IS his or her (or its) local galactic culture and will be aware of speech patterns (and differences) from other galactic cultures. Not only does everyone in the galaxy not speak English or Portuguese but they don’t speak Alarsh, either.

In the same way you’re away of the accents and speech patterns of those around you—in the supermarket, at the airport, at a meeting—your characters are aware of others’ word use, word choice and accent. There are differences in the same “planetary culture” just as there are here: someone from Alabama speaks differently from someone from Maine. Or London. It’s not just accent. It’s also slang. Cadence. Rapidity (or not) of speech. And at this point, it’s still the same language.

How about a “universal” language? In a spacefaring culture, I’d deem that possible. English has been crowned the official language of the air: commercial pilots and air traffic controllers all over this planet are required to speak English. There’s also Esperanto, that kind of one-size-fits-all attempt at a global language.

So I think it’s reasonable to posit an official language of the spaceways as long as you remember—when crafting characters and dialogue—that someone from Cirrus One Station may not pronounce the words in the same way that someone from Delos-5 would. Again, Alabama and Maine. Or even more, a Frenchman or Italian speaking English (as a secondary language) or an American speaking French (as a secondary language). There will be a noticeable accent. There will even be mispronunciations. Which lends to…unique characters and believable world building.

And slang—well, that’s my favorite part, as many of you know. Slang will be the one thread of constant miscommunication through it all. I have no idea why something that’s soda in New Jersey is pop in Michigan. But I really, really want to see a “half of a sudden.” And I want to know how my character would say it in Alarsh.


(From THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES by Linnea Sinclair, coming November 2007 from Bantam)

Blurb: After almost twenty years on the job, Bahia Vista homicide detective, Theo Petrakos, is used to the fact that almost everyone in Florida is from somewhere else. Then a mummified corpse and a room full of high tech computer equipment sends Guardian Force commander and intergalactic zombie hunter, Jorie Mikkalah, into his life. And ‘illegal alien’ takes on a whole new meaning...



The rear cargo door of the vehicle suddenly flew open. But no weapons turrets protruded, nothing lethal emerged. Jorie slowly let out the breath she didn’t realize she had been holding and watched him transfer the small black boxes to the rear cargo area. The long box went in, too. She was considering how to take him from behind when, damn! damn! He stepped back to the door on the navigator’s side, bent over and came out with the T-MOD in his grasp.

There it was. She had to take possession of it now. It shouldn’t be difficult. He was a nil, a civilian. She was an expertly trained military commander with the element of surprise.

She rose in one smooth, swift, practiced movement.

And her scanner screeched out an intruder alert.

Zombie.

So much for keeping a low profile.

“Run!” Jorie screamed at him, her heart pounding in her throat as she tabbed the laser in her right hand up to hard terminate. “Run!”

She grabbed her other laser and barreled across the lawn. “Drop the T-MOD! Run!” A sickly green glow formed in the night gloom off to her left. She laced the spot with both her lasers, aware the stupid nil was still standing there, T-MOD in his hands, staring at the expanding portal.

Just as she reached him the green cloud erupted into hard form maybe two maxmeters away, about level with the top of the high hedge. Its diameter was small. Bliss luck, she’d done some damage. But she hadn’t stopped it. Yet. She fired off three more bursts then swung around to face the nil, bringing her micro-rifle across her chest as she did. “Drop the unit, damn you!” Her breath was coming in hard gasps. “That’s a zombie. It’ll kill you!”

The man stared down at her. And then Jorie remembered: the entire universe did not speak Alarsh.

But that was the least of her problems. The zombie had arrived.



~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com
SFRomance from Bantam Spectra

Disparate things and unfinished business

This image has absolutely nothing to do with Cindy's sagging middle, or Jacqueline's evolutionary preferences... it has to do with mine, perhaps.

Also with unfinished business.

On reading Jacqueline's fascinating blog about world-building, the two books I thought of were H.G. Wells's The Time Machine (I confess... it was not so much the book as the movie with Jeremy Irons as the troglodite-predator branch of homo sapiens) and The Sparrow.

Both books had a predator and a prey species who looked similar. In the case of The Sparrow, it was a matter of convergent evolution. The predator evolved to look like its prey, so that hunting would be less strenuous.

If I'm going to have a predator and prey species in my books, I'd like the predatory males to be attractive, and to have a limited interest in eating prey females.

I can say that. In both The Sparrow and the Jeremy Irons movie, a predator wanted to have intercourse with a female member of the prey species. Now, the female prey wasn't keen on the idea, in one case because it was dangerous... like a deer going to bed with a lion, in the other, because Jeremy looked and acted a bit like an Uruk-Hai.

