Romances With Aliens...
Apparently, it was last Saturday --a week ago-- that the allegedly alien lights were seen in the sky over Stratford-Upon-Avon (but I did not see it on the news until Thursday).
Last Monday, the distributor from the UK sent me an email to tell me that Insufficient Mating Material is now in stock in the UK, in case I wanted to promote it a bit. I've cried Wolf! in good faith so many times to my friends in the UK, that it's a bit of a problem being believed, not to mention my own embarrassment!
Anyway, when I saw the TV report and heard the description of the lights, I had a "Close Encounters" moment.
"How can I make something of a triangle?" I thought. "As a signal!"
In my books --and probably every other alien romance or action adventure-- sign language is used, because not all species can speak, and because we're used to soldiers and swat teams making signals to one another.
"And, it has to be something to do with Romance or Sex."
Do you remember the childish designs we made using W, X, Y, Brackets?
So then, I put out a specious press release (sort of), claiming responsibility for something that had nothing whatsoever to do with me.
"Insufficient Mating Material arrived in the UK to widespread awe and speculation... and much confusion.
Alien Star Forces commanders assumed that Earthlings would understand that a display of a triangle formation was a signal of their peaceful interest in human pubic regions."
I know there were two other moving lights. I had an explanation for those, too. Now, I'm writing an interest in pubic triangles into the almost-finished next book.
What other news events are favorite PR hooks for alien romance publicity?
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Attaining Adulthood
An article in the April/May issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND, "The Myth of the Teen Brain," offers a thought-provoking rebuttal to the popular belief that the "incompletely developed" brains of teenagers predispose them to immature, impulsive behavior and that adolescent turmoil is an inevitable developmental stage in human growth. The author of this article, Robert Epstein, who has written a book called THE CASE AGAINST ADOLESCENCE, maintains that imaging studies of teenage brains, which purportedly demonstrate a neurological basis for irresponsible behavior in adolescence, don't actually prove what they are claimed to prove. Observed phenomena in brain wiring and chemistry can be the result as well as (or instead of) the cause of environmental factors. Epstein believes the roots of the behaviors that lead people to perceive teenagers as immature and incompetent arise from social rather than neurological sources. He points out that young people in many other societies don't display the same types of "adolescent" behavior (but when exposed to American culture, they often begin to do so). He also cites the findings of historians that "through most of recorded history the teen years were a relatively peaceful time of transition to adulthood. Teens were not trying to break away from adults; rather, they were learning to *become* adults." Teenagers in Western society today, by contrast, have no useful role to play. Stereotypical teenage turmoil results from the "artificial extension of childhood" past puberty. Studies show that teens are as competent as adults "across a wide range of adult abilities." Moreover, in some areas they're superior to adults. For example, as we aging boomers can testify, visual acuity, memory, and the ability to learn new things rapidly. These abilities make evolutionary sense, according to Epstein, because mammals begin to bear young shortly after puberty. If human teenagers hadn't been able to take care of themselves and their offspring competently, the human species would have died out long before the industrial age.
A similar thesis about the roots of teenage angst is proposed in the online article "Why Nerds Are Unpopular." (Google that phrase and read the whole thing. It's fascinating.) The author of this essay begins by asking why intelligence seems to make kids an object of persecution by their peers in high school, but he eventually moves on to the larger issue of what high school is for and the whole issue of how our culture deals with adolescents. Teenagers can't be turned loose to support themselves in a highly technological society, so the "artificial extension of childhood" inevitably ensues. Most American young people, as this author puts it, grow up in an environment "as artificial as a Twinkie," with no function for its form to follow. By contrast, prior to the twentieth century, teenagers were capable of making a genuine contribution to the economic well-being of the family (and, in the working-class level of society, required to do so). In our contemporary U.S. culture (aside from the rare computer-savant prodigies) nobody can earn a living wage without eighteen or more years of school. The only jobs open to most teens are minimum-wage positions in retail and fast food (the latter, as Epstein puts it, having developed specifically to take advantage of this pool of cheap, disposable labor).
Epstein's arguments about the ability of teenagers to learn quickly remind me of the "First Year" phenomenon in Jacqueline's Sime~Gen universe. Young Simes immediately after changeover (which coincides with puberty) have an amazing ability to absorb new knowledge and skills, including language, which for ordinary human beings becomes almost impossible to learn fluently after early childhood. It has been hinted that newly established Gens may also have some of that "First Year" learning capacity. It's easy for readers to forget, when reading HOUSE OF ZEOR and the other books in the series, that most of the "adult" Simes and Gens in the stories are teenagers!
In writing stories of human settlement on distant worlds, we should keep in mind that in a frontier society, young people just past puberty have to take on adult responsibilities. Many of them will marry at that age and start families while they have youthful health and energy, especially if the new colony has a desperate need to increase its population of workers. As Isaac Asimov points out in one of his essays, in preindustrial cultures a boy became a man when he grew a beard, and a girl turned into a woman when she became capable of getting pregnant. (As generations of lovelorn teens have reminded their parents, Juliet was fourteen.) And what about our aliens? Suppose we modeled an intelligent alien species on Terran creatures (many insects, for example) that live only a short time after breeding. They would have to cram all their "adult" living into the life stage we'd ordinarily think of as adolescence.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Is Harry Potter an Alien?
Whoo-hoo, the boy wonder is grown up!
I saw an interview with the actor on TV the other day -- in his real persona, he's scrumptious.
Teens everywhere have throbbing hearts. (so what else is new?)
I haven't read the final installment in the saga yet, though I will. I did see the Phoenix movie as I mentioned last week.
And I've been following all the hype in the media -- and the reporting on the hype.
Boiled down, the media sees the Harry Potter saga as "good vs. evil" and says that accounts for the popularity. (i.e. if it didn't have "good vs. evil" at the core, it wouldn't be popular - they say.)
So since today is Tisha B'Av (the 9th day of the Hebrew Month of Av), the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and subsequent to that, a day when major blows have fallen on the world, (not a superstition, but historical fact if you look at the dates via the Hebrew calendar) I wanted to explore this "good vs. evil" theme that is so very popular that it lies unquestioned as a model of the real universe we live in.
The premise is that there's more true "Evil" in the world than "Good" and it is the job of "Good" to fight "Evil" even though "Evil" is terrifyingly strong.
And it must be a fight to absolute destruction.
Where "Good" encounters "Evil" there must be combat to annihilation (not Love, not Romance, not persuasion, not understanding, not empathy, not compassion, not problem solving, but COMBAT TO THE DEATH.)
Good vs. Evil is the conflict in Dresden Files, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Supernatural -- maybe not Forever Knight so much -- but many Fantasy novels focus on the vision of the universe in which there is a thin crust of "good" over a seething cauldron of "evil" and it's the plight of a certain few humans to keep "evil" from breaking through.
Potter's fight gets personal, so does the fight of Harry Dresden (who jokes about having Potter's first name, then points out he was named for Houdini.)
Why is Harry Potter such a success when these other shows and novels (which many would say are better written, better crafted, or better backgrounded) have not had similar play?
And where does that view of the universe as floating on a seething cauldron of Evil come from?
Frankly, I don't know any answer to Potter's success exceeding that of other novels except publicity.
I saw an interview on the Lehrer News Hour with a top Children's Librarian and a publisher, and their consensus was that it's the MEDIA that made Harry Potter more successful than other equally good books about the same topics.
I read a statistic that readers who gobble up Harry Potter novels, still only increase the sale of other books by barely 10%. Potter is ALL they read. For the rest of their time it's computers, games, music downloads, text-messaging, maybe Potter fanfic.
Harry Potter is a tiny (itsy-teensy) fraction of Scholastic Publishing's annual gross sales (Scholastic is the US distributor). But those same interviewees mentioned above considered that this whole set of novels will become a classic that new crops of 11 year olds will be reading into the far future. They will continue to sell.
This "Good" must fight "Evil" is a general portrait of reality that is, I think, not "believed" so much as "assumed" by the general public. It's never challenged or discussed in grammar school where you learn your view of the universe.
Here the question of whether Harry Potter is an alien (and therefore a fit subject for "alien romance" (definitely of the djinn variety)) gets really abstract.
Harry Potter taps into a somewhat new twist on a very old mythology. The prevailing Group Mind, or general mindset in the world today (including among those without the education to know what the word "philosophy" actually refers to) has changed drastically in the last 50 years -- maybe 70 or so years.
We've never been so obsessed with "Evil" since maybe The Inquisition.
To see how it all fits together, we have to be able to step back from our Civlization -- way, way back -- and view ourselves as the result of the flowering of the Greek culture.
The Greeks took over from the huge world-conquering Egyptian culture that spread mathematics, science and learning throughout North Africa and the Middle East all the way around the top of the Mediterranean. According to some archeologists, there is an odd coincidence between the bare beginning of the fall of Egypt and the best guess date for the Parting Of The Red Sea.
That's just a theory, but we're fiction writers here and we play with history and pre-history all the time.
The Greeks invented "democracy" made mathematics even more useful than the Egyptians did for building big things, and worshipped gods whose family relationships have to be described today as "dysfunctional" -- the Greek ideals included naked games, homosexuality and even what today in America would be statutory rape of young boys.
The Greeks fell and the Romans ate up their culture and made it their own -- growing bigger than Greece ever had, reaching all the way to Britain (I've been reading the lastest of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon series -- this one, Ravens of Avalon, by Diane Paxton).
Rome fell -- etc -- and after various invasions and so on, Britain erupted in fleeing Pilgrims who founded what eventually became the American Colonies - and then us.
Our modern Civilization is a direct descendent of Ancient Eqypt -- if you look at it like say, Francisco St. Germain (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's vampire) might.
Ancient Egypt was ruled by "gods" who became incarnated and often produced the Heir Apparent mating with their closest sibling.
But Greek philosophy gave us a way of looking at the world which is now and always has been diametrically opposed to the MYSTICAL or MAGICAL way of looking at the world.
The Greeks laid the foundation for the later works in Britain by Bacon which promulgated the scientific method.
The notion is that the Universe is a mechanism -- a giant clock -- and nothing more. It's just a machine, and it runs by itself. There is no such thing as a "seething cauldron of Evil" and no Evil to fight. The "worst" behavior of their gods (Dyonisis comes to mind) was actually celebrated and lauded.
Almost all of science is based on this Helenistic Philosophy. Our civilization has had enormous success applying this philosophy (remember Science used to be called Natural Philosophy for a reason.)
Just skipping over the Assyrians and Babylonians -- we're looking at the invention of the Wheel as around 3,000 BCE, The Patriarch Abraham at around 2100 BCE (give or take), and Egypt invades Canaan at around 1950 BCE, and the Israelites being enslaved in Egypt around 1300 BCE -- with Moses leading the escape around 1250 (that can be argued vigorously on a lot of sides. The general figure for the length of the sojourne in Egypt is about 400 years, but slavery came at the end) And the fall of Egypt around 1065 BCE (they had a couple changes of "dynasty" in there, struggling to survive.)
First Olympic games in Greece around 776 BCE.
Founding of Rome about 753. About 509 BCE The Roman Republic is founded. 399 BCE Socrates is condemned to death for heretical teaching. 323 BCE birth of Euclid. Egypt still exists but it's not THE power in the ancient world. 170 Rome invades Egypt. (see Shakespear)
When one country invades and conquers another, the conquerer acquires a lot of the attitudes and valuable accomplishments of the conquered. The cultures blend with every intermarriage. Remember, the Romans didn't care what god you worshipped as long as you also worshipped the Roman gods and the Emperor got his due. That's cool, until it runs up against Monotheism, and the Egyptians had sun worshipping monotheists who were not a majority though.
In Israel, the monotheists were a majority.
So today's secular majority relying on a view of the universe that sees reality as an uncaring machine that can be manipulated by science if only we know enough -- that SHOULD be manipulated by science to subjugate the world to our Will -- is the direct descendent of the philosophy promulgated in Greece.
Why would the Greeks, Romans and their spiritual ancestors, the Egyptians, Babylonians and Assyrians, have wanted so very much to believe the universe is just a mechanism, and there is no such thing as "good" and "evil?"
Just read the mythology -- how their gods handled power and personal relationships (seduction but never romance.) Those powerful, unseen, Evil Entities who diced with human lives and had to be appeased with offerings are the contents of that "seething cauldron of Evil." They became the symbol of "Evil" because they had immense power over mortals, but no love for us.
Can't you see why the Greek Natural Philosophers would think it would be so much nicer if those gods didn't really exist? Or didn't have all the power? Pythagoras comes to mind.
Running counter to the development of our "Natural Philosophy" called modern science there was the philosophy of the line of the Patriarch Avraham and all the cultures and religions that sprang from him.
Now I can't give a reprise of the Qabalistic view of the universe here. You can get a lot of the "real thing" on chabad.org if you want it. If you google Kabbalah and variant spellings you'll get all kinds of kooky nonsense mixed in with the version I'm talking about, so start at chabad.org .
But the essence of the notion is that the Creator of the Universe not only Created the world -- but continues to do so moment to moment.
Existence itself is sustained by the deliberate application of Divine Will. Every single moment and every single event in your very personal life is a miracle. All of this is a Word being spoken by the Creator RIGHT NOW. And it's a song of love.
The essence of Qabalah lies within its notion of the purpose of human existence, the purpose of Life.
The premise is that all souls were created at the moment of creation -- there are no newer souls (unlike some other esoteric traditions). Souls reincarnate enough times to master all 613 Commandments in the first 5 Books Of Moses (the first 5 books of the Bible).
The purpose of mastering the Commandments is to use them to uncover the sparks of Godliness hidden within all the elements of our material reality.
The Creator Created the world twice (this is described in Genesis). The first time the blast of the pure essence of this Divine Being shattered the vessels that held creation. The pieces flew apart and fell "down" -- chaos -- the second time, we got Creation as we know it today.
But the Divine sparks of pure good attract the flotsam of the shattered vessels and become encrusted with this dross. The dross isn't Evil and it isn't bad, it's also a result of Creation and exists by the Will of the Divine which is Good and basically pure Love.
Our job is NOT to "battle evil" or to cram it back down under the thin crust of good, because there really is no such thing as "Evil" -- there is only this icky dross clinging to and smothering the light of Goodness.
Our task is not to destroy that dross but to TRANSFORM IT INTO GOOD --to peel away the dross and uncover the gold within and send those golden sparks of divine substance winging back upward, and thus elevate the dross.
The idea is to uncover the hidden goodness within every individual and situation and to elevate the not-so-good to be better. Life is not a punishment detail -- it's what our souls were created for.
We're designed for this world and this job. So it's FUN. It's joy in its purest form to find goodness and unleash it. (classic Romance writing lesson: what does she see in him? How do you know it's "love?" -- answer: each brings out the best in the other's personality.)
Philosophically, the Qabalistic notion has battled the two other notions down through the ages with first one then the other predominating.
So there are 3 major philosophies extant today (plus a zillion smaller ones).
The "seething cauldron" model of reality. The "just a mechanism" model of reality. And the "big mess to clean up" Qabalah model of reality. (the process of cleaning up that mess is called Tikun Olam, fixing the world. You do it by love, not combat.)
Everyone HAS a philosophy, though very few know what their own philsophy is, and most deny having one at all. But it's like breath - you can't live without it.
They say "there's no accounting for taste" but that's not true. Your "taste" comes from your philosophy which resides in your subconscious and jerks your life around unbeknownst to you -- i.e. creates such things as "love at first sight".
The "taste" for the Harry Potter tale wrapped in its FIGHT AGAINST EVIL is caused by the philosophy that the world REALLY IS a thin crust over a seething cauldron of Evil and all we can do is fight or run screaming.
I saw an interview on TV with people standing in line to get the last Potter book, and one young girl in costume told the camera "yes, magic is real" (and from the tone of voice it was clear she didn't mean that metaphorically - we're talking 12 year old girl here).
Something in our current civilization has convinced a huge number of people that Evil is real and the only righteous response to Evil is to Fight it.
And thus Harry Potter is a Hero to young children who have imbibed this subconscious assumption from parents, friends, teachers, books, movies, films, DVDs, and GAMES, maybe past lives too.
I mentioned "love at first sight" -- there is (in the magical view of the universe) a certain reality to the "recognition" and "attraction" to things and people from past lives -- and who represent a subconsciously held highest aspiration.
The world today is very much like Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover -- the world where there is an intransigent war between the technological civilization from Earth and the indigenous ESP based civilization of the planet Darkover. That war is on moral grounds.
Today we "believe in science" and look to our labs to produce solutions to every ill if we only throw enough money at them. But something inside says "no, that's not the whole truth" -- or "Wait! There's More! If you phone right now - " --
People reach back into prior lives (maybe from Atlantean times?) and find the dim etching of an almost memory of the Magical View of the universe -- and they want that view to be true.
Remember, in my blog entry about the Robert Heinlein Centennial, I said I learned that Heinlein had held memories of past lives even into his teens. It is common for young children of the Potter reading demographic to have echoing memories of past lives -- lived in a time when Magic was considered "real."
But that view of the universe also scares people terribly -- because in Greece and Rome, the most power over "reality" was wielded by insane entities called gods who did not know how to love.
Most of the people who are trying to learn Qabalah today don't understand the thousands of years of history that spawned these 3 major philosophies.
So they look at the world, see really BAD stuff all around, and accept the explanation that Evil has to be Fought. (to me that's like cutting starfish in half to get rid of them).
They want Magic to be REAL, so they can have a tool to Fight Evil (because Science can't Fight Evil, because Evil doesn't exist in the scientific view of the universe).
It appears, in our modern universe, those are your only choices, fight evil, condone it or foster it by ignoring its existence. (Qabalah teaches a fourth approach to the problem.)
