Tuesday, March 8, 2011

SFR News & Links: METALLIC ATTRACTION Is in the House!

All Romance Ebooks has launched ARe Café, a new forum and interactive community for book lovers. The site is chock full of features and other goodies such as eBook Tips, book Videos, and Featured Authors. If you click on “Blog Bytes” you’ll have access to a wide variety of posts from various book blogs (including this one!). I’ve added ARe Café to my blog roll under Romance Reviews, News, etc. for easy access.

The Mysterious Lady LawBehold this squee-worthy news: More science fiction romance is in the pipeline. Robert Appleton (THE MYSTERIOUS LADY LAW) alerted me that he has three more books coming out from Carina Press. Here’s the scoop:

SPARKS IN COSMIC DUST (novel, 87,000 words) - a SF adventure with strong romantic elements. (September 2011)

ALIEN VELOCITY (novella reprint, 36,000 words, EPIC Award nominee) - SF action/adventure (2012).

PREHISTORIC CLOCK (short novel, 47,000 words) - Steampunk adventure with romantic elements...and dinosaurs. (Release date TBA)

Go, Robert!

Catch a wave to another dimension: Lisa Paitz Spindler revealed her shiny new book trailer for THE SPIRAL PATH. The music alone will give you some seriously good goosebumps.

Mistletoe, sleigh rides, and...brass goggles? Carina Press recently posted a Steampunk Holiday Submissions Call:

Carina is looking for steampunk novellas with a winter or winter holiday theme, to be published digitally both individually and as a collection in December 2011. The novellas should be from 18,000 to 35,000 words and feature steampunk elements as integral to the novella. The stories do not need to be romance, or even have romance elements, but can be straight steampunk, or steampunk with romantic elements, and can also feature elements of mystery, thriller, horror or other sub-genres. Additionally, there is no set heat level for these stories, so they can have no sex, or be ultra-sexy, or anything in between.


Courtesy of Smart Bitches comes the news that Avon Launches Avon Impulse Digital-First Imprint:

Word allegedly leaked earlier today from agent Jenny Bent, who tweeted about it, but seems to have deleted the tweet itself. Those who copied and pasted with lightning-quick fingers report Bent as saying, “Avon launches Avon Impulse, original e-book publishing. Agented or unagented, Contemporary, Fantasy, Futuristic, Ghost, Gothic, Historical, Magical, Time Travel, Western, Shifter, Small Town, Steampunk, Suspense, Vampire (and others)”.

No word on whether the digital books produced by this new imprint will be available for more than 26 checkouts at your local public library, or whether they will have DRM (Aw, darn, they will), but it is telling that another major publisher has recognized the validity and possibility of the digital business model. I wish HarperCollins’ other digital policies were as forward thinking, but I also think that this is a step in a possibly positive direction for digital book readers.


Visit Avon Impulse for submission guidelines & FAQ.

And finally, if the following doesn’t get you excited about science fiction romance, I don’t know what will:

“From Jeffrey Lau, visionary director of Chinese Odyssey and the producer of Kung Fu Hustle comes an unexpected Sci-Fi love story.”

Witness the surreal glory of METALLIC ATTRACTION: KUNGFU CYBORG (2009):



Seriously, as soon as I can get my hands on this baby I’ll watch it and return with a full report. I love me some Korean science fiction romance!

Joyfully yours,

Heather