Now, the Uruk-Hai were buff and ripped, a bit too ripped in some cases, really, but they had terrible dentition and I'm sure their breath was unimaginably bad.

The problem with all this for mainstream literature is human taboos. If we were lion-men, as a society we'd probably imprison any lion-man who indulged his attraction to a deer-lady.

Our culture has fewer issues when the predator is, or claims to be, a god. At least when I was a schoolgirl, we studied Greek and Roman literature in school. We didn't bat an eyelid when a honking great male swan (who was the king of all gods in disguise) gave Leda a couple of double-yolked eggs. Or when he turned a girlfriend into a cow so he could continue the affaire without upsetting his wife.

OK. His wife was upset anyway.

Zeus's other disguises included being a bull (now that is scary, and impractical, you'd think) and a golden shower (!).

For the last fifteen or so years, I've chosen to write alien romances about "gods from outer space" which allows me to cherry-pick items from our culture that I'd like to claim the gods gave us... like chess and fortune-telling. It's rather like the point Margaret made about our language stealing choice words from other nationalities, only --perhaps-- in reverse.

As for the picture, it's concept art from a work in progress and I put it up here simply for a bit of visual interest. I've gone back to Ed Traxler who created my Insufficient Mating Material slideshow to produce a slide show for the e-book Mating Net (a short story).

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry
rowenacherry.com

The Sagging Middle

Nope, I'm not talking about my tummy although it sags, no matter how many ab crunches I do every day. I'm talking about the current work in progress, Star Shadows. I have just found my way through the middle and am ready to proceed with the ending.

So what is it that makes the middle sag? The beginning is always fun, a new project, new ideas, new characters, the excitement of seeing where the story will take you. The first third is always about the set up, the introduction and character growth. Then you get to the middle. Which is logical. You can't just have a beginning and an end.

But when you get to the middle its always the hardest part to write. And the longest. I won't reveal how long it has taken me to get through the middle of this book, lets just say the story is complicated and I lost a dear member of my family while struggling through it.

Maybe its the world building. Or the plot. It's basically a journey between point A and Point B that has to fill about 150 pages. All I know is it takes forever, its slow writing and during this point I always wonder why am I doing this. This book sucks. I'll never finish it.

Then suddenly, just like that your through it. My revelation came yesterday. Yay! I'm ready to write the end. I'll have this book done in two weeks. (I better, its due in a month)

If someone could ever come up for a way through the middle in a timely manner then we could all churn out about ten books a year, instead of two or three. I'm open for suggestions. And very happy that Star Shadows in about to come to its ending.

Watching Language

Recently I read a vampire novel set in England of the 1820s. Although it was pretty entertaining, I noticed a couple of anachronisms that made me wince. "Alpha" in the sense of "dominant," not a popular term in common use until the late twentieth century. (And though I don't know when biologists first started using it that way, I doubt it was pre-1900.) A complimentary "nice save," a phrase I never heard in conversation until a few years ago. Likewise, "sadism" and "masochism" shouldn't be used in dialogue, first person, or tight third person POV in periods before Sade and Sacher-Masoch published their respective works. It's not that hard to look up which words and phrases were in the English vocabulary in a given era.

More subtle is the issue of avoiding fossilized metaphors we unthinkingly use that are based on modern technology. Probably nobody would have a character in 1890 say, "You sound like a broken record" (a reference that may have outlived its meaning, at least for members of Gen X and Y who have seldom listened to music on anything but CDs and iPods). However, what about extricating oneself from a circular discussion with, "Stop, this is where I came in"? That metaphor comes from the cinema-viewing experience. Nobody would use it in an era before movies became an important form of popular entertainment. Another turn of speech that has lost its live context for people too young to remember the golden past when, for the price of one ticket, you could sit in the theater as long as you wished and watch the same show over and over, but as a "dead" metaphor it's still heard in conversation.

In SF set in some future decade or century, what words and phrases common now would have become obsolete? And what new slang and metaphors would adorn your futuristic characters' speech, based on social and technological developments we can only imagine? How likely is it that future American English may incorporate slang from other languages to the extent found, for example, in the linguistic tour-de-force of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE? I've read that young people in some parts of the Southwest already speak “Spanglish,” a blend of English and Spanish. Less blatantly, the process of adopting loan words from other cultures continues as vibrantly as ever. For instance, how many Americans had heard of anime and manga 20 years ago? English is the most eclectic language in the world, known for (to paraphrase a source I can't quite remember) not just borrowing from other languages, but knocking them down in dark alleys and rummaging through their pockets for stray bits of vocabulary.