So Harry Potter as an adult now becomes a really sexy attraction because he has acquired the Power to Fight Evil! He's become our Protector. And from the scientific view of reality, he truly is "alien" because of that Power -- and science is losing the battle against Evil because Science doesn't know it's in a battle.
You shouldn't have any trouble googling up some hot-sweaty-sexy Harry Potter fanfic on the web. Look it over and think about what these people are really writing about in their own lives. Then think about other ways to parse the problem so it can be solved.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
I saw an interview with the actor on TV the other day -- in his real persona, he's scrumptious.
Teens everywhere have throbbing hearts. (so what else is new?)
I haven't read the final installment in the saga yet, though I will. I did see the Phoenix movie as I mentioned last week.
And I've been following all the hype in the media -- and the reporting on the hype.
Boiled down, the media sees the Harry Potter saga as "good vs. evil" and says that accounts for the popularity. (i.e. if it didn't have "good vs. evil" at the core, it wouldn't be popular - they say.)
So since today is Tisha B'Av (the 9th day of the Hebrew Month of Av), the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and subsequent to that, a day when major blows have fallen on the world, (not a superstition, but historical fact if you look at the dates via the Hebrew calendar) I wanted to explore this "good vs. evil" theme that is so very popular that it lies unquestioned as a model of the real universe we live in.
The premise is that there's more true "Evil" in the world than "Good" and it is the job of "Good" to fight "Evil" even though "Evil" is terrifyingly strong.
And it must be a fight to absolute destruction.
Where "Good" encounters "Evil" there must be combat to annihilation (not Love, not Romance, not persuasion, not understanding, not empathy, not compassion, not problem solving, but COMBAT TO THE DEATH.)
Good vs. Evil is the conflict in Dresden Files, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Supernatural -- maybe not Forever Knight so much -- but many Fantasy novels focus on the vision of the universe in which there is a thin crust of "good" over a seething cauldron of "evil" and it's the plight of a certain few humans to keep "evil" from breaking through.
Potter's fight gets personal, so does the fight of Harry Dresden (who jokes about having Potter's first name, then points out he was named for Houdini.)
Why is Harry Potter such a success when these other shows and novels (which many would say are better written, better crafted, or better backgrounded) have not had similar play?
And where does that view of the universe as floating on a seething cauldron of Evil come from?
Frankly, I don't know any answer to Potter's success exceeding that of other novels except publicity.
I saw an interview on the Lehrer News Hour with a top Children's Librarian and a publisher, and their consensus was that it's the MEDIA that made Harry Potter more successful than other equally good books about the same topics.
I read a statistic that readers who gobble up Harry Potter novels, still only increase the sale of other books by barely 10%. Potter is ALL they read. For the rest of their time it's computers, games, music downloads, text-messaging, maybe Potter fanfic.
Harry Potter is a tiny (itsy-teensy) fraction of Scholastic Publishing's annual gross sales (Scholastic is the US distributor). But those same interviewees mentioned above considered that this whole set of novels will become a classic that new crops of 11 year olds will be reading into the far future. They will continue to sell.
This "Good" must fight "Evil" is a general portrait of reality that is, I think, not "believed" so much as "assumed" by the general public. It's never challenged or discussed in grammar school where you learn your view of the universe.
Here the question of whether Harry Potter is an alien (and therefore a fit subject for "alien romance" (definitely of the djinn variety)) gets really abstract.
Harry Potter taps into a somewhat new twist on a very old mythology. The prevailing Group Mind, or general mindset in the world today (including among those without the education to know what the word "philosophy" actually refers to) has changed drastically in the last 50 years -- maybe 70 or so years.
We've never been so obsessed with "Evil" since maybe The Inquisition.
To see how it all fits together, we have to be able to step back from our Civlization -- way, way back -- and view ourselves as the result of the flowering of the Greek culture.
The Greeks took over from the huge world-conquering Egyptian culture that spread mathematics, science and learning throughout North Africa and the Middle East all the way around the top of the Mediterranean. According to some archeologists, there is an odd coincidence between the bare beginning of the fall of Egypt and the best guess date for the Parting Of The Red Sea.
That's just a theory, but we're fiction writers here and we play with history and pre-history all the time.
The Greeks invented "democracy" made mathematics even more useful than the Egyptians did for building big things, and worshipped gods whose family relationships have to be described today as "dysfunctional" -- the Greek ideals included naked games, homosexuality and even what today in America would be statutory rape of young boys.
The Greeks fell and the Romans ate up their culture and made it their own -- growing bigger than Greece ever had, reaching all the way to Britain (I've been reading the lastest of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon series -- this one, Ravens of Avalon, by Diane Paxton).
Rome fell -- etc -- and after various invasions and so on, Britain erupted in fleeing Pilgrims who founded what eventually became the American Colonies - and then us.
Our modern Civilization is a direct descendent of Ancient Eqypt -- if you look at it like say, Francisco St. Germain (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's vampire) might.
Ancient Egypt was ruled by "gods" who became incarnated and often produced the Heir Apparent mating with their closest sibling.
But Greek philosophy gave us a way of looking at the world which is now and always has been diametrically opposed to the MYSTICAL or MAGICAL way of looking at the world.
The Greeks laid the foundation for the later works in Britain by Bacon which promulgated the scientific method.
The notion is that the Universe is a mechanism -- a giant clock -- and nothing more. It's just a machine, and it runs by itself. There is no such thing as a "seething cauldron of Evil" and no Evil to fight. The "worst" behavior of their gods (Dyonisis comes to mind) was actually celebrated and lauded.
Almost all of science is based on this Helenistic Philosophy. Our civilization has had enormous success applying this philosophy (remember Science used to be called Natural Philosophy for a reason.)
Just skipping over the Assyrians and Babylonians -- we're looking at the invention of the Wheel as around 3,000 BCE, The Patriarch Abraham at around 2100 BCE (give or take), and Egypt invades Canaan at around 1950 BCE, and the Israelites being enslaved in Egypt around 1300 BCE -- with Moses leading the escape around 1250 (that can be argued vigorously on a lot of sides. The general figure for the length of the sojourne in Egypt is about 400 years, but slavery came at the end) And the fall of Egypt around 1065 BCE (they had a couple changes of "dynasty" in there, struggling to survive.)
First Olympic games in Greece around 776 BCE.
Founding of Rome about 753. About 509 BCE The Roman Republic is founded. 399 BCE Socrates is condemned to death for heretical teaching. 323 BCE birth of Euclid. Egypt still exists but it's not THE power in the ancient world. 170 Rome invades Egypt. (see Shakespear)
When one country invades and conquers another, the conquerer acquires a lot of the attitudes and valuable accomplishments of the conquered. The cultures blend with every intermarriage. Remember, the Romans didn't care what god you worshipped as long as you also worshipped the Roman gods and the Emperor got his due. That's cool, until it runs up against Monotheism, and the Egyptians had sun worshipping monotheists who were not a majority though.
In Israel, the monotheists were a majority.
So today's secular majority relying on a view of the universe that sees reality as an uncaring machine that can be manipulated by science if only we know enough -- that SHOULD be manipulated by science to subjugate the world to our Will -- is the direct descendent of the philosophy promulgated in Greece.
Why would the Greeks, Romans and their spiritual ancestors, the Egyptians, Babylonians and Assyrians, have wanted so very much to believe the universe is just a mechanism, and there is no such thing as "good" and "evil?"
Just read the mythology -- how their gods handled power and personal relationships (seduction but never romance.) Those powerful, unseen, Evil Entities who diced with human lives and had to be appeased with offerings are the contents of that "seething cauldron of Evil." They became the symbol of "Evil" because they had immense power over mortals, but no love for us.
Can't you see why the Greek Natural Philosophers would think it would be so much nicer if those gods didn't really exist? Or didn't have all the power? Pythagoras comes to mind.
Running counter to the development of our "Natural Philosophy" called modern science there was the philosophy of the line of the Patriarch Avraham and all the cultures and religions that sprang from him.
Now I can't give a reprise of the Qabalistic view of the universe here. You can get a lot of the "real thing" on chabad.org if you want it. If you google Kabbalah and variant spellings you'll get all kinds of kooky nonsense mixed in with the version I'm talking about, so start at chabad.org .
But the essence of the notion is that the Creator of the Universe not only Created the world -- but continues to do so moment to moment.
Existence itself is sustained by the deliberate application of Divine Will. Every single moment and every single event in your very personal life is a miracle. All of this is a Word being spoken by the Creator RIGHT NOW. And it's a song of love.
The essence of Qabalah lies within its notion of the purpose of human existence, the purpose of Life.
The premise is that all souls were created at the moment of creation -- there are no newer souls (unlike some other esoteric traditions). Souls reincarnate enough times to master all 613 Commandments in the first 5 Books Of Moses (the first 5 books of the Bible).
The purpose of mastering the Commandments is to use them to uncover the sparks of Godliness hidden within all the elements of our material reality.
The Creator Created the world twice (this is described in Genesis). The first time the blast of the pure essence of this Divine Being shattered the vessels that held creation. The pieces flew apart and fell "down" -- chaos -- the second time, we got Creation as we know it today.
But the Divine sparks of pure good attract the flotsam of the shattered vessels and become encrusted with this dross. The dross isn't Evil and it isn't bad, it's also a result of Creation and exists by the Will of the Divine which is Good and basically pure Love.
Our job is NOT to "battle evil" or to cram it back down under the thin crust of good, because there really is no such thing as "Evil" -- there is only this icky dross clinging to and smothering the light of Goodness.
Our task is not to destroy that dross but to TRANSFORM IT INTO GOOD --to peel away the dross and uncover the gold within and send those golden sparks of divine substance winging back upward, and thus elevate the dross.
The idea is to uncover the hidden goodness within every individual and situation and to elevate the not-so-good to be better. Life is not a punishment detail -- it's what our souls were created for.
We're designed for this world and this job. So it's FUN. It's joy in its purest form to find goodness and unleash it. (classic Romance writing lesson: what does she see in him? How do you know it's "love?" -- answer: each brings out the best in the other's personality.)
Philosophically, the Qabalistic notion has battled the two other notions down through the ages with first one then the other predominating.
So there are 3 major philosophies extant today (plus a zillion smaller ones).
The "seething cauldron" model of reality. The "just a mechanism" model of reality. And the "big mess to clean up" Qabalah model of reality. (the process of cleaning up that mess is called Tikun Olam, fixing the world. You do it by love, not combat.)
Everyone HAS a philosophy, though very few know what their own philsophy is, and most deny having one at all. But it's like breath - you can't live without it.
They say "there's no accounting for taste" but that's not true. Your "taste" comes from your philosophy which resides in your subconscious and jerks your life around unbeknownst to you -- i.e. creates such things as "love at first sight".
The "taste" for the Harry Potter tale wrapped in its FIGHT AGAINST EVIL is caused by the philosophy that the world REALLY IS a thin crust over a seething cauldron of Evil and all we can do is fight or run screaming.
I saw an interview on TV with people standing in line to get the last Potter book, and one young girl in costume told the camera "yes, magic is real" (and from the tone of voice it was clear she didn't mean that metaphorically - we're talking 12 year old girl here).
Something in our current civilization has convinced a huge number of people that Evil is real and the only righteous response to Evil is to Fight it.
And thus Harry Potter is a Hero to young children who have imbibed this subconscious assumption from parents, friends, teachers, books, movies, films, DVDs, and GAMES, maybe past lives too.
I mentioned "love at first sight" -- there is (in the magical view of the universe) a certain reality to the "recognition" and "attraction" to things and people from past lives -- and who represent a subconsciously held highest aspiration.
The world today is very much like Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover -- the world where there is an intransigent war between the technological civilization from Earth and the indigenous ESP based civilization of the planet Darkover. That war is on moral grounds.
Today we "believe in science" and look to our labs to produce solutions to every ill if we only throw enough money at them. But something inside says "no, that's not the whole truth" -- or "Wait! There's More! If you phone right now - " --
People reach back into prior lives (maybe from Atlantean times?) and find the dim etching of an almost memory of the Magical View of the universe -- and they want that view to be true.
Remember, in my blog entry about the Robert Heinlein Centennial, I said I learned that Heinlein had held memories of past lives even into his teens. It is common for young children of the Potter reading demographic to have echoing memories of past lives -- lived in a time when Magic was considered "real."
But that view of the universe also scares people terribly -- because in Greece and Rome, the most power over "reality" was wielded by insane entities called gods who did not know how to love.
Most of the people who are trying to learn Qabalah today don't understand the thousands of years of history that spawned these 3 major philosophies.
So they look at the world, see really BAD stuff all around, and accept the explanation that Evil has to be Fought. (to me that's like cutting starfish in half to get rid of them).
They want Magic to be REAL, so they can have a tool to Fight Evil (because Science can't Fight Evil, because Evil doesn't exist in the scientific view of the universe).
It appears, in our modern universe, those are your only choices, fight evil, condone it or foster it by ignoring its existence. (Qabalah teaches a fourth approach to the problem.)
So Harry Potter as an adult now becomes a really sexy attraction because he has acquired the Power to Fight Evil! He's become our Protector. And from the scientific view of reality, he truly is "alien" because of that Power -- and science is losing the battle against Evil because Science doesn't know it's in a battle.
You shouldn't have any trouble googling up some hot-sweaty-sexy Harry Potter fanfic on the web. Look it over and think about what these people are really writing about in their own lives. Then think about other ways to parse the problem so it can be solved.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Monday, July 23, 2007
A little this, a little that…
WHERE I WAS LAST MONDAY… thanks to those of you who emailed asking where my Monday blog was last week. I was flat on my back with a bad head cold, which I (and evidently a bunch of others) caught (or shared) at RWA National in Dallas, TX. Nyquil does have amazing restorative properties but it tends to knock me out cold. Monday (and a ton of laundry) slipped by whilst I snoozed.
WHAT I READ ON THE FLIGHT…a screenwriting book I bought at RWA National. Not that I have an interest in writing a play but I’ve long heard screenwriting how-tos are good for a novelist’s soul. This one had a cat on the cover so I bought it (if you don’t understand why then you’ve never read my books, been to my site or read this blog before). It’s called SAVE THE CAT!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder. It’s less a how-to on screenwriting craft and more of a what to think about when writing and pitching your story (in any form). I’m discussing my take on the book on my Yahoo Group right now, so if you’re read it and want to comment, do join (gee, ain’t I sneaky?)! Go HERE to join my Yahoo Group. By so doing you not only get to fling your opinions on the book onto the loop but you’ll have access to all kinds of goodies, from sneak peeks of my upcoming novels (yes, more than what’s on my site) to the ORIGINAL VERSIONS of my older books (yep, the ones that go for huge bucks on eBay). Sometimes the group goes high volume on posts so digest is recommended for those of you (like me) who are perpetually on deadline.
I’M BEGINNING TO FEEL LIKE MY MIDDLE NAME IS “IN TRANSIT”… In April I was in Houston for the RT conference.
WHAT I READ ON THE FLIGHT…a screenwriting book I bought at RWA National. Not that I have an interest in writing a play but I’ve long heard screenwriting how-tos are good for a novelist’s soul. This one had a cat on the cover so I bought it (if you don’t understand why then you’ve never read my books, been to my site or read this blog before). It’s called SAVE THE CAT!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder. It’s less a how-to on screenwriting craft and more of a what to think about when writing and pitching your story (in any form). I’m discussing my take on the book on my Yahoo Group right now, so if you’re read it and want to comment, do join (gee, ain’t I sneaky?)! Go HERE to join my Yahoo Group. By so doing you not only get to fling your opinions on the book onto the loop but you’ll have access to all kinds of goodies, from sneak peeks of my upcoming novels (yes, more than what’s on my site) to the ORIGINAL VERSIONS of my older books (yep, the ones that go for huge bucks on eBay). Sometimes the group goes high volume on posts so digest is recommended for those of you (like me) who are perpetually on deadline.
I’M BEGINNING TO FEEL LIKE MY MIDDLE NAME IS “IN TRANSIT”… In April I was in Houston for the RT conference.
May was Denver and RWA’s Romancing the Rockies. June I was in Ohio (twice) for various book events and July in Dallas for RWA National.
First week of August I’m in St Louis (well, Collinsville, IL) for ARCHON, which this year is also the NASFIC site. In the midst of all that I’ve gone through edits and galley edits on THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES and am trying to write (with no rousing success yet) CHASIDAH’S CHOICE (sequel to GABRIEL’S GHOST). If you dropped me a bit of fan mail (I SO do love getting those!) and it landed on my laptop, be aware that I tend to forget laptop email when I get home to the main PC (a big honking Dell Dimension). So if you wrote me and I didn’t answer within ten days, drop me a nudging note, keeping in mind it may end up on my laptop again when I’m in ARCHON.
(Photos: LEFT: Yours truly and author Isabo Kelly at RT Houston. Note MY coffee cup is already empty... MIDDLE: My agent, Kristin Nelson with yours truly in Denver. RIGHT: RWA National, Dallas, Literary Booksigning.)
SPEAKING OF ARCHON…Here’s my schedule. If you’re in or around the St. Louis/Collinsville IL area, PLEASE come to the conf and say hi to me!
Thu, Aug 2nd, 3:00pm GC - Marquette A Do You Torture Your Characters Enough?
GC - Marquette A Do You Torture Your Characters Enough?: Carol Berg, Linnea Sinclair, Barbara Hambly, E.E. Knight, Beth Meacham, Cynthia Ward
Thu, 5:00pm GC - Ballroom D5 Let Me Hear You Whisper
GC - Ballroom D5 Let Me Hear You Whisper: Sheila Finch, Linnea Sinclair (M), John Kaufmann, Paul Chafe, David Marusek, Elonka Dunin
Fri Aug 3rd, 1:00pm HI - Ballroom B What do Aliens Mean in Popular Culture?
HI - Ballroom B What do Aliens Mean in Popular Culture?: R.M. Meluch, David Marusek, Lou Antonelli, Paul Chafe, Sheila Finch, Linnea Sinclair, Deborah Chester
Fri, 2:00pm GC - Ballroom C3 Hook 'Em Dano
GC - Ballroom C3 Hook 'Em Dano: Linnea Sinclair
Fri, 3:00pm GC - Ballroom C3 Workshop - Crossing the Genres Fantastic
GC - Ballroom C3 Workshop - Crossing the Genres Fantastic: John Dalmas, Linda Donahue, Alexis Glynn Latner, Rick Wilber, MaryJanice Davidson, Linnea Sinclair, Laurell K. Hamilton
Fri, 4:00pm GC - LaSalle Lobby (Autographs) Linnea Sinclair, Gene Wolfe, Laura Underwood, Nick Pollotta
Fri, 7:00pm GC - Ballroom C3 Which Comes First, the Plot or the World Building?
GC - Ballroom C3 Which Comes First, the Plot or the World Building?: Jean Lorrah, Linnea Sinclair, Linda Donahue, Rob Chilson, Mark Tiedemann
Fri, 11:00pm GC - Ballroom D6 Censorship Takes a Holiday
GC - Ballroom D6 Censorship Takes a Holiday: Laurell K. Hamilton, Linnea Sinclair, Alexis Glynn Latner, Daniel Kimmel, Carolyn Ives Gilman (M), Kelly McCullough
Sat, Aug 4th, 10:00am HI - Ballroom A How to Create Unforgettable Characters Workshop
HI - Ballroom A How to Create Unforgettable Characters Workshop: Carol Berg, Richard White, Joy Ward, Linnea Sinclair, Janni Lee Simner, Elizabeth Moon
Sat, 11:00am GC - LaSalle Lobby (Autographs) Barbara Hambly, Linnea Sinclair, John Dalmas, Selina Rosen
Sat, 11:00pm GC - Ballroom D5 Alien Sex - How Do They Do It?
GC - Ballroom D5 Alien Sex - How Do They Do It?: Paul Chafe, Ruth Souther, Robin W. Bailey, Richard Lee Byers, Carol Berg, Linnea Sinclair, Don Sakers
Sun, Aug. 5th 10:00am HI - Ballroom B Editing and Critical Thinking for Writers Workshop
HI - Ballroom B Editing and Critical Thinking for Writers Workshop: Alexis Glynn Latner, Linnea Sinclair, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Barri Bumgarner, Julia Mandala, Jean Lorrah, Janet Deaver-Pack, Joy Ward
Sun, 11:00am HI - Ballroom B Sleuth Facts - Real P.I. Procedures for Your Plot
HI - Ballroom B Sleuth Facts - Real P.I. Procedures for Your Plot: Linnea Sinclair, M.R. Sellars, Laurell K. Hamilton
Sun, Noon GC - Ballroom C3 Creating Convincing Characters Workshop
GC - Ballroom C3 Creating Convincing Characters Workshop: Linnea Sinclair, Carol Berg, Stacey Klemstein, Jayme Lynn Blaschke, Rachel Caine, Michael Flynn
Sun, 1:00pm HI - Ballroom A Plots that Work Workshop
HI - Ballroom A Plots that Work Workshop: Linnea Sinclair, Stacey Klemstein
Yep, you might recognize a few other names in that listing, like Jacqueline’s and Stacey’s. Oh, and Laurell K’s and…yeah, it’s quite a line-up. Keep in mind that panel structure is subject to change. This is the final schedule but from what I understand it's not really finalized. Take that as you will.
Thu, Aug 2nd, 3:00pm GC - Marquette A Do You Torture Your Characters Enough?
GC - Marquette A Do You Torture Your Characters Enough?: Carol Berg, Linnea Sinclair, Barbara Hambly, E.E. Knight, Beth Meacham, Cynthia Ward
Thu, 5:00pm GC - Ballroom D5 Let Me Hear You Whisper
GC - Ballroom D5 Let Me Hear You Whisper: Sheila Finch, Linnea Sinclair (M), John Kaufmann, Paul Chafe, David Marusek, Elonka Dunin
Fri Aug 3rd, 1:00pm HI - Ballroom B What do Aliens Mean in Popular Culture?
HI - Ballroom B What do Aliens Mean in Popular Culture?: R.M. Meluch, David Marusek, Lou Antonelli, Paul Chafe, Sheila Finch, Linnea Sinclair, Deborah Chester
Fri, 2:00pm GC - Ballroom C3 Hook 'Em Dano
GC - Ballroom C3 Hook 'Em Dano: Linnea Sinclair
Fri, 3:00pm GC - Ballroom C3 Workshop - Crossing the Genres Fantastic
GC - Ballroom C3 Workshop - Crossing the Genres Fantastic: John Dalmas, Linda Donahue, Alexis Glynn Latner, Rick Wilber, MaryJanice Davidson, Linnea Sinclair, Laurell K. Hamilton
Fri, 4:00pm GC - LaSalle Lobby (Autographs) Linnea Sinclair, Gene Wolfe, Laura Underwood, Nick Pollotta
Fri, 7:00pm GC - Ballroom C3 Which Comes First, the Plot or the World Building?
GC - Ballroom C3 Which Comes First, the Plot or the World Building?: Jean Lorrah, Linnea Sinclair, Linda Donahue, Rob Chilson, Mark Tiedemann
Fri, 11:00pm GC - Ballroom D6 Censorship Takes a Holiday
GC - Ballroom D6 Censorship Takes a Holiday: Laurell K. Hamilton, Linnea Sinclair, Alexis Glynn Latner, Daniel Kimmel, Carolyn Ives Gilman (M), Kelly McCullough
Sat, Aug 4th, 10:00am HI - Ballroom A How to Create Unforgettable Characters Workshop
HI - Ballroom A How to Create Unforgettable Characters Workshop: Carol Berg, Richard White, Joy Ward, Linnea Sinclair, Janni Lee Simner, Elizabeth Moon
Sat, 11:00am GC - LaSalle Lobby (Autographs) Barbara Hambly, Linnea Sinclair, John Dalmas, Selina Rosen
Sat, 11:00pm GC - Ballroom D5 Alien Sex - How Do They Do It?
GC - Ballroom D5 Alien Sex - How Do They Do It?: Paul Chafe, Ruth Souther, Robin W. Bailey, Richard Lee Byers, Carol Berg, Linnea Sinclair, Don Sakers
Sun, Aug. 5th 10:00am HI - Ballroom B Editing and Critical Thinking for Writers Workshop
HI - Ballroom B Editing and Critical Thinking for Writers Workshop: Alexis Glynn Latner, Linnea Sinclair, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Barri Bumgarner, Julia Mandala, Jean Lorrah, Janet Deaver-Pack, Joy Ward
Sun, 11:00am HI - Ballroom B Sleuth Facts - Real P.I. Procedures for Your Plot
HI - Ballroom B Sleuth Facts - Real P.I. Procedures for Your Plot: Linnea Sinclair, M.R. Sellars, Laurell K. Hamilton
Sun, Noon GC - Ballroom C3 Creating Convincing Characters Workshop
GC - Ballroom C3 Creating Convincing Characters Workshop: Linnea Sinclair, Carol Berg, Stacey Klemstein, Jayme Lynn Blaschke, Rachel Caine, Michael Flynn
Sun, 1:00pm HI - Ballroom A Plots that Work Workshop
HI - Ballroom A Plots that Work Workshop: Linnea Sinclair, Stacey Klemstein
Yep, you might recognize a few other names in that listing, like Jacqueline’s and Stacey’s. Oh, and Laurell K’s and…yeah, it’s quite a line-up. Keep in mind that panel structure is subject to change. This is the final schedule but from what I understand it's not really finalized. Take that as you will.
Hope to see you there (can I say, Meet Me In St. Louis?).
Hugs all, ~Linnea
Hugs all, ~Linnea
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Alien Sexuality/Writing discussion #2
Using biology and animal reproduction to design alien physical and social sexual characteristics.
a.) GENERAL OVERVIEW
I know I'm preaching to the choir here but have patience with me while I explore a few basic concepts first.
The concepts are as follows, intelligence, informed consent, rape, child abuse and bestiality. Why am I exploring these concepts first? Because we need to review the correct definitions of these terms before we jump into the area of alien sex and designing alien physical and social sexual characteristics.
Intelligence: A general mental capability that involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn. In psychology, the study of intelligence is related to the study of personality but is not the same as creativity, personality, character, or wisdom.
Informed consent: Person's agreement to allow something to happen, such as a medical procedure, that is based on full disclosure of the facts necessary to make an intelligent decision.
Rape: Rape is a crime wherein the victim is forced into sexual activity against his or her will, in particular sexual penetration. It is considered by most societies to be among the most severe crimes.
Child abuse: the physical or emotional or sexual mistreatment of children.
Bestiality: Sexual relationships between a human and a nonhuman animal. Also called zoophilia.
What separates humans from animals? Intelligence? Yes. However, if you look at the basic definition of intelligence, dogs, cats, monkeys, dolphins, human infants and children and mentally disabled humans all meet the general criteria. And don't tell me dogs and cats don't understand human speech. You know they do. Not every word but they understand enough to comprehend simple verbal commands and concepts. Chimpanzees and gorillas can be taught sign language. Animals can love. We all know that. Look at the bonds between humans and their pets. However, an animal's level of intelligence and comprehension is a lot lower than an human adult male or female. The same thing applies to human infants and children. Last, but not least, the additional factor of informed consent applies. Because the mental capacity to comprehend and verbalize consent is not present, then rape, child abuse and bestiality are the results. This includes mentally disabled adults. If their mental age is that of a young child, their ability to have informed consent is impaired and sexual contact with them is considered rape.
The majority of readers and writers have no problem with the concept of sex between a human and a shapeshifter, including while the shapeshifter is in his or her animal form. Why? Because, regardless of the physical shape or form, the shapeshifter is an adult who has the mental age and level of comprehension to give informed consent to the act of making love.
Believe it or not, Edgar Rice Burroughs delved into these topics when he created Tarzan. What is the dividing line between man and beast? There was this horror and fear involved in this story over the possibility that Tarzan was the offspring of human/ape sexual encounter. If he were, would this make Tarzan less than human? Would this make Tarzan an animal who didn't have the intellectual capacity to be human? Of course, this topic wasn't explored completely because Edgar Rice Burroughs established from the beginning that Tarzan wasn't the offspring of a human/ape sexual encounter, that Tarzan was a human infant raised by a female great ape who'd lost her own infant. He used the common knowledge and legends about different species adopting and raising infants who were not of their species.
The mythical founders of Rome, Remus and Romulus were placed in a basket after their birth and set afloat on the Tiber (note the similarity to the story of Moses). The basket came aground at the grotto Lupercal, under a fig tree called Ruminal, where the twins were found and suckled by a she-wolf, and later raised by the shepherd family of Faustulus and and his wife, Acca Larentia.
Kipling's Mowgli is another example of a human raised by animals. Historical accounts of
And, of course, all of us have read news accounts of cats adopting and suckling orphaned puppies and dogs adopting and suckling orphaned kittens.
Cross species love has been around for centuries. This ability to love and care is present across a broad spectrum of the animal kingdom. Of course, this type of love doesn't automatically equal sex.
Stories of feral children, as opposed to wolf children, have gained wider acceptance. One of the best authenticated cases is the Wild Boy of Aveyron. Discovered at about age 12 digging in a garden in the Aveyron district of France in 1800, the Wild Boy was mute, naked, and seemingly retarded. (Unlike most feral children, he did walk upright.) It was learned he'd been roaming the hills on his own for at least two years, living on handouts from obliging farmers and whatever he could steal. The boy was turned over to a determined doctor named Jean Itard who taught him to dress himself and perform simple chores. But he never learned to speak more than a couple words.
Feral children have long fascinated scientists. Apart from the sheer pathos of their stories, they raise some gut issues: how do we become human? If we fail to learn critical skills as children, is it impossible to do so later?
Most feral children have been severely stunted and remained so all their lives, suggesting that early human contact is essential to normal development. But others believe the children were retarded to start with. The child psychologist Bruno Bettleheim, perhaps not the best of sources, argued that the children were autistic, that is, severely withdrawn. Those unconvinced say no autistic or otherwise incapacitated child could survive in the wild for long.
A 1970 California case suggests the deprivation theory is closer to the mark. "Genie," a more or less normal two-year-old, was locked up by her demented father for 11 years, reducing her to a state of whimpering imbecility. Despite later training her language development never exceeded that of a 5-year-old. Being a wild child may conjure up visions of some Blue Lagoon-type idyll, but the reality is unspeakably cruel.
Love is NOT sex. Although for many adult humans, love AND sex are intertwined.
We also know that many adult humans use sex to harm others instead of using sex to express love.
Now, if we expand our definitions to include aliens, the fact that an alien has a different physical shape, that an alien has a non-human shape doesn't mean that sex between a human and alien is bestiality, does it? No, it doesn't. Why? Because the intelligence, the ability to reason and give informed consent is present.
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b.) DESIGNING ALIENS: PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Mother nature is very inventive with all of her creations in the animal kingdom. You can pick and choose any species on Earth to use as starting point to pattern your aliens.
Mammals would be the first choice, I'm assuming this is because they would be the closest physical type to humans when it comes to love and sex.
But then, when you look at mammals on Earth, there is a very wide variation, lions, tigers, wolves, bears, bats, kangaroos etc... Australian mammals have a unique place, many of them are marsupials where the female has a pouch to carry her young and nipples inside the pouch to nurse her young. Then there are the marine mammals who live totally in the and aquatic mammals who live in water and on land, such as seals, dolphins, porpoises, whales, polar bears, beavers, sea otters, manatee, walrus, the capybara (water pig), and hippopotamus.
Then there are the avian species. Winged humanoids are a common theme for SF Erotic Romances. The Fantasy theme involves angels and demons, of course.
My guess is that about 95% of Erotic Romance books, both ebook and print, that use Earth animals as a model generally go the Fantasy/magical/shapeshifting route with elves, vampires, werewolves and other were-beings. Look at Laurell K. Hamilton, Christine Feeham, Kim Harrison, Karen Chance, Mary Janice Davidson and Anne Rice as a small sample of successful vampire/were-being Romance and Erotic Romance type stories.
If you want to go the SF route, then you can either have aliens whose species evolved into beings with equal and or greater intelligence than humans or you can be looking at genetic engineering to create hybrids.
Interspecific hybrids are bred by mating two species, normally from within the same genus. The offspring display traits and characteristics of both parents. The offspring of an interspecific cross may be sterile. Sterility is often attributed to the different number of chromosomes the two species have, for example donkeys have 62 chromosomes, while horses have 64 chromosomes, and mules and hinnies have 63 chromosomes. Mules, hinnies, and other normally sterile interspecific hybrids normally cannot produce viable gametes because the extra chromosome cannot make a homologous pair at meiosis, meiosis is disrupted, and viable sperm and eggs are not formed. However, fertility in both female mules and hinnies has been reported with a donkey as the father.
If the two species are from a different genus, i.e. alien and human, then in order to procreate, the most likely scenario is in-vitro fertilization rather than natural fertilization through sexual intercourse. This is one of the reasons why I always laugh my head off at the alien kidnaps human female for reproduction through sexual intercourse. Human and ape DNA are 98% compatible but the two species cannot breed hybrid descendants naturally. Why would aliens from another star system be able to breed naturally with human females? This is impossible from a scientific point of view.
Did you know that in the early, original version of Star Trek, Spock was a test tube baby, not the result of natural procreation between a human woman and a Vulcan alien man? Later, they changed this by deciding that all of the 'alien humanoid' species in the Star Trek Universe had a common ancestor who 'seeded' all the different star systems with their DNA.
Another excellent example of stories about genetic engineering creating human/animal hybrids are Cordwainer Smith's stories about the 'underpeople'. In his stories, all the animal species were genetically enhanced with human DNA and they became human servants, i.e. 'underpeople'. Depending on what animal species you came from that initial was appended to your name. For instance, a dog/human woman was named D'Joan and a cat/human woman was named C'Mell and an elephant/human man was E'David.
www.webscription.net/chapters/1416520953/1416520953.htm?blurb
Regardless of that factor, sex isn't just for reproduction.
If you're writing Erotic Romance, the focus is going to be on sex for mutual pleasure and expression of love, not sex for the purpose of procreation. Plus, IMHO getting the heroine pregnant usually ends that story fast because diapers and middle of the night feedings are NOT sexy.
Another interesting website shows dildoes of the penis from many different animal species. A very strange but educational website, IMO.
www.furcen.org/~zetatoys/intro.html
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c.) DESIGNING ALIEN SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS
Here's an interesting piece of trivia about flamingos and flamingo reproduction. The only time that flamingos feel safe enough to have intercourse is when they are surrounded by other flamingos. In order to encourage flamingos to reproduce, zoo keepers have to place multiple mirrors in their cages to give the illusion of being surrounded by other flamingos. Imagine an alien species that can only relax enough to have sex in a public and group sex setting and would be scandalized by the concept of private, one on one monogamous sex.
Biology is important when you consider alien sex. Reproduction could be either sexual or asexual. In asexual reproduction, the parent simply splits off an identical copy or 'clone' of himself or herself. The aliens could have three sexes instead of two sexes like humans. The alien males could be the ones who carry the fetus in pouches like seahorses.
C. J. Cherryh's cat-like species in her Chanur series are aliens who have evolved from a lionlike ancestor. Their social/marriage structure consists of 'prides' where four to five females have one husband in common. When the sons reach adolescence, they are thrown out of the household and must fight and fend on their own until they can return to fight and kill a male adult and take over his 'pride'. Daughters are cherished. If you have too many sons, everyone pities you. Chanur are very proud of their ears. A common curse is to call another 'earless.'
The fascinating part about C.J.Cherryh's Chanur series is the number and variety of the alien species. She has seven alien species (counting humans) in this series. Even though the sexual aspects are not portrayed in any explicit fashion in this series, the cultural and social interactions are fascinating. I recommend this series if you want to see how she shows all the different alien cultures interacting together.
Mahendo'sat (singular mahe), black or brown primate-like creatures, human-size, very curious and political. The Mahendo'sat political system is based on the concept of Personage, a charismatic figure with a lot of social credit. (My impression of them was along the lines of bears as the model for the mahendo-sat.)
Stsho, minute, fragile, crested white beings (even their eyes are pearly white), xenophobic and non-aggressive. ( I saw the Stsho as based on moths and butterflies for their ancestral DNA.)
Tc'a-Chi
Tc'a, methane-breathing yellow five-eyed snakelike beings, and chi, yellow arthropod-like creatures.
Kif, bare-skinned, ash-black, long-snouted bipedal hunters. They are the tallest race in the Compact, slender, fast and deadly. They are strictly predators, requiring live prey; they have twin set of teeth, outer for biting and inner for chewing, and retractable claws. (Think vampire bats as their ancient ancestor)
Hani, feline-like race, maned, bearded, usually of red or tawny fur. (Physical and social structure patterned after lions.)
Knnn, the third methane breathing species, multi-legged tangles of wiry black hair, the most technologically advanced in the Compact: unlike others, they can maneuver in hyperspace and carry other ships with them. Only tc'a can communicate with them (or claim they can); the knnn are incomprehensible and therefore deemed dangerous by the other races, not to be provoked. They trade by snatching whatever they want and leaving whatever they deem sufficient as payment behind; it is an improvement over their prior habit of just taking trader ships apart.
WORLDBUILDING IN GENERAL
When you create alien cultures, you need to consider the environment that influences their culture.
The physical environment in which the species lives. Desert type planet, ocean planet, methane atmosphere planet, planet with a higher gravity than Earth. Planet with a lower gravity than Earth.
The location and nature of the race's dwellings, including the spatial relationships between those dwellings. Think about bees and how they organize their hives. Think about beavers. If the species has wings, are they a cliff-dwelling species.
Their diet, methods of obtaining and consuming food, and cultural practices regarding the preparation of meals and eating. I remember reading an early Young Adult Robert A. Heinlein story where eating in public was taboo. In order to gain respect and to be treated as equals, the humans had to insist on private, curtained individual booths where they could do their shameful eating without anyone seeing them.
Processes which the aliens use to share knowledge. The species could be telepathic. The species could be one where they have no written materials, all knowledge is transferred mind to mind.
Customs and ideas regarding death, dying, the treatment of the race's dead, and the afterlife. For my book, The Huntress, the aliens did extensive research on death and brainwave patterns and verified reincarnation.
A wonderful website you can use as a reference model when you do your basic worldbuilding is here at
www.sfwa.org/writing/worldbuilding1.htm
Last but not least, here is an excerpt from The Huntress to show you how my reptilian hero's sexual responses are triggered by scent and taste rather than by sight.
Huntress excerpt: WARNING EXPLICIT ALIEN SEXUAL CONTENT IN THIS EXCERPT
Sonia scooted back on the bed and hugged her knees. Her wet clothes had dried into dampness along the way to his room and her hair had frizzed out into a snarled mass of curls sticking to her shoulders and back.
Rulagh knelt on the edge of the bed, leaned forward and stroked her cheek with his finger. “If you’re not ssure, we can wait.”
She tilted her face into his hand and breathed in his spicy scent, a scent that had deepened into warm musk. He curved his fingers along her cheek in a gentle caress. A shiver raced down her body. She wanted to feel those fingers on her breasts, to have him touch her all over. What was it about him that made her want him so much? He had claws. She should be afraid of those claws. But she wasn’t.
His forked tongue was an important sensory part for him. He used it constantly to taste the air and her skin. Her heart stuttered in her chest. She sucked in a breath, expelled it in a long, shuddering sigh, then took his hand, pulled it to her mouth and licked the inside of his wrist in a shy caress. A combination of salt and spice tingled her tongue and sent a surge of pleasure straight to her pussy.
“Yesssss.” He seated himself beside her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her long and hard as if he wanted to devour her mouth.
The liquid warmth of his tongue made her throat ache with hunger.
When he ended the kiss and pulled away, she hissed and clung to his shirt. More! She wanted more.
Rulagh pulled her closer, rubbed his thumb over her stiff nipple under the thin cotton material of her tank top then traced the neckline. “Do you cherish this?”
She blinked. Why is he asking me this? His dark, scaled hand rested against the white fabric. “It’s just a top, nothing special.”
He flexed his fingers and extruded three-inch long razor-sharp claws. “Let me remove it for you.”
Her heart jumped into her throat. “R-remove it?”
“Like this.” He hooked his index claw in the neckline and waited.
Her face burned as if flames licked it. She wanted him more than she ever wanted anything or anyone before in her life. If she said no he’d stop, but her panties were soaked already with the juices of her arousal. She bit her lip and nodded. Her nipples swelled with anticipation.
He ripped the thin cotton apart from top to bottom and reached for her breasts. Hot, scaled skin like rawhide abraded the tender flesh. Her nipples tingled.
“May I taste them?”
The thought of his mouth upon her shuddered through her and soaked her panties even more. “Y-yes, please.”
He bent his head, closed his lips over her right nipple and suckled it with greedy, hard nips. The hot wetness of his mouth on her skin went straight to her groin like an electric shock.
He moved to her other nipple, gave it a playful nip and sucked it inside his hot mouth with his agile tongue. Ohgod. If his tongue and mouth felt that good on her breasts, how would it feel on her clit?
When Rulagh lifted his head from her breasts, her wet nipples ached for more attention. His eyes had darkened to almost pure black again. He flicked his tongue out for a split second. “Ssonia.” His hoarse whisper shifted her name into a sibilant burr that gave her goosebumps. “Your skin tastes like ssweet, iced melon.”
Her heart skipped a beat. She’d never thought about how she tasted before. Now, with him, taste had become a suddenly unique and erotic touchstone of their lovemaking.
He pushed her back onto the bed, reached behind her head and lifted her hair out of the way. His warm cinnamon musk flowed into her lungs like liquid fire. She stretched out on the sheets and opened her legs for him. Her heart slipped into the slow, hypnotic beat of anticipation.
He lifted her feet to his lap and removed her sneakers and socks. The scales on his palms tickled the soles of her feet. Her toes curled under the sensuous warmth of his gentle touch.
He moved her feet aside, bent over her body and unzipped her jeans. When he slipped his hands under the waistband of her jeans and panties to pull them down, she lifted her hips for him. He threw them on the floor, climbed on the bed and positioned himself between her wide-open legs. The spines on his scalp flared. The tips had turned dark red. Did that mean the sight of her excited him as much as he excited her? “Aren’t you going to take your pants off, too?”
Rulagh’s smile widened. He shook his head. “I haven’t finished tasting you.”
Or was there another reason why he kept his pants on? Could it be that he didn’t want her to see his cock yet? Was it scaled like the rest of his skin? What color was it?
Rulagh lowered his face to her pussy. His forked tongue dipped between the swollen lips and all conscious thought disappeared. His tongue swirled around her clit and tugged. A soft keening moan escaped from Sonia’s mouth. There wasn’t any time to think now, only react. Her hips jerked convulsively in an instinctive demand for more, more, more of his agile tongue.
“Yesss.” His voice vibrated against her skin. “Fuck my tongue. Show me how you want me to fuck you.”
The word ‘fuck’ slammed into her like a bucket of ice water. Her entire body stiffened. She sat up and pushed his head away from her crotch. Daniel used to say ‘fuck’ all the time and call her his whore. Did Rulagh think of her as a whore too?
Rulagh sat back on his heels and studied her face. “What’s wrong?”
“You said fuck.”
He cocked his head. “I care for you. I want to protect you and share pleasure with you. That’s the word they used in the holovids your father showed me. Did I use the wrong word?”
She stared at his face, at the red tipped spines rippling on his scalp. “No. It’s a correct word. I just didn’t expect you to use it. Did those holovids arouse you?”
Rulagh pursed his lips. “The images were educational.” He bent over, leaned his head closer to her body and flicked his tongue out, as if he wanted to lick her from head to toe. “They had no scent to arouse me.”
He traced a line between her breasts and down her stomach with a blunted forefinger. It left a delicious sensation, a line of fire from her breasts to the wet curls at her groin. “There was nothing for me to touch.”
He slid his finger into the moisture dripping from her crotch and inserted it deep inside her. Sonia gasped at the sudden feel of his finger inside her. He pulled it out, held it to his mouth, flicked his tongue out and slowly licked the liquid off. The spines on his head stood straight up and darkened from deep red into pure black. “The women had no taste to arouse me.”
************
Thank you. I hope these lectures help you create many wonderful aliens and stories about them.
Barbara Karmazin
www.sff.net/people/selkiewife
a.) GENERAL OVERVIEW
I know I'm preaching to the choir here but have patience with me while I explore a few basic concepts first.
The concepts are as follows, intelligence, informed consent, rape, child abuse and bestiality. Why am I exploring these concepts first? Because we need to review the correct definitions of these terms before we jump into the area of alien sex and designing alien physical and social sexual characteristics.
Intelligence: A general mental capability that involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn. In psychology, the study of intelligence is related to the study of personality but is not the same as creativity, personality, character, or wisdom.
Informed consent: Person's agreement to allow something to happen, such as a medical procedure, that is based on full disclosure of the facts necessary to make an intelligent decision.
Rape: Rape is a crime wherein the victim is forced into sexual activity against his or her will, in particular sexual penetration. It is considered by most societies to be among the most severe crimes.
Child abuse: the physical or emotional or sexual mistreatment of children.
Bestiality: Sexual relationships between a human and a nonhuman animal. Also called zoophilia.
What separates humans from animals? Intelligence? Yes. However, if you look at the basic definition of intelligence, dogs, cats, monkeys, dolphins, human infants and children and mentally disabled humans all meet the general criteria. And don't tell me dogs and cats don't understand human speech. You know they do. Not every word but they understand enough to comprehend simple verbal commands and concepts. Chimpanzees and gorillas can be taught sign language. Animals can love. We all know that. Look at the bonds between humans and their pets. However, an animal's level of intelligence and comprehension is a lot lower than an human adult male or female. The same thing applies to human infants and children. Last, but not least, the additional factor of informed consent applies. Because the mental capacity to comprehend and verbalize consent is not present, then rape, child abuse and bestiality are the results. This includes mentally disabled adults. If their mental age is that of a young child, their ability to have informed consent is impaired and sexual contact with them is considered rape.
The majority of readers and writers have no problem with the concept of sex between a human and a shapeshifter, including while the shapeshifter is in his or her animal form. Why? Because, regardless of the physical shape or form, the shapeshifter is an adult who has the mental age and level of comprehension to give informed consent to the act of making love.
Believe it or not, Edgar Rice Burroughs delved into these topics when he created Tarzan. What is the dividing line between man and beast? There was this horror and fear involved in this story over the possibility that Tarzan was the offspring of human/ape sexual encounter. If he were, would this make Tarzan less than human? Would this make Tarzan an animal who didn't have the intellectual capacity to be human? Of course, this topic wasn't explored completely because Edgar Rice Burroughs established from the beginning that Tarzan wasn't the offspring of a human/ape sexual encounter, that Tarzan was a human infant raised by a female great ape who'd lost her own infant. He used the common knowledge and legends about different species adopting and raising infants who were not of their species.
The mythical founders of Rome, Remus and Romulus were placed in a basket after their birth and set afloat on the Tiber (note the similarity to the story of Moses). The basket came aground at the grotto Lupercal, under a fig tree called Ruminal, where the twins were found and suckled by a she-wolf, and later raised by the shepherd family of Faustulus and and his wife, Acca Larentia.
Kipling's Mowgli is another example of a human raised by animals. Historical accounts of
And, of course, all of us have read news accounts of cats adopting and suckling orphaned puppies and dogs adopting and suckling orphaned kittens.
Cross species love has been around for centuries. This ability to love and care is present across a broad spectrum of the animal kingdom. Of course, this type of love doesn't automatically equal sex.
Stories of feral children, as opposed to wolf children, have gained wider acceptance. One of the best authenticated cases is the Wild Boy of Aveyron. Discovered at about age 12 digging in a garden in the Aveyron district of France in 1800, the Wild Boy was mute, naked, and seemingly retarded. (Unlike most feral children, he did walk upright.) It was learned he'd been roaming the hills on his own for at least two years, living on handouts from obliging farmers and whatever he could steal. The boy was turned over to a determined doctor named Jean Itard who taught him to dress himself and perform simple chores. But he never learned to speak more than a couple words.
Feral children have long fascinated scientists. Apart from the sheer pathos of their stories, they raise some gut issues: how do we become human? If we fail to learn critical skills as children, is it impossible to do so later?
Most feral children have been severely stunted and remained so all their lives, suggesting that early human contact is essential to normal development. But others believe the children were retarded to start with. The child psychologist Bruno Bettleheim, perhaps not the best of sources, argued that the children were autistic, that is, severely withdrawn. Those unconvinced say no autistic or otherwise incapacitated child could survive in the wild for long.
A 1970 California case suggests the deprivation theory is closer to the mark. "Genie," a more or less normal two-year-old, was locked up by her demented father for 11 years, reducing her to a state of whimpering imbecility. Despite later training her language development never exceeded that of a 5-year-old. Being a wild child may conjure up visions of some Blue Lagoon-type idyll, but the reality is unspeakably cruel.
Love is NOT sex. Although for many adult humans, love AND sex are intertwined.
We also know that many adult humans use sex to harm others instead of using sex to express love.
Now, if we expand our definitions to include aliens, the fact that an alien has a different physical shape, that an alien has a non-human shape doesn't mean that sex between a human and alien is bestiality, does it? No, it doesn't. Why? Because the intelligence, the ability to reason and give informed consent is present.
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b.) DESIGNING ALIENS: PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Mother nature is very inventive with all of her creations in the animal kingdom. You can pick and choose any species on Earth to use as starting point to pattern your aliens.
Mammals would be the first choice, I'm assuming this is because they would be the closest physical type to humans when it comes to love and sex.
But then, when you look at mammals on Earth, there is a very wide variation, lions, tigers, wolves, bears, bats, kangaroos etc... Australian mammals have a unique place, many of them are marsupials where the female has a pouch to carry her young and nipples inside the pouch to nurse her young. Then there are the marine mammals who live totally in the and aquatic mammals who live in water and on land, such as seals, dolphins, porpoises, whales, polar bears, beavers, sea otters, manatee, walrus, the capybara (water pig), and hippopotamus.
Then there are the avian species. Winged humanoids are a common theme for SF Erotic Romances. The Fantasy theme involves angels and demons, of course.
My guess is that about 95% of Erotic Romance books, both ebook and print, that use Earth animals as a model generally go the Fantasy/magical/shapeshifting route with elves, vampires, werewolves and other were-beings. Look at Laurell K. Hamilton, Christine Feeham, Kim Harrison, Karen Chance, Mary Janice Davidson and Anne Rice as a small sample of successful vampire/were-being Romance and Erotic Romance type stories.
If you want to go the SF route, then you can either have aliens whose species evolved into beings with equal and or greater intelligence than humans or you can be looking at genetic engineering to create hybrids.
Interspecific hybrids are bred by mating two species, normally from within the same genus. The offspring display traits and characteristics of both parents. The offspring of an interspecific cross may be sterile. Sterility is often attributed to the different number of chromosomes the two species have, for example donkeys have 62 chromosomes, while horses have 64 chromosomes, and mules and hinnies have 63 chromosomes. Mules, hinnies, and other normally sterile interspecific hybrids normally cannot produce viable gametes because the extra chromosome cannot make a homologous pair at meiosis, meiosis is disrupted, and viable sperm and eggs are not formed. However, fertility in both female mules and hinnies has been reported with a donkey as the father.
If the two species are from a different genus, i.e. alien and human, then in order to procreate, the most likely scenario is in-vitro fertilization rather than natural fertilization through sexual intercourse. This is one of the reasons why I always laugh my head off at the alien kidnaps human female for reproduction through sexual intercourse. Human and ape DNA are 98% compatible but the two species cannot breed hybrid descendants naturally. Why would aliens from another star system be able to breed naturally with human females? This is impossible from a scientific point of view.
Did you know that in the early, original version of Star Trek, Spock was a test tube baby, not the result of natural procreation between a human woman and a Vulcan alien man? Later, they changed this by deciding that all of the 'alien humanoid' species in the Star Trek Universe had a common ancestor who 'seeded' all the different star systems with their DNA.
Another excellent example of stories about genetic engineering creating human/animal hybrids are Cordwainer Smith's stories about the 'underpeople'. In his stories, all the animal species were genetically enhanced with human DNA and they became human servants, i.e. 'underpeople'. Depending on what animal species you came from that initial was appended to your name. For instance, a dog/human woman was named D'Joan and a cat/human woman was named C'Mell and an elephant/human man was E'David.
www.webscription.net/chapters/1416520953/1416520953.htm?blurb
Regardless of that factor, sex isn't just for reproduction.
If you're writing Erotic Romance, the focus is going to be on sex for mutual pleasure and expression of love, not sex for the purpose of procreation. Plus, IMHO getting the heroine pregnant usually ends that story fast because diapers and middle of the night feedings are NOT sexy.
Another interesting website shows dildoes of the penis from many different animal species. A very strange but educational website, IMO.
www.furcen.org/~zetatoys/intro.html
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c.) DESIGNING ALIEN SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS
Here's an interesting piece of trivia about flamingos and flamingo reproduction. The only time that flamingos feel safe enough to have intercourse is when they are surrounded by other flamingos. In order to encourage flamingos to reproduce, zoo keepers have to place multiple mirrors in their cages to give the illusion of being surrounded by other flamingos. Imagine an alien species that can only relax enough to have sex in a public and group sex setting and would be scandalized by the concept of private, one on one monogamous sex.
Biology is important when you consider alien sex. Reproduction could be either sexual or asexual. In asexual reproduction, the parent simply splits off an identical copy or 'clone' of himself or herself. The aliens could have three sexes instead of two sexes like humans. The alien males could be the ones who carry the fetus in pouches like seahorses.
C. J. Cherryh's cat-like species in her Chanur series are aliens who have evolved from a lionlike ancestor. Their social/marriage structure consists of 'prides' where four to five females have one husband in common. When the sons reach adolescence, they are thrown out of the household and must fight and fend on their own until they can return to fight and kill a male adult and take over his 'pride'. Daughters are cherished. If you have too many sons, everyone pities you. Chanur are very proud of their ears. A common curse is to call another 'earless.'
The fascinating part about C.J.Cherryh's Chanur series is the number and variety of the alien species. She has seven alien species (counting humans) in this series. Even though the sexual aspects are not portrayed in any explicit fashion in this series, the cultural and social interactions are fascinating. I recommend this series if you want to see how she shows all the different alien cultures interacting together.
Mahendo'sat (singular mahe), black or brown primate-like creatures, human-size, very curious and political. The Mahendo'sat political system is based on the concept of Personage, a charismatic figure with a lot of social credit. (My impression of them was along the lines of bears as the model for the mahendo-sat.)
Stsho, minute, fragile, crested white beings (even their eyes are pearly white), xenophobic and non-aggressive. ( I saw the Stsho as based on moths and butterflies for their ancestral DNA.)
Tc'a-Chi
Tc'a, methane-breathing yellow five-eyed snakelike beings, and chi, yellow arthropod-like creatures.
Kif, bare-skinned, ash-black, long-snouted bipedal hunters. They are the tallest race in the Compact, slender, fast and deadly. They are strictly predators, requiring live prey; they have twin set of teeth, outer for biting and inner for chewing, and retractable claws. (Think vampire bats as their ancient ancestor)
Hani, feline-like race, maned, bearded, usually of red or tawny fur. (Physical and social structure patterned after lions.)
Knnn, the third methane breathing species, multi-legged tangles of wiry black hair, the most technologically advanced in the Compact: unlike others, they can maneuver in hyperspace and carry other ships with them. Only tc'a can communicate with them (or claim they can); the knnn are incomprehensible and therefore deemed dangerous by the other races, not to be provoked. They trade by snatching whatever they want and leaving whatever they deem sufficient as payment behind; it is an improvement over their prior habit of just taking trader ships apart.
WORLDBUILDING IN GENERAL
When you create alien cultures, you need to consider the environment that influences their culture.
The physical environment in which the species lives. Desert type planet, ocean planet, methane atmosphere planet, planet with a higher gravity than Earth. Planet with a lower gravity than Earth.
The location and nature of the race's dwellings, including the spatial relationships between those dwellings. Think about bees and how they organize their hives. Think about beavers. If the species has wings, are they a cliff-dwelling species.
Their diet, methods of obtaining and consuming food, and cultural practices regarding the preparation of meals and eating. I remember reading an early Young Adult Robert A. Heinlein story where eating in public was taboo. In order to gain respect and to be treated as equals, the humans had to insist on private, curtained individual booths where they could do their shameful eating without anyone seeing them.
Processes which the aliens use to share knowledge. The species could be telepathic. The species could be one where they have no written materials, all knowledge is transferred mind to mind.
Customs and ideas regarding death, dying, the treatment of the race's dead, and the afterlife. For my book, The Huntress, the aliens did extensive research on death and brainwave patterns and verified reincarnation.
A wonderful website you can use as a reference model when you do your basic worldbuilding is here at
www.sfwa.org/writing/worldbuilding1.htm
Last but not least, here is an excerpt from The Huntress to show you how my reptilian hero's sexual responses are triggered by scent and taste rather than by sight.
Huntress excerpt: WARNING EXPLICIT ALIEN SEXUAL CONTENT IN THIS EXCERPT
Sonia scooted back on the bed and hugged her knees. Her wet clothes had dried into dampness along the way to his room and her hair had frizzed out into a snarled mass of curls sticking to her shoulders and back.
Rulagh knelt on the edge of the bed, leaned forward and stroked her cheek with his finger. “If you’re not ssure, we can wait.”
She tilted her face into his hand and breathed in his spicy scent, a scent that had deepened into warm musk. He curved his fingers along her cheek in a gentle caress. A shiver raced down her body. She wanted to feel those fingers on her breasts, to have him touch her all over. What was it about him that made her want him so much? He had claws. She should be afraid of those claws. But she wasn’t.
His forked tongue was an important sensory part for him. He used it constantly to taste the air and her skin. Her heart stuttered in her chest. She sucked in a breath, expelled it in a long, shuddering sigh, then took his hand, pulled it to her mouth and licked the inside of his wrist in a shy caress. A combination of salt and spice tingled her tongue and sent a surge of pleasure straight to her pussy.
“Yesssss.” He seated himself beside her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her long and hard as if he wanted to devour her mouth.
The liquid warmth of his tongue made her throat ache with hunger.
When he ended the kiss and pulled away, she hissed and clung to his shirt. More! She wanted more.
Rulagh pulled her closer, rubbed his thumb over her stiff nipple under the thin cotton material of her tank top then traced the neckline. “Do you cherish this?”
She blinked. Why is he asking me this? His dark, scaled hand rested against the white fabric. “It’s just a top, nothing special.”
He flexed his fingers and extruded three-inch long razor-sharp claws. “Let me remove it for you.”
Her heart jumped into her throat. “R-remove it?”
“Like this.” He hooked his index claw in the neckline and waited.
Her face burned as if flames licked it. She wanted him more than she ever wanted anything or anyone before in her life. If she said no he’d stop, but her panties were soaked already with the juices of her arousal. She bit her lip and nodded. Her nipples swelled with anticipation.
He ripped the thin cotton apart from top to bottom and reached for her breasts. Hot, scaled skin like rawhide abraded the tender flesh. Her nipples tingled.
“May I taste them?”
The thought of his mouth upon her shuddered through her and soaked her panties even more. “Y-yes, please.”
He bent his head, closed his lips over her right nipple and suckled it with greedy, hard nips. The hot wetness of his mouth on her skin went straight to her groin like an electric shock.
He moved to her other nipple, gave it a playful nip and sucked it inside his hot mouth with his agile tongue. Ohgod. If his tongue and mouth felt that good on her breasts, how would it feel on her clit?
When Rulagh lifted his head from her breasts, her wet nipples ached for more attention. His eyes had darkened to almost pure black again. He flicked his tongue out for a split second. “Ssonia.” His hoarse whisper shifted her name into a sibilant burr that gave her goosebumps. “Your skin tastes like ssweet, iced melon.”
Her heart skipped a beat. She’d never thought about how she tasted before. Now, with him, taste had become a suddenly unique and erotic touchstone of their lovemaking.
He pushed her back onto the bed, reached behind her head and lifted her hair out of the way. His warm cinnamon musk flowed into her lungs like liquid fire. She stretched out on the sheets and opened her legs for him. Her heart slipped into the slow, hypnotic beat of anticipation.
He lifted her feet to his lap and removed her sneakers and socks. The scales on his palms tickled the soles of her feet. Her toes curled under the sensuous warmth of his gentle touch.
He moved her feet aside, bent over her body and unzipped her jeans. When he slipped his hands under the waistband of her jeans and panties to pull them down, she lifted her hips for him. He threw them on the floor, climbed on the bed and positioned himself between her wide-open legs. The spines on his scalp flared. The tips had turned dark red. Did that mean the sight of her excited him as much as he excited her? “Aren’t you going to take your pants off, too?”
Rulagh’s smile widened. He shook his head. “I haven’t finished tasting you.”
Or was there another reason why he kept his pants on? Could it be that he didn’t want her to see his cock yet? Was it scaled like the rest of his skin? What color was it?
Rulagh lowered his face to her pussy. His forked tongue dipped between the swollen lips and all conscious thought disappeared. His tongue swirled around her clit and tugged. A soft keening moan escaped from Sonia’s mouth. There wasn’t any time to think now, only react. Her hips jerked convulsively in an instinctive demand for more, more, more of his agile tongue.
“Yesss.” His voice vibrated against her skin. “Fuck my tongue. Show me how you want me to fuck you.”
The word ‘fuck’ slammed into her like a bucket of ice water. Her entire body stiffened. She sat up and pushed his head away from her crotch. Daniel used to say ‘fuck’ all the time and call her his whore. Did Rulagh think of her as a whore too?
Rulagh sat back on his heels and studied her face. “What’s wrong?”
“You said fuck.”
He cocked his head. “I care for you. I want to protect you and share pleasure with you. That’s the word they used in the holovids your father showed me. Did I use the wrong word?”
She stared at his face, at the red tipped spines rippling on his scalp. “No. It’s a correct word. I just didn’t expect you to use it. Did those holovids arouse you?”
Rulagh pursed his lips. “The images were educational.” He bent over, leaned his head closer to her body and flicked his tongue out, as if he wanted to lick her from head to toe. “They had no scent to arouse me.”
He traced a line between her breasts and down her stomach with a blunted forefinger. It left a delicious sensation, a line of fire from her breasts to the wet curls at her groin. “There was nothing for me to touch.”
He slid his finger into the moisture dripping from her crotch and inserted it deep inside her. Sonia gasped at the sudden feel of his finger inside her. He pulled it out, held it to his mouth, flicked his tongue out and slowly licked the liquid off. The spines on his head stood straight up and darkened from deep red into pure black. “The women had no taste to arouse me.”
************
Thank you. I hope these lectures help you create many wonderful aliens and stories about them.
Barbara Karmazin
www.sff.net/people/selkiewife
In Form
I'm not here to talk about pecs, abs, and hard bodies. I'm here in celebration of pen-pushers.
There's nothing like filling out forms to clarify the mind and build the character. I don't mean your tax returns, or those of your alien hunk, though that is an idea if I ever decide to write a high finance romance. This week --in the persona of my next alien romance hero, 'Rhett-- I'm filling out certain Ministry of Justice forms in the interests of research.
'Rhett is the "Dirty Harry" of his rogue Royal family. He's Dirty Harry with a sword... and a spade, it would seem. He knows where the bodies are buried, and he is the family trouble stabber. I'd say "trouble shooter" but he prefers to use a long, sharp weapon. Not that he fires blanks. He's as "alpha" as his cousins and half brothers.
He's the Great Djinn who likes to do the right thing.... Of course, it is debatable whether the "camisole plot" to disgrace and destroy Tarrant-Arragon (in FORCED MATE) was entirely ethical, but dirty tricks are an essential part of interstellar diplomacy.
'Rhett crossed swords, albeit verbally, with Tarrant-Arragon again in INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL. Now, he's being sent on a dangerous quest because everyone wants him out of the way. He has to extract something from Earth, and he'd prefer to do it legally.
Not salt. Not a Ring. Not a moon rock. Could be a crashed spaceship? (Or not.)
So, I have obtained lawful "extraction" forms from One Of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State in the Ministry Of Justice, and 'Rhett is endeavouring to fill them out truthfully.
Full name of applicant.
Already this is not easy. If one writes really small, one can fit seven Royal and Djinn names into the box, but should one? Selecting just three would be less startling, but if only three, which middle name should one choose?
Title.
Which one? Prince? That's bogus! Great Djinn and lesser god? True, but unwise to tell humans so. Leviathan, Saurian Knight? That would arouse suspicion. No doubt, Mr would be the stealthy choice. Sometimes an alien is obliged to lie for the protection of the person reading the form.
Full address.
One does not have a Post Code or a Zip code aboard a Gravity Class, interstellar war-star. Nor a telephone number. Perhaps 'Rhett is going to have to deliver his forms in person, wave a gentle hand like Obi-Wan Kenobi and murmur "This is plausible." However, even this humble, simple, everyday question forces an alien to decide where he will reside (officially) for the three months that it takes the British civil servants and Principal Secretaries Of State to process "extraction" paperwork.
Time to contact a builder and discover whether it is possible that the house in Cambridge that Tarrant-Arragon burned to the ground on the night of March 31st 1994 (upon the occasion of abducting Djinni-vera) could have been rebuilt. Alternatively, one would need an hotel, remembering that a three-month stay will mean that one --and one's entourage of aliens-- is exposed to the business of May Ball time.
Thereafter, the questionnaire becomes increasingly intrusive and baffling, particularly for an honest alien hunk. With a family tree as complicated as theirs. Should one list one's father's second wife's offspring as brothers, half-brothers, step-brothers, or cousins?
Would a human arrest warrant be issued for one's father, because he broke modern, Anglo-American taboos which did not apply to him, being an alien god-Prince?
And then, one comes to the requirements for the exportation of that which is to be extracted. I have to chortle as I imagine how officialdom might react if, for instance, one submitted a letter from Captain James T Kirk, attesting that the USS Enterprise had been engaged to transport the (mystery treasure) to (wherever).
As one wades through forms and questionnaires, an author --who thought she knew everything about her hero-- discovers details that might need to be filled in. I never thought I'd recommend form-filling as a profitable way to spend ones precious writing time. But I DO!
By the way, I googled "form filling". I recommend you do, too.
http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20060821/stealing-user-information-via-automatic-form-filling/
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
Insufficient Mating Material is in the UK contest
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There's nothing like filling out forms to clarify the mind and build the character. I don't mean your tax returns, or those of your alien hunk, though that is an idea if I ever decide to write a high finance romance. This week --in the persona of my next alien romance hero, 'Rhett-- I'm filling out certain Ministry of Justice forms in the interests of research.
'Rhett is the "Dirty Harry" of his rogue Royal family. He's Dirty Harry with a sword... and a spade, it would seem. He knows where the bodies are buried, and he is the family trouble stabber. I'd say "trouble shooter" but he prefers to use a long, sharp weapon. Not that he fires blanks. He's as "alpha" as his cousins and half brothers.
He's the Great Djinn who likes to do the right thing.... Of course, it is debatable whether the "camisole plot" to disgrace and destroy Tarrant-Arragon (in FORCED MATE) was entirely ethical, but dirty tricks are an essential part of interstellar diplomacy.
'Rhett crossed swords, albeit verbally, with Tarrant-Arragon again in INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL. Now, he's being sent on a dangerous quest because everyone wants him out of the way. He has to extract something from Earth, and he'd prefer to do it legally.
Not salt. Not a Ring. Not a moon rock. Could be a crashed spaceship? (Or not.)
So, I have obtained lawful "extraction" forms from One Of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State in the Ministry Of Justice, and 'Rhett is endeavouring to fill them out truthfully.
Full name of applicant.
Already this is not easy. If one writes really small, one can fit seven Royal and Djinn names into the box, but should one? Selecting just three would be less startling, but if only three, which middle name should one choose?
Title.
Which one? Prince? That's bogus! Great Djinn and lesser god? True, but unwise to tell humans so. Leviathan, Saurian Knight? That would arouse suspicion. No doubt, Mr would be the stealthy choice. Sometimes an alien is obliged to lie for the protection of the person reading the form.
Full address.
One does not have a Post Code or a Zip code aboard a Gravity Class, interstellar war-star. Nor a telephone number. Perhaps 'Rhett is going to have to deliver his forms in person, wave a gentle hand like Obi-Wan Kenobi and murmur "This is plausible." However, even this humble, simple, everyday question forces an alien to decide where he will reside (officially) for the three months that it takes the British civil servants and Principal Secretaries Of State to process "extraction" paperwork.
Time to contact a builder and discover whether it is possible that the house in Cambridge that Tarrant-Arragon burned to the ground on the night of March 31st 1994 (upon the occasion of abducting Djinni-vera) could have been rebuilt. Alternatively, one would need an hotel, remembering that a three-month stay will mean that one --and one's entourage of aliens-- is exposed to the business of May Ball time.
Thereafter, the questionnaire becomes increasingly intrusive and baffling, particularly for an honest alien hunk. With a family tree as complicated as theirs. Should one list one's father's second wife's offspring as brothers, half-brothers, step-brothers, or cousins?
Would a human arrest warrant be issued for one's father, because he broke modern, Anglo-American taboos which did not apply to him, being an alien god-Prince?
And then, one comes to the requirements for the exportation of that which is to be extracted. I have to chortle as I imagine how officialdom might react if, for instance, one submitted a letter from Captain James T Kirk, attesting that the USS Enterprise had been engaged to transport the (mystery treasure) to (wherever).
As one wades through forms and questionnaires, an author --who thought she knew everything about her hero-- discovers details that might need to be filled in. I never thought I'd recommend form-filling as a profitable way to spend ones precious writing time. But I DO!
By the way, I googled "form filling". I recommend you do, too.
http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20060821/stealing-user-information-via-automatic-form-filling/
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
Insufficient Mating Material is in the UK contest
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Thursday, July 19, 2007
We interrupt your regularly scheduled post
Just back from RWA where I was totally surprised to win the Prism for best Futuristic of 2006 for SHOOTING STAR! Woohoo! I was totally blown away when they announced my name since I was up against really stiff competition Susan Grant and Liz Maverick. So now I'm an award winning author and I'm reaaly excited about the release of Star Shadows coming in November.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Silly Season
Folks:
Well, here we are in the "silly season" -- and I just saw on TV a whole long feature on the "news" about UFO's! (Yeah, Roswell 60th anniversary, Buzz Aldrin's orbital sighting, the whole nine yards!)
Meanwhile, I had a run-in with the Medical Establishment. I have a very good doctor in a great group-practice. They have electronic records and state-of-the-art everything. But their front desk that does appointments is of a different order of being.
I had an appointment to have several routine screenings done -- so I finish the first part and go back to the desk, and they say "come back tomorrow".
I just moved heaven and earth to clear 4 hours for their convenience and they want me to come back tomorrow? Like I have nothing to do but dance to their drumbeat?
I said, loudly so everyone in the waiting room could hear, "Maybe I should get another doctor? When I miss an appointment, I have to pay a cash penalty. What do you pay me when YOU miss an appointment?" I said waving the letter they sent me demanding 4 hours of my time as if it were worthless.
I haven't seen Morehouse's film SICKO and I don't intend to. I have enough real-life experiences, thank-you.
Well, I got very loud and assertive -- and guess what? They had people standing around in back ready to run those tests and nobody in line!
So I got all my testing done.
Meanwhile, my husband had a run-in with the post office. One phone call to the Post Master revealed a new Post Man creed. It turns out that they now deliver the mail only if it's convenient for them.
If they're understaffed because of vacation or illness, they just skip some houses. If there's too much mail to sort, they just don't bother to do it all that day. This was said to him to explain why our grocery store flyers don't get delivered when they should even though the stores have mailed them on time. (also another local paper we subscribe to mails the issue -- but the post office can't be bothered to deliver.)
It's summer. Humanity estavates? Silliness erupts and takes over? Brains take a vacation?
I just met a new neighbor around the corner from me. Moved in last week. He was fixing a sprinkler pipe on the outside of his fence. Guess what? The real estate agent who sold him the house neglected to mention HE is responsible for the bushes and watering system between his fence and the sidewalk.
So I walked home thinking, "It's not just me!" It's not that somehow, suddenly I do everything wrong. There's something ELSE going on here.
It's the "Twilight Zone" feeling -- I don't recognize the world I live in.
Then I saw an episode of PAINKILLER JANE. (it's not a bad show -- on Sci Fi channel, and an original of theirs) In this episode a whole small town was under the mind-control of a "neuro" (the psychically talented people Jane's group hunts down and neutralizes by forcibly inserting a computer chip into them). The town was peaceful, happy, non-contentious, 0 crime rate, 0 homeless and so on. The picture perfect existence. (reminded me of a Star Trek episode where the whole planet was "happy" under a computer mind-controller.)
It was Jane's group that had to go to the mat (they actually lost a regular; killed her off!) to restore the town to it's "normal" degree of nastiness!
And I just read an article on how the American public seems finally to be sick of blood-on-the-walls movies!
Hollywood, movie fans shy away from "torture porn"
By Bob Tourtellotte Fri Jul 13, 4:19 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Torture, it seems, doesn't pay at movie theater box offices like it used to.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070713/media_nm/horror_dc_1;_ylt=AsLWhhTjLmr93Gg9Zuc2DVQE1vAI
Today, I'm into setting up schedules and meetings at NASFIC.
Jean Lorrah and I are collaborating (yes, again!) on a new story, and we plan to workshop on it at the convention called NasFic (North American Science Fiction Convention) that replaces the World Science Fiction Convention when the Worldcon is elsewhere. This year WorldCon is in Japan (Jean's going and is on the program there). And this year NasFic is in St. Louis -- and on a really odd date (beginning of August instead of Labor Day weekend.)
Websites:
http://www.nasfic.org/ is the index page for NasFics -- this year's is ARCHON which is also known as TUCKERCON in honor of the famous SF writer and fan Wilson Tucker.
http://www.archonstl.org/31/index2.html is ARCHON
WorldCon index page is
http://www.worldcon.org/
To add to this "silly" mixture, I just finished reading Charlaine Harris's ALL TOGETHER DEAD - where she kills off a whole bunch of vampires and immerses us in vampire politics to the eyebrows. She's got a good series going there -- Sookie Stackhouse is a charming character who doesn't do much of anything except read minds and shrewdly apply what she learns.
In this one she meets a fellow telepath-human and they team up but they don't actually get along too well. She can't read vampire minds, though and that causes some complications.
And now I'm reading an e-book in the HOUSE OF THE ROSE series from awe-struck e-books (http://www.awe-struck.net/) (a historical vampire-rewritten gods-n-goddesses series). I do highly recommend this series -- it's kind of like Dark Soap Opera -- black-suds? All these immortals playing tricks on each other and trying to steal memories.
Here we have two characters, once male-and-female spouses, now reborn as both male, and one is freaked because "he" was a Knight Templar straight-arrow in this life before becoming a vampire.
I saw the new Harry Potter film (Order of the Phoenix). I noted the audience was utterly silent - no laughs, no gasps. The Potter theaters in the complex were not sold out, but TRANSFORMERS was sold out. Potter grossed more than other films that weekend.
Potter has a "parallel world" online -- check out this article:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070717/tc_nm/arts_potter_internet_dc_1;_ylt=ArIU_GfXZV26BuNeM8AdKTIE1vAI
The mall was stuffed to overflowing and the theater complex was busier than usual on a Sunday afternoon but the Mall was fuller than the theaters. I don't see such crowds except at Christmas Shopping time - no parking places. Big sales, and a little "back to school" new stuff -- but not enough to account for that mob even on a 114 degree heat Sunday.
All this very "silly" mixture will no doubt color and "inform" the Sime~Gen story I'm working on with Jean!
The point of all this? There isn't one! Which is the point. This is the sort of "input" I gulp down all the time, and every once in a while it arranges itself into something that makes sense. This week - I don't see the connecting thread. Maybe you do?
The rest is left as homework for the student! (I do purely hate that phrase in textbooks!)
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Well, here we are in the "silly season" -- and I just saw on TV a whole long feature on the "news" about UFO's! (Yeah, Roswell 60th anniversary, Buzz Aldrin's orbital sighting, the whole nine yards!)
Meanwhile, I had a run-in with the Medical Establishment. I have a very good doctor in a great group-practice. They have electronic records and state-of-the-art everything. But their front desk that does appointments is of a different order of being.
I had an appointment to have several routine screenings done -- so I finish the first part and go back to the desk, and they say "come back tomorrow".
I just moved heaven and earth to clear 4 hours for their convenience and they want me to come back tomorrow? Like I have nothing to do but dance to their drumbeat?
I said, loudly so everyone in the waiting room could hear, "Maybe I should get another doctor? When I miss an appointment, I have to pay a cash penalty. What do you pay me when YOU miss an appointment?" I said waving the letter they sent me demanding 4 hours of my time as if it were worthless.
I haven't seen Morehouse's film SICKO and I don't intend to. I have enough real-life experiences, thank-you.
Well, I got very loud and assertive -- and guess what? They had people standing around in back ready to run those tests and nobody in line!
So I got all my testing done.
Meanwhile, my husband had a run-in with the post office. One phone call to the Post Master revealed a new Post Man creed. It turns out that they now deliver the mail only if it's convenient for them.
If they're understaffed because of vacation or illness, they just skip some houses. If there's too much mail to sort, they just don't bother to do it all that day. This was said to him to explain why our grocery store flyers don't get delivered when they should even though the stores have mailed them on time. (also another local paper we subscribe to mails the issue -- but the post office can't be bothered to deliver.)
It's summer. Humanity estavates? Silliness erupts and takes over? Brains take a vacation?
I just met a new neighbor around the corner from me. Moved in last week. He was fixing a sprinkler pipe on the outside of his fence. Guess what? The real estate agent who sold him the house neglected to mention HE is responsible for the bushes and watering system between his fence and the sidewalk.
So I walked home thinking, "It's not just me!" It's not that somehow, suddenly I do everything wrong. There's something ELSE going on here.
It's the "Twilight Zone" feeling -- I don't recognize the world I live in.
Then I saw an episode of PAINKILLER JANE. (it's not a bad show -- on Sci Fi channel, and an original of theirs) In this episode a whole small town was under the mind-control of a "neuro" (the psychically talented people Jane's group hunts down and neutralizes by forcibly inserting a computer chip into them). The town was peaceful, happy, non-contentious, 0 crime rate, 0 homeless and so on. The picture perfect existence. (reminded me of a Star Trek episode where the whole planet was "happy" under a computer mind-controller.)
It was Jane's group that had to go to the mat (they actually lost a regular; killed her off!) to restore the town to it's "normal" degree of nastiness!
And I just read an article on how the American public seems finally to be sick of blood-on-the-walls movies!
Hollywood, movie fans shy away from "torture porn"
By Bob Tourtellotte Fri Jul 13, 4:19 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Torture, it seems, doesn't pay at movie theater box offices like it used to.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070713/media_nm/horror_dc_1;_ylt=AsLWhhTjLmr93Gg9Zuc2DVQE1vAI
Today, I'm into setting up schedules and meetings at NASFIC.
Jean Lorrah and I are collaborating (yes, again!) on a new story, and we plan to workshop on it at the convention called NasFic (North American Science Fiction Convention) that replaces the World Science Fiction Convention when the Worldcon is elsewhere. This year WorldCon is in Japan (Jean's going and is on the program there). And this year NasFic is in St. Louis -- and on a really odd date (beginning of August instead of Labor Day weekend.)
Websites:
http://www.nasfic.org/ is the index page for NasFics -- this year's is ARCHON which is also known as TUCKERCON in honor of the famous SF writer and fan Wilson Tucker.
http://www.archonstl.org/31/index2.html is ARCHON
WorldCon index page is
http://www.worldcon.org/
To add to this "silly" mixture, I just finished reading Charlaine Harris's ALL TOGETHER DEAD - where she kills off a whole bunch of vampires and immerses us in vampire politics to the eyebrows. She's got a good series going there -- Sookie Stackhouse is a charming character who doesn't do much of anything except read minds and shrewdly apply what she learns.
In this one she meets a fellow telepath-human and they team up but they don't actually get along too well. She can't read vampire minds, though and that causes some complications.
And now I'm reading an e-book in the HOUSE OF THE ROSE series from awe-struck e-books (http://www.awe-struck.net/) (a historical vampire-rewritten gods-n-goddesses series). I do highly recommend this series -- it's kind of like Dark Soap Opera -- black-suds? All these immortals playing tricks on each other and trying to steal memories.
Here we have two characters, once male-and-female spouses, now reborn as both male, and one is freaked because "he" was a Knight Templar straight-arrow in this life before becoming a vampire.
I saw the new Harry Potter film (Order of the Phoenix). I noted the audience was utterly silent - no laughs, no gasps. The Potter theaters in the complex were not sold out, but TRANSFORMERS was sold out. Potter grossed more than other films that weekend.
Potter has a "parallel world" online -- check out this article:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070717/tc_nm/arts_potter_internet_dc_1;_ylt=ArIU_GfXZV26BuNeM8AdKTIE1vAI
The mall was stuffed to overflowing and the theater complex was busier than usual on a Sunday afternoon but the Mall was fuller than the theaters. I don't see such crowds except at Christmas Shopping time - no parking places. Big sales, and a little "back to school" new stuff -- but not enough to account for that mob even on a 114 degree heat Sunday.
All this very "silly" mixture will no doubt color and "inform" the Sime~Gen story I'm working on with Jean!
The point of all this? There isn't one! Which is the point. This is the sort of "input" I gulp down all the time, and every once in a while it arranges itself into something that makes sense. This week - I don't see the connecting thread. Maybe you do?
The rest is left as homework for the student! (I do purely hate that phrase in textbooks!)
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Alien Romance and More (Craft and Inspiration)
Alien Romance and sexuality encompasses a vast array of possibilities. The first things you need to do is decide your alien's home planet, cultural matrix and general physical characteristics. I generally create a "notes" file for each of my stories where I brainstorm and research as much information as I can before I even start writing the first chapter.
In the "notes" file, I list all the character names, alien and human, personalities, ages and general physical characteristics of the alien. If the story location is in a different city, time period, planet, space station or star system, I also research as much information as I can about that location so I can build upon it to create a plausible background reality for the story and for my aliens.
Our own animal kingdom is a good place to find information and ideas for aliens. For example, when I wrote The Huntress, I wanted to write about a vampire legend that was non-European. Mama Zuca told me about the Hispanic legends about chupacabras or "goatsuckers" which are said to be killing farm animals by draining their bodies of blood.
http://skepdic.com/chupa.html
http://www.qsl.net/w5www/chupacabra.html
http://www.alienbaby.com/chupa.html
http://paranormal.about.com/cs/chupacabra/
So, I did an internet search on chupacabras and learned that the first sightings were back in 1952 along with the UFO sightings. Of course, because SF is my first love, I did a "what if" using a more factual and science-based premise. I said, "What if the chupacabras are the feral descendants of vampiric alien pets left behind by UFO tourists." Picture a pack of pit bulls left behind on an alien planet and the ecological repercussions of their feral descendants terrorizing the local inhabitants eighty years later. The next logical step was to postulate an alien bureaucracy. What if there's an Interstellar Humane Society?
Every bureaucracy has tons of paperwork and records. I know. I worked for 29 & 1/2 years as a bilingual social worker for the Pennsylvania Welfare Office. Blech. Talk about a high stress and mind-numbing job.
On Earth, we're mammals and the majority of our pets are mammals. The chupacabras are supposed to be an combination of reptiles and mammals. Extrapolating from that, I decided that the alien owners of the chupacabras were also a combination of reptilies and mammals. Plus, I already knew from my college anthropology courses that per evolutionary theory, millions of years ago, mammals and reptiles were one species that divided into two separate species. From that bit of knowledge it didn't take a very large jump to decide that the aliens for The Huntress never evolved into two separate species of reptiles and mammals but continued as a combination of both species.
From there I researched reptilian reproduction and learned that reptiles are a scent-based species who use their tongues to taste odors. I learned that iguanas are able to smell when their zookeepers are in their fertile time and these iguanas will then behavior courteously towards those zookeepers. I also learned that many reptilian species have a hemepene. Wow! Needless to say, from these bits of factual information, I was able to develop a unique story idea and alien species for The Huntress.
Where do I find story ideas? Many of my story ideas I find by perusing SF art work.
For one of my Erotic SF stories, this one published by Loose Id Books, On The Edge of Time, I created a different type of alien reptilian shapeshifters. The initial idea for this story came from a Boris Vallejo image showing a man's torso with a living snake tattoo on his arm.
I decided that the type of space travel in On The Edge of Time would be through wrymhole space and that in wyrmhole space, this species of aliens had their full shape-shifting abilities but outside of wyrmhole space, they needed a host body to survive as a living tattoo on that host body. I also decided to add another twist to the story. Reptiles lay eggs. They don't have live births. I decided that my alien species in this story lays their eggs inside the male host body. I had tons of fun getting the hero pregnant in that story. LOL.
GENERAL RESEARCH SITES FOR ALIEN BIOLOGY
One fertile area for research for alien story ideas is to look at folklore and apply a factual answer for the magic of those folklore stories instead of fantasy answer like I did with the chupacabra legends for The Huntress. For my Sidhe series, Covenants, Down Came a Blackbird and Out of the Dark, I looked at the Celtic legends about the Elves and applied a SF rather than a Fantasy explanation. I decided that the Sidhe were an extraterrestrial species whose home planet became the asteroid belt in our solar system and whose foremothers migrated to Earth when this happened. Of course, their advanced technology was mistaken by humans for "magic". I then applied science based explanations for their magic. For the selkieskins, I decided the selkieskins were bioengineered symbiotes used by the Sidhe as spacesuits and/or deep sea diving suits. Nuada of the Silver Hand is another Celtic legend. In that tale, after his hand was cut off in battle, the Sidhe smith crafted a silver hand for him that acted like a real hand. Sounds like our modern day prosthesis, doesn't it?
Here's a website with links to folklore from every country on Earth at http://www.cbel.com/folklore_tales/
SF images are another great place to find inspiration for your stories. Here are a few websites I recommend.
Boris Vallejo's artwork at http://maniera.wbp.zabrze.pl/foto/vallejo/page_26.htm
Luis Rojo's artwork at http://www.jormungand.de/index.htm, click on the links for the different "rooms" to see his artwork there.
BOOKS for research on aliens.
SF books are my first choice for getting ideas about aliens. Why? Because most SF books have already researched their aliens properly. Of course, they also have a tendency to skim over the sex part in their books. No problem. I can still use these books for basic background information and add sex later. LOL.
C. J. Cherryh is an anthropologist who write excellent aliens and alien cultures. http://www.cherryh.com/
I recommend her Chanur and Foreigner Series. http://www.cherryh.com/www/univer.htm#Chanur
If anyone is interested in reading the Chanur or Foreigner Series, I can lend you those books. All you have to do is mail them back to me when you're finished reading them.
For Space Opera type SF and aliens, I recommend Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Liaden Universe books.
http://www.korval.com/liad.htm Sharon and Steve are a husband and wife team who have crafted a remarkable series of SF Romance stories. (Not enough sex for me, of course, but the Romances are fabulous and give me ideas to build my own stories.) If you scroll down toward the middle of the website, you can find links to sample chapters online for their books. You have to scroll down past the bibliography to find the links to the sample chapters like this link to The Tomorrow Log. http://www.korval.com/ttl1.html
Again, I have copies of their books that I can loan out to anyone who's interested in reading them. All I ask is that you mail them back to me after you've finished reading them.
If you want to write Space War/Space Station type stories, I recommend Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War and Serrano legacy books. http://www.sff.net/people/Elizabeth.Moon/biblio.htm Elizabeth Moon is ex-military and applies her knowledge to her stories.
Of course, I recommend my books at www.sff.net/people/selkiewife too. Why? Because in addition to creating plausible SF for my books, I also include the kind of Explicit Sex that you won't find in the mainstream SF books that I'm recommending. That's one of the main reasons why I started writing Erotic SF, I got tired of wonderful SF alien stories where they skimmed over the sex parts. I wanted it ALL. I wanted great SF action adventure and sex in the same story. What's with mainstream SF where they will boldly go where no one has gone before but they can't go into the bedroom?
Mind you, mainstream fiction is willing to go into the bedroom when it comes to Fantasy type creatures like werewolves and vampires. Look at Angela Knight, Mary Janice Davidson, Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison and all the other authors in this field.
BUT, for some strange reason, mainstream publishers seem to have this mistaken assumption that women don't READ SF, that only men read SF and men don't want to see all that mushy love and sex in their SF stories. Cut me a break. Women read SF too. Hell. Go to SF conventions and notice all the female fans running around at the conventions and buying books.
More authors I recommend who write Erotic SF and SF/Romance are http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifs follows:
Linnea Sinclair http://www.linneasinclair.com/
Camille Anthony http://www.camilleanthony.com/
Kayelle Allen
Rowena Cherry http://www.rowenacherry.com/
Judy Mays
Susan Grant http://www.susangrant.com/
Kaitlyn O' Connor http://www.newconceptspublishing.com/kaitlynoconnor.htm
Whew! That’s all for today’s overview of Alien Romance. During the next weeks, I'll be going into more depth and specific detail about worldbuilding, creating aliens, their cultures, SF Forensics, SF physics & space travel, writing about injuries during fight scenes and of course, the care and design of alien sexual characteristics, physical, mental and cultural.
I'm open to questions and discussion about today's topic and any other topics that you might want to explore.
Thank you.
Barbara Karmazin
www.sff.net/people/selkiewife
In the "notes" file, I list all the character names, alien and human, personalities, ages and general physical characteristics of the alien. If the story location is in a different city, time period, planet, space station or star system, I also research as much information as I can about that location so I can build upon it to create a plausible background reality for the story and for my aliens.
Our own animal kingdom is a good place to find information and ideas for aliens. For example, when I wrote The Huntress, I wanted to write about a vampire legend that was non-European. Mama Zuca told me about the Hispanic legends about chupacabras or "goatsuckers" which are said to be killing farm animals by draining their bodies of blood.
http://skepdic.com/chupa.html
http://www.qsl.net/w5www/chupacabra.html
http://www.alienbaby.com/chupa.html
http://paranormal.about.com/cs/chupacabra/
So, I did an internet search on chupacabras and learned that the first sightings were back in 1952 along with the UFO sightings. Of course, because SF is my first love, I did a "what if" using a more factual and science-based premise. I said, "What if the chupacabras are the feral descendants of vampiric alien pets left behind by UFO tourists." Picture a pack of pit bulls left behind on an alien planet and the ecological repercussions of their feral descendants terrorizing the local inhabitants eighty years later. The next logical step was to postulate an alien bureaucracy. What if there's an Interstellar Humane Society?
Every bureaucracy has tons of paperwork and records. I know. I worked for 29 & 1/2 years as a bilingual social worker for the Pennsylvania Welfare Office. Blech. Talk about a high stress and mind-numbing job.
On Earth, we're mammals and the majority of our pets are mammals. The chupacabras are supposed to be an combination of reptiles and mammals. Extrapolating from that, I decided that the alien owners of the chupacabras were also a combination of reptilies and mammals. Plus, I already knew from my college anthropology courses that per evolutionary theory, millions of years ago, mammals and reptiles were one species that divided into two separate species. From that bit of knowledge it didn't take a very large jump to decide that the aliens for The Huntress never evolved into two separate species of reptiles and mammals but continued as a combination of both species.
From there I researched reptilian reproduction and learned that reptiles are a scent-based species who use their tongues to taste odors. I learned that iguanas are able to smell when their zookeepers are in their fertile time and these iguanas will then behavior courteously towards those zookeepers. I also learned that many reptilian species have a hemepene. Wow! Needless to say, from these bits of factual information, I was able to develop a unique story idea and alien species for The Huntress.
Where do I find story ideas? Many of my story ideas I find by perusing SF art work.
For one of my Erotic SF stories, this one published by Loose Id Books, On The Edge of Time, I created a different type of alien reptilian shapeshifters. The initial idea for this story came from a Boris Vallejo image showing a man's torso with a living snake tattoo on his arm.
I decided that the type of space travel in On The Edge of Time would be through wrymhole space and that in wyrmhole space, this species of aliens had their full shape-shifting abilities but outside of wyrmhole space, they needed a host body to survive as a living tattoo on that host body. I also decided to add another twist to the story. Reptiles lay eggs. They don't have live births. I decided that my alien species in this story lays their eggs inside the male host body. I had tons of fun getting the hero pregnant in that story. LOL.
GENERAL RESEARCH SITES FOR ALIEN BIOLOGY
One fertile area for research for alien story ideas is to look at folklore and apply a factual answer for the magic of those folklore stories instead of fantasy answer like I did with the chupacabra legends for The Huntress. For my Sidhe series, Covenants, Down Came a Blackbird and Out of the Dark, I looked at the Celtic legends about the Elves and applied a SF rather than a Fantasy explanation. I decided that the Sidhe were an extraterrestrial species whose home planet became the asteroid belt in our solar system and whose foremothers migrated to Earth when this happened. Of course, their advanced technology was mistaken by humans for "magic". I then applied science based explanations for their magic. For the selkieskins, I decided the selkieskins were bioengineered symbiotes used by the Sidhe as spacesuits and/or deep sea diving suits. Nuada of the Silver Hand is another Celtic legend. In that tale, after his hand was cut off in battle, the Sidhe smith crafted a silver hand for him that acted like a real hand. Sounds like our modern day prosthesis, doesn't it?
Here's a website with links to folklore from every country on Earth at http://www.cbel.com/folklore_tales/
SF images are another great place to find inspiration for your stories. Here are a few websites I recommend.
Boris Vallejo's artwork at http://maniera.wbp.zabrze.pl/foto/vallejo/page_26.htm
Luis Rojo's artwork at http://www.jormungand.de/index.htm, click on the links for the different "rooms" to see his artwork there.
BOOKS for research on aliens.
SF books are my first choice for getting ideas about aliens. Why? Because most SF books have already researched their aliens properly. Of course, they also have a tendency to skim over the sex part in their books. No problem. I can still use these books for basic background information and add sex later. LOL.
C. J. Cherryh is an anthropologist who write excellent aliens and alien cultures. http://www.cherryh.com/
I recommend her Chanur and Foreigner Series. http://www.cherryh.com/www/univer.htm#Chanur
If anyone is interested in reading the Chanur or Foreigner Series, I can lend you those books. All you have to do is mail them back to me when you're finished reading them.
For Space Opera type SF and aliens, I recommend Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Liaden Universe books.
http://www.korval.com/liad.htm Sharon and Steve are a husband and wife team who have crafted a remarkable series of SF Romance stories. (Not enough sex for me, of course, but the Romances are fabulous and give me ideas to build my own stories.) If you scroll down toward the middle of the website, you can find links to sample chapters online for their books. You have to scroll down past the bibliography to find the links to the sample chapters like this link to The Tomorrow Log. http://www.korval.com/ttl1.html
Again, I have copies of their books that I can loan out to anyone who's interested in reading them. All I ask is that you mail them back to me after you've finished reading them.
If you want to write Space War/Space Station type stories, I recommend Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War and Serrano legacy books. http://www.sff.net/people/Elizabeth.Moon/biblio.htm Elizabeth Moon is ex-military and applies her knowledge to her stories.
Of course, I recommend my books at www.sff.net/people/selkiewife too. Why? Because in addition to creating plausible SF for my books, I also include the kind of Explicit Sex that you won't find in the mainstream SF books that I'm recommending. That's one of the main reasons why I started writing Erotic SF, I got tired of wonderful SF alien stories where they skimmed over the sex parts. I wanted it ALL. I wanted great SF action adventure and sex in the same story. What's with mainstream SF where they will boldly go where no one has gone before but they can't go into the bedroom?
Mind you, mainstream fiction is willing to go into the bedroom when it comes to Fantasy type creatures like werewolves and vampires. Look at Angela Knight, Mary Janice Davidson, Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison and all the other authors in this field.
BUT, for some strange reason, mainstream publishers seem to have this mistaken assumption that women don't READ SF, that only men read SF and men don't want to see all that mushy love and sex in their SF stories. Cut me a break. Women read SF too. Hell. Go to SF conventions and notice all the female fans running around at the conventions and buying books.
More authors I recommend who write Erotic SF and SF/Romance are http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifs follows:
Linnea Sinclair http://www.linneasinclair.com/
Camille Anthony http://www.camilleanthony.com/
Kayelle Allen
Rowena Cherry http://www.rowenacherry.com/
Judy Mays
Susan Grant http://www.susangrant.com/
Kaitlyn O' Connor http://www.newconceptspublishing.com/kaitlynoconnor.htm
Whew! That’s all for today’s overview of Alien Romance. During the next weeks, I'll be going into more depth and specific detail about worldbuilding, creating aliens, their cultures, SF Forensics, SF physics & space travel, writing about injuries during fight scenes and of course, the care and design of alien sexual characteristics, physical, mental and cultural.
I'm open to questions and discussion about today's topic and any other topics that you might want to explore.
Thank you.
Barbara Karmazin
www.sff.net/people/selkiewife
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Different Strokes -- Headless sex
We're used to having one of everything, (unless we have two... as in kidneys, lungs, arms, legs, ears, eyes).
Margaret and I like to watch some of the same things on TV. I will definitely stop writing my alien romances to watch "The Most Extreme" or "Fooled By Nature" on Animal Planet.
It's not that I'm particularly twisted (or so I fondly imagine), but I am interested in watching male animals getting their heads chewed while they do their reproductive duty. I understand that male praying mantises have a second heart --or is it a second brain?-- down there, which is what enables them to pump more vigorously once the head is gone.
I wonder whether they fornicate faster because the blood flow is diverted to the second brain or second heart once the big head no longer needs a supply. I like to know the ins and outs, and the hows and whys! Like, dying trees often produce a vast and vigorous quantity of flowers and seeds.
I've heard that Brachiosaurs (long necked dinosaur types) may have had an extra heart to pump blood along that long neck. Do giraffes? Or do giraffes just have a really efficient sequence of valves... like canal locks?
When I watch elephants and other large quadrupeds with extremely stiff spines and highly mobile (and apparently well-controlled) reproductive equipment go about the business of procreation, I cannot help thinking of some of the building supply equipment I see on the road... the sort that has a driver in the cab at the front end, but a little cab with a crane and control center at the back end to do the delicate work of lifting and maneuvering.
Have you ever watched an elephantine erection in action? Remarkable!
In National Geographic for Kids, there's a delightful article about animals being nice to one another. In one story, a forest elephant gets the sensitive tip of its trunk damaged in a hunter's trap. So, it leaves the forest and goes out onto the savannah (usually forest elephants stay in the forest, and savannah elephants stay on the savannah, and as a result of not socializing their ears have evolved to look different... apparently). The forest elephant walks up to a surprised savannah elephant and pushes the tip of its hurt trunk into the savannah elephant's mouth.
At once, the savannah elephant tastes the blood, understands his fellow's plight (they must both be young male elephants, I assume, or they would not be alone) and uses his own trunk to pull up a small tree and thrust it into his new friend's mouth.
Aaaahhhh!
There's not a lot of use for me in thinking further about sensitive, prehensile trunk tips and other applications because I write romance with alien elements.
My aliens do have secondary brains and hearts... one has to have a rationale why priapism isn't a problem during the
By the way... if anyone clicked the "watch elephants" link in this blog, and is now furious with me for sending them to the INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL book trailer (which is also on my newly rationalized website), try looking to the right in the sidebar of what YouTube catalogues as similar subject matter.
On an administrative note, Cindy Holby aka Colby Hodge is on assignment. I shall blog on her Saturdays until September... apart from August 4th, when Marjorie M Liu will blog.
Barbara Karmazin will be guest blogging on Sundays, and will delight us with at least one lecture about alien sex. We can look forward to a hot summer! The hero in Barbara's The Huntress is extraordinarily well endowed. He has two!!
best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
Margaret and I like to watch some of the same things on TV. I will definitely stop writing my alien romances to watch "The Most Extreme" or "Fooled By Nature" on Animal Planet.
It's not that I'm particularly twisted (or so I fondly imagine), but I am interested in watching male animals getting their heads chewed while they do their reproductive duty. I understand that male praying mantises have a second heart --or is it a second brain?-- down there, which is what enables them to pump more vigorously once the head is gone.
I wonder whether they fornicate faster because the blood flow is diverted to the second brain or second heart once the big head no longer needs a supply. I like to know the ins and outs, and the hows and whys! Like, dying trees often produce a vast and vigorous quantity of flowers and seeds.
I've heard that Brachiosaurs (long necked dinosaur types) may have had an extra heart to pump blood along that long neck. Do giraffes? Or do giraffes just have a really efficient sequence of valves... like canal locks?
When I watch elephants and other large quadrupeds with extremely stiff spines and highly mobile (and apparently well-controlled) reproductive equipment go about the business of procreation, I cannot help thinking of some of the building supply equipment I see on the road... the sort that has a driver in the cab at the front end, but a little cab with a crane and control center at the back end to do the delicate work of lifting and maneuvering.
Have you ever watched an elephantine erection in action? Remarkable!
In National Geographic for Kids, there's a delightful article about animals being nice to one another. In one story, a forest elephant gets the sensitive tip of its trunk damaged in a hunter's trap. So, it leaves the forest and goes out onto the savannah (usually forest elephants stay in the forest, and savannah elephants stay on the savannah, and as a result of not socializing their ears have evolved to look different... apparently). The forest elephant walks up to a surprised savannah elephant and pushes the tip of its hurt trunk into the savannah elephant's mouth.
At once, the savannah elephant tastes the blood, understands his fellow's plight (they must both be young male elephants, I assume, or they would not be alone) and uses his own trunk to pull up a small tree and thrust it into his new friend's mouth.
Aaaahhhh!
There's not a lot of use for me in thinking further about sensitive, prehensile trunk tips and other applications because I write romance with alien elements.
My aliens do have secondary brains and hearts... one has to have a rationale why priapism isn't a problem during the
rut rage, for the few readers who wonder about such things. One of these days I really must ask my friend Jade Lee (the author) how practitioners of 17-hour Tantric sex don't damage themselves. In my next book, I also touch on the problems of having more brain than humans.
By the way... if anyone clicked the "watch elephants" link in this blog, and is now furious with me for sending them to the INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL book trailer (which is also on my newly rationalized website), try looking to the right in the sidebar of what YouTube catalogues as similar subject matter.
On an administrative note, Cindy Holby aka Colby Hodge is on assignment. I shall blog on her Saturdays until September... apart from August 4th, when Marjorie M Liu will blog.
Barbara Karmazin will be guest blogging on Sundays, and will delight us with at least one lecture about alien sex. We can look forward to a hot summer! The hero in Barbara's The Huntress is extraordinarily well endowed. He has two!!
best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Sex in the Wild (and Wilder)
I've just finished rereading DR. TATIANA'S SEX ADVICE TO ALL CREATION, by evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson. You should all get this book! In the format of an advice column for animals, plants, and microbes with romantic and sexual quandaries, the author imparts densely packed information on reproduction throughout the natural world in a most entertaining style. She explores the evolutionary advantages of patterns such as promiscuity, monogamy, infidelity, homosexuality, hermaphroditism, parthenogenesis, and the most aberrant behavior of all, complete asexuality. Did you know that many animals change sex over their lifetimes, depending on environmental or social conditions, or that in some species the sex of the young is determined by factors such as water temperature rather than genetics? Have you heard about the hermaphroditic snails who have penises on their heads? Lionesses in heat copulate at least once every half-hour over four or five days. In many species of birds thought to mate monogamously, DNA tests of chicks have shown that infidelity runs rampant. Despite the popular perception of males as promiscuous and females as monogamous, polyandry is far from unknown in the animal kingdom. Some bird females will have several mates, each on a separate nest incubating his own clutch of eggs. And we've all heard of the male spiders and preying mantises who present the ultimate gift to their mates to ensure the robustness of their children: She devours him (literally) after fertilization. Some male insects even copulate more vigorously with their heads bitten off. (Passing up the easy punch line. . . .) Strangest of all, some slime molds have over 500 sexes. (No, that doesn't mean they have to get 500 individuals together to mate. It simply means they have that many distinct kinds of reproductive cells. It still requires only two to produce a new organism.) I was surprised to learn that sex and reproduction don't necessarily go together. “Sex” basically means a method of exchanging genetic material between individuals. That exchange may be separated in time from the creation of new individuals (e.g., an organism might trade DNA with another one now and generate offspring by budding later).
Suppose your human hero or heroine forms an emotional attachment to an alien who isn't humanoid or even mammalian in reproductive biology but something much wilder, such as one of those species. If the couple doesn't mind being unable to have children together, might they share sexual gratification anyway? Or would it feel too much like bestiality? How dissimilar would they have to be, physically, to trigger that perception? At some point of difference they might have to confine themselves to emotional bonding, as "soul mates." Or they might just be intimate on the level of friendship. I'm reminded of the STAR TREK episode in which the blind telepath bonds with the medusoid whose physical form is so alien (or so dazzling) that no human being can look at him/it without being struck mad. That bond must be (in the words of the introduction to the TV show BEAUTY AND THE BEAST) "stronger than friendship or love," yet it's completely nonphysical.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Booksigning
After 50 plus books, I don't usually blog over book signings. But a new Books A Million just opened up in the Brandon Mall in Florida. And they are romance friendly! In this day and age, it's a cause to celebrate. The store was not only willing to carry my new books but my backlist. So this is really special.