I've messed up this blog!

Folks:

My entry for Tuesday March 20th, 2007, posted as Sunday March 18. Scroll down below Linnea's entry for Monday March 19 and you'll find my Tuesday entry.

Sorry

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

Flying Solo

(This essay was originally written several years ago for Futures magazine, and it garnered me a Pushcart Literary nomination...so I thought I'd share to see if it resonates with you writers out there.)

Humans are supposed to be herd animals, creatures of the pack. Even only children like myself are raised in a family setting. We attend school in groups and if you’re a young female, you learn to go to the bathroom in groups. We have our cliques, our club memberships, our teams and our carpools.

Then a few strange ones suddenly veer off the crowded path, find their trembling wings and start flying solo. As writers. As one-woman private investigative agencies.

Ah, you say. Now I know where she’s going with this. Good, if you do. If you don’t, sit back, grab a beer and get ready for some free-fall soul searching.

Has it yet occurred to you that one of the reasons you’re a writer is that you’re very comfortable being alone?

Not every one can do this. Most people -- and I like e.e. cummings’ phraseology on this -- “Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than the squarerootofminusone.” If you don’t believe me try going to any well-populated social gathering. A clearance sale at K-Mart will do. Tell the multitudes that you’re a writer and once they finishing ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the fame they associate with the profession, they will inevitably ask how you do it. How do you sit there, hands on the keyboard, staring at a blank computer screen, or blank piece of paper, and get your ideas. Your characters. Your action. All by yourself.


And that’s the kicker. All by yourself. No boss breathing down your neck. No supervisor clucking her tongue at your tardiness. No taskmaster with a whip, other than your own self.
And then you try to explain that you’re really not alone, that there are about a hundred or so people who live inside your head, all with stories to tell, all clamoring for your attention.

And these people, these nice employed-in-big-nine-to-five-offices people began to back away from you. Slowly.

Been there?

Fifteen years ago when I started my investigative agency I figured I’d have two or three others on staff. All male. Reverse chauvinism. And they had to be good looking (they all were). But I found, and it wasn’t due to the distraction of being surrounded by hunks, that I got just as much work accomplished by myself.

So for the last few years I worked as I investigator I was flying solo, and it may come as no surprise to you writers that the majority of private investigators do the same.

We have our heads full of people, too. Slimy people, wacky people, tricky people, lost people.
I worked a lot of cases by marching these people out onto my mind’s stage and running them through their paces. I tripped up slime because in my mind I wore their skins. I found the lost because in my mind I wore their walking shoes. I out-thought the con artists because in my mind we donned the same thinking caps.

My days often went like this: I’d sit in the attorney’s office after delivering my report and he’d look at me from across his polished mahogany desk, praising my work.

“So. How many investigators did you put on this guy’s tail?” While he questioned me I knew that outside his office door are no less than two secretaries, a receptionist and four junior partners in his law firm.

“None. Just me,” I ‘d tell him.

“Just you?” he’d asked, as if being only five feet tall even further reduces my abilities.

“Yeah. Just me.”

“Then how did you figure out so quickly what this guy was up to?” The attorney knew he couldn’t even produce a simple transmittal letter without getting at least three other people involved.

“Easy,” I’d tell him. “Around two in the morning, after I’ve beaten the case file and all the accumulated data to death, I pour myself a goblet of Opus One. Then I pace the kitchen in the dark and become your adversary. I think his thoughts, feel his fears, absorb his desperation.”

At this point the attorney would inevitably glance at his watch, make a remark about his busy day and full schedule of appointments, and if I wouldn’t mind showing myself out....?

Yeah, I think me, myself and I can handle that.

Gentle readers, gentle writers, you and I fly solo. There is something in our nature that requires us to pull away from the ‘madding crowd’ and hover, to observe and record.

But not in a crowd at the zoo or a class trip to the museum, where other fingers point out the sights and others opinions fill our ears. But on our own, either as the advance scout or the straggler. So we see what others would have trampled on, hear what others would have lost in the din.

We saw heroes in the stars long before anyone told us what the constellations were supposed to mean. And we still see castles in the clouds when most other people only see a seventy per cent chance of precipitation.

One of my greatest thrills when I had my private pilot’s license was to fly directly into any cloud castle I wanted to. It would blanket my small plane, obscuring the windows and then suddenly I was out the other side, and the whole horizon looked brighter, more vivid with color. Pilots called it cloud punching.

I think of that blankness sometimes when I sit and stare at the white screen on my computer, knowing the words that I type suddenly make it come alive with color. With voices. With characters.

Which brings me back to my original question. Has it yet occurred to you that one of the reasons you are a writer is that you are very comfortable being alone?

Now do you know why?

Happy cloud punching.


Namaste, ~Linnea
http://www.linneasinclair.com

Evolutionary Tree and Worldbuilding

Folks:

Those who've read Linnea Sinclair's post for March 19, 2007, just previous to this one, will be particularly interested in the sentence in the article I'm discussing here that indicates humans evolved from prey not preditors. And prey do tend to form groups, herds, flocks, prides, etc. I can wonder if it's too simplistic to classify humans as preditor or prey when we clearly produce both.

An Item in the March 18, 2007 issue of Newsweek -- BEYOND STONES & BONES: The New Science of Evolution by Sharon Begley -- gives us an interesting twist on the biological part of the author's worldbuilding job (we not only have to make planets, but biospheres too).
There are some illustrations in the print article that don't appear in the free online article, but here's the link to the online article.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17542627/site/newsweek/

This model of human evolution opens a whole lot of possibilities for the evolutionary trees of other planets that we can just imagine -- and all the trouble Terran explorers could get into because they didn't understand where the planet was in this process when they landed.

Who's to say that two or three independently evolved versions of some sapiens species might not independently open negotiations with some alien explorers. That's been done in SF, but here we have a way to make it plausible to modern readers who are learning THIS model of human evolution in school (or not!).

What's important about this article is not the science it's explaining -- anyone following "the literature" would know all this already years ago. What's important about this article FOR WRITERS is that it's in Newsweek -- and thus now writers who are worldbuilding must assume their readers are familiar with this new theory of the evolutionary pattern.

Some may rely on it as the best current information, some my disbelieve it because they disbelieve, and others may misunderstand it. But now it's in Newsweek, the SF/F writer has to account for it in order to make the story plausible to the most readers.

Some of the items of greatest interest to me come near the end of the article.

a) (bottom of page 1 of online article) the record shows evolutionary changes seem to come in bursts, in fits and starts.

More than once in human prehistory, evolution created a modern trait such as a face without jutting, apelike brows and jaws, only to let it go extinct, before trying again a few million years later. Our species' travels through time proceeded in fits and starts, with long periods when "nothing much happened," punctuated by bursts of dizzying change, says paleontologist Ian Tattersall, co-curator of the American Museum's new hall.

b) (4th parag up from the end )

"We are all descended from maybe about 2,000 men -- perhaps 4,000 people. And I recall they genetically identified "Eve" the one woman who is ancestor to all modern humans. I don't know if that's still firmly established. "

c) (2nd parag up from the end) the most recent change in the human genome seems to have occurred 5800 years ago --

"The third (...gene...), called ASPM and also involved in brain size, clocks in at 5,800 years. That was just before people established the first cities in the Near East and is well after Homo sapiens attained their modern form. It therefore suggests that we are still evolving."

d) ( at the end of page 2 online) connect this to item a) above.

"Instead, evolution played Mr. Potato Head, putting different combinations of features on ancient hominids then letting them vanish until a later species evolved them. "Similar traits evolved more than once, which means you can't use them as gold-plated evidence that one fossil is descended from another or that having an advanced trait means a fossil was a direct ancestor of modern humans," says Wood. "Lots of branches in the human family tree don't make it to the surface.""

DISCUSSION:

a) as I originally set up the Sime~Gen mutation, channels appeared and disappeared quite a few times leaving no record (lots of great stories in times of chaos) -- and likewise the Farris mutation occurred independently in widely separated places, mostly only to fail because they are so fragile. Fan writers have largely ignored all those story opportunities! That may be because they were operating from the "old model" of human evolution mentioned in this Newsweek article while I had extrapolated ahead to the currently fashionable model explained here.

b) has little to do with S~G -- but in worldbuilding in general, that 2,000 male group of ancestors might be the crew and passengers of a crashed space ship. Given this model of evolution -- where modern traits appear and go extinct over and over at widely separated and disconnected places -- it's possible to extrapolate that just exactly that kind of "appear/disappear" evolution is going on on other planets, and somewhere OUR traits would appear and not disappear too quickly.

On the other hand "we" haven't been around very long -- who says we aren't going to disappear in this Global Warming phase, only to reappear again independently here when the climate is better, or on another planet. Of course, Global Warming could be terminated by a meteor strike or Supervolcano eruption.