I was totally psyched to go and sign books. And then they ordered a gazillion Kiss Me Deadly books and put up tote bags for their sign in the window and my palms broke into a sweat.
Normally, I sell between 10-25 books at a signing. And this store brought in so many there is NO WAY I can sell that many. Yikes. I doubt that many people will even walk by in two hours and even if every one of them bought a book, I still won't sell them all. Then as I often do, I started to really worry. I imagined myself sitting there behind this mountain of books and no one buying any. It's many authors' worst nightmare. I'd rather face an alien invasion than sit behind a table of books and be unable to sell them, with no one to talk to and wishing I could make myself invisible.
This is when I start counting friends--friends who I could talk into coming in to buy a book in the middle of a busy Saturday. But for those of you who don't keep track, this week is the Romance Writers of America National Conference. So most of my friends are out of town.
So if you happen to be in Brandon Florida, between 2-4pm on Saturday, please stop by the Books A Million and pick up a book for yourself, your mom, your best friend, your grandmother and the alien who lives under your bed....
I was totally psyched to go and sign books. And then they ordered a gazillion Kiss Me Deadly books and put up tote bags for their sign in the window and my palms broke into a sweat.
Normally, I sell between 10-25 books at a signing. And this store brought in so many there is NO WAY I can sell that many. Yikes. I doubt that many people will even walk by in two hours and even if every one of them bought a book, I still won't sell them all. Then as I often do, I started to really worry. I imagined myself sitting there behind this mountain of books and no one buying any. It's many authors' worst nightmare. I'd rather face an alien invasion than sit behind a table of books and be unable to sell them, with no one to talk to and wishing I could make myself invisible.
This is when I start counting friends--friends who I could talk into coming in to buy a book in the middle of a busy Saturday. But for those of you who don't keep track, this week is the Romance Writers of America National Conference. So most of my friends are out of town.
So if you happen to be in Brandon Florida, between 2-4pm on Saturday, please stop by the Books A Million and pick up a book for yourself, your mom, your best friend, your grandmother and the alien who lives under your bed....
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Heinlein On Love
Folks:
I returned yesterday from a unique weekend immersed in
scholarship and erudite discussion of Robert A. Heinlein,
celebrating the day (7/7/07 ) when he would have been a hundred
years old had he lived.
I learned so much I didn't know! My background and interests are
much more like Heinlein's than I had ever suspected.
And I'm sure I said things others didn't know that changed their
views -- they came up after the panels and asked for my handouts
which contain the URL of the Alien Romance blog.
Frederick Pohl (the editor who bought my first story, the first
Sime~Gen story, for WORLDS OF IF MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE FICTION and later as book editor for Bantam Books bought my first non- fiction project STAR TREK LIVES! and who has written a long list of SF novels) was there speaking fluently, casually, mellifluously, about Robert, his attitudes, experiences, friends, associates, and his three wives.
As I said in my previous post, I was on 6 panels and an
autographing in 2 days -- Friday and Sunday. Saturday I wandered
in and out of panels, and watched a few videos and talked and
talked to people.
The weekend became a blur of significant experiences. But there
was an odd theme running through it all -- love. Heinlein on
love is a remarkably deep topic.
You may think of his later books, Stranger in a Strange Land,
Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Time Enough For Love -- but there are
deeper themes on love in his "juveniles."
The Heinlein Centennial was co-conventioned with the SFRA
(Science Fiction Research Association -- professors who read
papers on SF because they happen to be fans who write academic
papers). So on Thursday evening, I spotted Fred Pohl through a
crack in a door, and crept in to an SFRA panel to listen to the
end of that panel.
It gave me a hundred ideas for things to say on the later panels
I was on, but I only got to say one of them.
Being academics, they were talking (in grieved tones) about
teaching Heinlein's books, and how younger people just WON'T
read Heinlein.
Later at another panel I heard someone who should know state
that when RED PLANET (the animated version of Heinlein's novel)
was aired, children ran to the library searching for more books
by him.
But before I heard that, on Friday at noon I was on a panel
about "Everything I Needed to Know I Learned From Heinlein" --
(which is pretty much true). And there I mentioned this blog and
pointed out how, RAH's themes, ideas, and vision lives on and on
and ON through us.
Young people who read my books (and there are amazingly large
numbers) are reading Heinlein (and Marion Zimmer Bradley, and
Theodore Sturgeon, Hal Clement, etc etc). Even younger people
who are reading Linnea Sinclair are reading Heinlein, which
would be true even if Linnea had never read Heinlein because
she's read my books.
In fact, any modern fan of novels with SF or Fantasy content
that ALSO involve strong characters and plot-driving
relationships is enjoying the legacy of Robert Anson Heinlein.
Linnea is now training new writers, and so the legacy will be
passed on to yet another generation -- and that legacy is,
without love you don't have a story!
It's especially true of Science Fiction -- one definition of SF
Fred Pohl and John W. Campbell came up with was "if you can take
the science out and still have a story, you don't have an SF
story."
Most Alien Romance that I've seen to date passes that test --
there's some science element that absolutely MAKES the story.
But there is also some Relationship (not always romantic love;
parent-child, teacher-student, buddy, sister-sister, oath-bound,
magical geas, etc) that causes the characters to make one plot-
decision and not another -- that drives the plot to a satisfying
conclusion.
And that's what Heinlein invariably did. He showed us the role
of love in society, even alien society, and that to handle
science efficaciously, one must be filled with that love -- love
of humanity (or one's own species), love of town, country,
village, tribe, family, spouse(s), children, teachers, -- LOVE
drives the world.
But learning steers us -- and Heinlein glamorized education to
such an extent that maybe a third or a half of the people who
showed up for the Centennial had advanced science degrees
because of their early exposure to Heinlein.
Reading Heinlein makes you WANT to study -- even if the subject
is boring -- because you can see the use for being educated, as
opposed to "getting an education."
On Saturday, I learned that Heinlein had, as a very young man,
memories of 2 or 3 past lives. That could easily explain the
level of mature genius he evidenced throughout his whole life.
But by his thirties, those memories had faded to memories of
memories.
Still it gave him an awareness that science doesn't study the
whole of our real universe -- an attitude I have always had.
Maybe I was born with it, or maybe I absorbed it with RAH's
novels, or my upbringing -- but it pervades my life to this day.
Science is absolutely necessary, but it doesn't apply to
everything of importance in life.
Heinlein had read James Branch Cabell (fantasy writer of the
1920's and 1930's) who influenced the field markedly and then
fell out of popularity. And Heinlein knew L. Ron Hubbard, and
some associates of Madame Blavatsky -- who had at the time moved
her operations to India.
This mystical view of the universe blended into his scientific
view of the universe in every book he wrote, but became more
pronounced in later years -- after the feminist revolution of
the 1970's and the influence of Star Trek on the SF/F reading
population when he saw he could publish stories about what he
had originally wanted to write about. (we have a "manuscript
found in a drawer" that's recently been published to show this
is true.)
Also on Saturday I saw all at once, without commercials, the
cartoon film made of his novel RED PLANET -- which was a major
love of mine. It's a story about motherly love, and a rite of
passage story for a boy and his sister. The boy makes best-
friends of a young Martian while Earth is terraforming Mars
(something they're now talking about actually doing).
Of course, since it's a juvenile, the boy and his Martian friend
save Mars and change the course of history. That's the "great
man" theory of history, and one I use in my own novels because
sometimes it's true that apparently insignificant people make
huge contributions because of their personal emotional life.
But for me, the book has always been about the intense love and
understanding between the boy and the alien-child.
The significant story development, for me, is the scene where
the alien (after sticking with the human boy through many life-
threatening adventures) tells him that he must hibernate and
morph into his mature form, which will take longer than the
human boy's entire lifetime.
That leave-taking, that parting scene, is for me THE defining
moment of SF as a genre. I internalized it so greatly that I
barely remembered it until I saw it on the screen.
The animated version tag ends the story with a scene where the
Martian, as an adult, is telling his best-human-friend's
grandchild about his childhood best friend. It's a cartoon! I
cried my head off!!!!
On Sunday I did 4 panels and hardly had a moment to sit and
listen to other panels. I was on a panel titled "I now pronounce
you" -- which turned out to be about people who are actually
living Heinlein's model of the "line marriage" and the "group
marriage" from Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
I did two panels on Heinlein's Heroines, and got into a number of discussions
challenging the view that Heinlein's writing is male chauvinistic (it's not -- but those who don't understand the nuances can't tell the difference.)
One thing about this convention that was really odd. There were,
I think, fewer than a thousand people spread over two huge
hotels with multiple tracks of programming going all the time --
and despite all that, all the panels I did filled the room. It
wasn't ME or the celebrities I was on with. It was that people
came to the event in order to go to the panels!
But I also had a few people who had seen me at a panel on Friday
following through to all the panels I did on Sunday -- people
who hadn't read my books and didn't know who I was. I had three
or four long conversations in the hallways, too.
I was on a couple of panels with J. Neil Schulman, an SF writer
who is forging ahead into film making. He's written, produced
and directed a feature film which is an Action Comedy starring
Nichelle Nichols (Uhura on Star Trek: The Original Series).
The film, titled Lady Magdalene's, is being marketed for theater
release.
http://www.ladymagdalenes.com/
"Jack Goldwater, an IRS Agent on load to the Federal Air Marshal
Service, is relieved of field duty after insulting a powerful U.
S. Senator, and finds himself exiled to a humiliating desk job
in Nevada as the Federal Receiver managing a legal brothel in
tax default. Where -- with the help of the brothel Madam, Lady
Magdalene (Nichelle Nichols) -- he uncovers an Al Qaeda plot to
unload a nuclear bomb sized crate at Hoover Dam. " Runtime 117
minutes.
Watch theaters for that film - it'll likely be a landmark.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
I returned yesterday from a unique weekend immersed in
scholarship and erudite discussion of Robert A. Heinlein,
celebrating the day (7/7/07 ) when he would have been a hundred
years old had he lived.
I learned so much I didn't know! My background and interests are
much more like Heinlein's than I had ever suspected.
And I'm sure I said things others didn't know that changed their
views -- they came up after the panels and asked for my handouts
which contain the URL of the Alien Romance blog.
Frederick Pohl (the editor who bought my first story, the first
Sime~Gen story, for WORLDS OF IF MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE FICTION and later as book editor for Bantam Books bought my first non- fiction project STAR TREK LIVES! and who has written a long list of SF novels) was there speaking fluently, casually, mellifluously, about Robert, his attitudes, experiences, friends, associates, and his three wives.
As I said in my previous post, I was on 6 panels and an
autographing in 2 days -- Friday and Sunday. Saturday I wandered
in and out of panels, and watched a few videos and talked and
talked to people.
The weekend became a blur of significant experiences. But there
was an odd theme running through it all -- love. Heinlein on
love is a remarkably deep topic.
You may think of his later books, Stranger in a Strange Land,
Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Time Enough For Love -- but there are
deeper themes on love in his "juveniles."
The Heinlein Centennial was co-conventioned with the SFRA
(Science Fiction Research Association -- professors who read
papers on SF because they happen to be fans who write academic
papers). So on Thursday evening, I spotted Fred Pohl through a
crack in a door, and crept in to an SFRA panel to listen to the
end of that panel.
It gave me a hundred ideas for things to say on the later panels
I was on, but I only got to say one of them.
Being academics, they were talking (in grieved tones) about
teaching Heinlein's books, and how younger people just WON'T
read Heinlein.
Later at another panel I heard someone who should know state
that when RED PLANET (the animated version of Heinlein's novel)
was aired, children ran to the library searching for more books
by him.
But before I heard that, on Friday at noon I was on a panel
about "Everything I Needed to Know I Learned From Heinlein" --
(which is pretty much true). And there I mentioned this blog and
pointed out how, RAH's themes, ideas, and vision lives on and on
and ON through us.
Young people who read my books (and there are amazingly large
numbers) are reading Heinlein (and Marion Zimmer Bradley, and
Theodore Sturgeon, Hal Clement, etc etc). Even younger people
who are reading Linnea Sinclair are reading Heinlein, which
would be true even if Linnea had never read Heinlein because
she's read my books.
In fact, any modern fan of novels with SF or Fantasy content
that ALSO involve strong characters and plot-driving
relationships is enjoying the legacy of Robert Anson Heinlein.
Linnea is now training new writers, and so the legacy will be
passed on to yet another generation -- and that legacy is,
without love you don't have a story!
It's especially true of Science Fiction -- one definition of SF
Fred Pohl and John W. Campbell came up with was "if you can take
the science out and still have a story, you don't have an SF
story."
Most Alien Romance that I've seen to date passes that test --
there's some science element that absolutely MAKES the story.
But there is also some Relationship (not always romantic love;
parent-child, teacher-student, buddy, sister-sister, oath-bound,
magical geas, etc) that causes the characters to make one plot-
decision and not another -- that drives the plot to a satisfying
conclusion.
And that's what Heinlein invariably did. He showed us the role
of love in society, even alien society, and that to handle
science efficaciously, one must be filled with that love -- love
of humanity (or one's own species), love of town, country,
village, tribe, family, spouse(s), children, teachers, -- LOVE
drives the world.
But learning steers us -- and Heinlein glamorized education to
such an extent that maybe a third or a half of the people who
showed up for the Centennial had advanced science degrees
because of their early exposure to Heinlein.
Reading Heinlein makes you WANT to study -- even if the subject
is boring -- because you can see the use for being educated, as
opposed to "getting an education."
On Saturday, I learned that Heinlein had, as a very young man,
memories of 2 or 3 past lives. That could easily explain the
level of mature genius he evidenced throughout his whole life.
But by his thirties, those memories had faded to memories of
memories.
Still it gave him an awareness that science doesn't study the
whole of our real universe -- an attitude I have always had.
Maybe I was born with it, or maybe I absorbed it with RAH's
novels, or my upbringing -- but it pervades my life to this day.
Science is absolutely necessary, but it doesn't apply to
everything of importance in life.
Heinlein had read James Branch Cabell (fantasy writer of the
1920's and 1930's) who influenced the field markedly and then
fell out of popularity. And Heinlein knew L. Ron Hubbard, and
some associates of Madame Blavatsky -- who had at the time moved
her operations to India.
This mystical view of the universe blended into his scientific
view of the universe in every book he wrote, but became more
pronounced in later years -- after the feminist revolution of
the 1970's and the influence of Star Trek on the SF/F reading
population when he saw he could publish stories about what he
had originally wanted to write about. (we have a "manuscript
found in a drawer" that's recently been published to show this
is true.)
Also on Saturday I saw all at once, without commercials, the
cartoon film made of his novel RED PLANET -- which was a major
love of mine. It's a story about motherly love, and a rite of
passage story for a boy and his sister. The boy makes best-
friends of a young Martian while Earth is terraforming Mars
(something they're now talking about actually doing).
Of course, since it's a juvenile, the boy and his Martian friend
save Mars and change the course of history. That's the "great
man" theory of history, and one I use in my own novels because
sometimes it's true that apparently insignificant people make
huge contributions because of their personal emotional life.
But for me, the book has always been about the intense love and
understanding between the boy and the alien-child.
The significant story development, for me, is the scene where
the alien (after sticking with the human boy through many life-
threatening adventures) tells him that he must hibernate and
morph into his mature form, which will take longer than the
human boy's entire lifetime.
That leave-taking, that parting scene, is for me THE defining
moment of SF as a genre. I internalized it so greatly that I
barely remembered it until I saw it on the screen.
The animated version tag ends the story with a scene where the
Martian, as an adult, is telling his best-human-friend's
grandchild about his childhood best friend. It's a cartoon! I
cried my head off!!!!
On Sunday I did 4 panels and hardly had a moment to sit and
listen to other panels. I was on a panel titled "I now pronounce
you" -- which turned out to be about people who are actually
living Heinlein's model of the "line marriage" and the "group
marriage" from Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
I did two panels on Heinlein's Heroines, and got into a number of discussions
challenging the view that Heinlein's writing is male chauvinistic (it's not -- but those who don't understand the nuances can't tell the difference.)
One thing about this convention that was really odd. There were,
I think, fewer than a thousand people spread over two huge
hotels with multiple tracks of programming going all the time --
and despite all that, all the panels I did filled the room. It
wasn't ME or the celebrities I was on with. It was that people
came to the event in order to go to the panels!
But I also had a few people who had seen me at a panel on Friday
following through to all the panels I did on Sunday -- people
who hadn't read my books and didn't know who I was. I had three
or four long conversations in the hallways, too.
I was on a couple of panels with J. Neil Schulman, an SF writer
who is forging ahead into film making. He's written, produced
and directed a feature film which is an Action Comedy starring
Nichelle Nichols (Uhura on Star Trek: The Original Series).
The film, titled Lady Magdalene's, is being marketed for theater
release.
http://www.ladymagdalenes.com/
"Jack Goldwater, an IRS Agent on load to the Federal Air Marshal
Service, is relieved of field duty after insulting a powerful U.
S. Senator, and finds himself exiled to a humiliating desk job
in Nevada as the Federal Receiver managing a legal brothel in
tax default. Where -- with the help of the brothel Madam, Lady
Magdalene (Nichelle Nichols) -- he uncovers an Al Qaeda plot to
unload a nuclear bomb sized crate at Hoover Dam. " Runtime 117
minutes.
Watch theaters for that film - it'll likely be a landmark.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
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