Look at this "appear/disappear" model from a far perspective. Isn't it as if "something" is trying to use the anthropoid DNA template to "emerge" ??? hooo-hooo spookey.

c) You all do know this is the year 5767 of the Hebrew calendar -- that means that God finished creating humankind 5, 767 years ago, just when this calculation shows that the latest gene was added to our makeup, the key turning point in the record where language, art and culture emerge. (as I recall agriculture appeared about 7,000 years ago, and as much as 9,000 years ago some kind of human traveled from what is England today, across Greenland to the Eastern Canada and US shores (they left graves with peculiar red clay in them).

d) put the "fits and starts" concept of evolutionary progress together with the way a pattern seems to emerge here, there, elsewhere, die out, and emerge again independently -- correlate that with the mystical view of the universe and you can worldbuild for the next 30 years and not run out of permutations and combinations of worlds in which to tell stories.

Also don't fail to notice how the "fits and starts" concept of evolutionary progress doesn't exactly fit with the "genetic clock" calculations where genetic replication "mistakes" are made at a statistically predictable rate.

Now I do expect that in a few years, this entire model of evolution will hit the trash can as researchers dig up the connecting links among the dead ends -- but in the meantime, we can have a FIELD-DAY in SF writing.

And what haunts me in the whole thing is how obvious it is that WE (us Ancients) are likely to be one of those branches that peters out to extinction. Where have I seen that theory played with in SF?

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

A picture is worth a thousand words

Cover art is supposed to do the job, and we've talked about that on this blog.

But what happens when your cover art doesn't communicate what the author thinks it should communicate? Can you compensate? Should you?

Notice the caveat. I'm talking about what I think, and I concede that I may not be right. An aurora borealis and a naked couple rolling about in the sea does not communicate "alien romance" or even "survival romance" to me.

It probably says "Sex!" Maybe even "Fallible, unreliable, all-too-human sex!" given my title, which is actually a chess term for a "No-win situation" but not a lot of people realize that.

So, when I set off on a booksigning (drive-by) tour down I-75, I took my poster with me. If an author has a visual aid with her, I think she has a better shot at making an impression.

I felt a little self-conscious thrusting my custom poster under busy romance experts' noses, but even a picture of a naked man is more interesting than much else I can think of, and self-promotion is not a game for the shrinking violet.

On the left are scenes from my "novel trailer" (done by Edward Traxler) showing planets and spaceships (for space), a couple of aviation dogfights (action), parachutes and exploding stars (space and action), a naked man (ah, well, if you've got one, flaunt him), a conflagration.

On the right were jpgs given to me personally by Survivorman, who was my survival consultant to make sure I translated all my research into plausible action, and who also gave me some really cool survival tips... not to mention the cover quote. The slides show a conch, which is a handy container for boiling water on the campfire, a fishing technique using whittled sticks, a shelter.

In my opinion, if you are making a book trailer, you should consider what other uses you could make of custom artwork stills!

Signed copies of Insufficient Mating Material are at:

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FL

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(Also, Barnes & Noble Booksellers

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see the Insufficient Mating Material video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLuEtY7oP7A


INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL takes up where FORCED MATE ended, with Djetthro-Jason (Jethro-Jason) severely beaten, about to undergo surgery to change his face and identity before his shotgun wedding to the frivolous Princess Martia-Djulia (Marsha-Julia).

No one gives a thought to what Martia-Djulia might do when she realizes that it’s not her unsuitable lover, Commander Jason, but a stranger being frog-marched up the aisle to become her Mate.

Her surprising reaction sets off a firestorm of rumor… and rattles a murderer who thought he’d gotten away with an ancient crime.

INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL EXCERPT

A Tricky Experiment

“Maybe, sweetheart, we should have sex to prove to you that you can and will enjoy it.”
“I enjoyed it once. I am very happy with my memories. I don’t need you or your experiment to prove anything,” she said stiffly.
“Once?” He raised an eyebrow. His lips twitched. Too late, Martia-Djulia realized that she had just contradicted one of her earlier statements.
“The Aim of the Experiment is to discover whether or not we are sexually compatible,” Djetth said loftily. She suspected that he was amusing himself by parodying a formal checklist. “Method: to have mind-blowing recreational sex using positions and techniques that mitigate or avoid unfortunate consequences. Expected result--”
“What unfortunate consequences?”
“Insects in your hair?” he teased. “Sand in your baby box. A baby. Infection. Injury. Legal consummation of a Mating we might not want.”
His gaze flickered. Martia-Djulia had the impression that his list was deliberately ordered.
“Injury to whom?” she asked, ignoring the glossed over “baby.”
“I’ve wondered why you haven’t blasted me backward onto my butt since our Mating Day. I’ve certainly deserved it.”
“Yes you have!” she agreed heatedly.

ISBN 0-505-52711-1

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry