Sunday, March 3, 2013

SFR News & Links For March 2013


Yay, another busy month for science fiction romance! Here’s a roundup of this month’s releases and new. 

New releases
TIN CAT – Misa Buckley

A year after the accident that put her in a wheelchair, Amber Gerald has more or less gotten used to living with her impairment. It doesn’t make a difference to running a comic book store anyway, and the customers have been the best support group she could have wished for.

When she rescues an abandoned cat, Amber has no idea that she’s interfering in the mad scheme of a time travelling bank robber. Or that the man that walks into her store dressed like Blade is about to become her bodyguard.

Between being an unwitting owner of an android cat and falling for a cybernetic bounty hunter, Amber finds her life a whole new level of weird as science fiction becomes a very real factual threat.

TANGLED INDULGENCE (Celestial Surrender #3; erotic; space opera) - Tina Christopher



Reassigned to the nether-end of the galaxy and facing her last night on the planet, Adira knows exactly how to spend the evening—at an exclusive sex club, where she’s determined to confront the Vampire who’s never far from her mind. She only has a few hours, but surely she can entice the sexy bartender to share them.

Malachy is more than he appears. Working undercover has him ready for anything…except Adira. The moment he laid eyes on the Sentinel, he knew he’d found his lifemate. Unfortunately, the prickly mortal has a wall as hard as a spaceship’s hull around her heart.

Only hours remain to convince her she belongs in his arms, and his bed. As the heated night turns molten, duty and desire collide. Following their hearts will only complicate matters.

Read the excerpt.

THE PORTAL (space opera short) - S.E. Gilchrist 


When Janni, a young salvager, boards a space wreck, she is caught for daring to steal Darkon tech by a patroller and the one man she had thought never to see again.

Several months ago she had allowed him to slip past her defences for a brief and wonderful interlude. But with both of them on either sides of the law, they had walked away. Now they are trapped on a wreck and with an alien life-force hunting them. Will the patroller save her or abandon Janni to her fate?

IMPLOSION (Colliding Worlds #2; space opera) – Berinn Rae


A cataclysmic war is brewing… 

Sephian warrior Nalea exists only to kill Draeken, and she’s good at her job. That is, until a particularly bloody battle, she finds herself captured by Roden Zyll, a Draeken commander known for his good looks and heartless brutality. Her tormentor ignites a passion she believed impossible, and she despises him for it. Worse, she fears he has no intention of letting her go.

Desperate times call for desperate schemes... 

Meanwhile, a tyrant has devised a plan that threatens to obliterate life on earth. Roden has spilled plenty of blood in his time, and he cares little for humans. But when he realizes his leader’s plan could lead to his people’s extinction, he plans a war of his own, a war that needs Nalea to succeed. But does earth stand a chance if its survival depends on Nalea opening her heart to the man who’d enslaved her people?


PARAGON (technothriller/android) – Aubrey Watt


In the middle of the Arizona desert, a hundred feet underground, the United States military is illegally developing the first emotionally sentient android. Classified top secret, the mission has failed to successfully awaken the first two androids created in the lab.

When brilliant neuroscientist Chal Davidson is called in to assist, the third android is just hours from being awakened.  By the time she realizes the vast implications of her work, it’s too late to stop the prototype’s development. Torn by her moral and scientific responsibilities, Chal is even more confused by the emotional connection she is starting to feel with the newly-created man.  The only hope she has is escape—for her and the android—and time is running out...

OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MIND (romantic suspense w/ paranormal/sci-fi twist) – Evonne Wareham


Everyone has secrets. Some are stranger than others.

Madison Albi is a scientist with a very special talent – for reading minds. When she stumbles across a homeless man with whom she feels an inexplicable connection, she can’t resist the dangerous impulse to use her skills to help him.

J is a non-person – a vagrant who can’t even remember his own name. He’s got no hope, until he meets Madison. Is she the one woman who can restore his past?

Madison agrees to help J recover his memory, but as she delves deeper into his mind, it soon becomes clear that some secrets are better off staying hidden.

Is J really the man Madison believes him to be?


Authors blogging

KS Augustin (WAR GAMES) has a seriously no-holds-barred post about Carina Press’ forthcoming new price structure for April and July. What, she wonders, are the implications for authors? Ms. Augustin compares sales of her Carina Press title with those of her indie books and shares her insights. It’s a thought-provoking read.

Melisse Aires (REFUGEES ON URLOON) blogs about the concept of “liveships” she uses in her stories:
Humans receive food, water, shelter and healing proprieties from the ships. The ship gains nutrients from humans that are unlike what it receives from the soil. Over time, it becomes sentient and knowledgeable about its human companions. As it matures it reaches a stage where it can leap into space. Once in space Recondins find gas clouds, which provide them with energy to become truly huge, with an inner living space the size of four Earths. They live for eons of time, and occasionally seed planets. 
Neato!
 
At Backward Momentum, Jessica E. Subject (MADE FOR HER) breaks down Black Holes and Worm Holes—with video!

Habla science fiction romance?

At Spacefreighters Lounge, Donna S. Frelick makes a case for literary fluency when writing hybrid stories like science fiction romance:

Science fiction romance will never reach the level of success our sisters in paranormal romance have had, though, if we continue to resist embracing the conventions of romance. We can’t just expect the “others” to learn our language without learning theirs.  After all, we’re in the business of communication.  The more languages we speak, the better.
Book Tour

Author Aubrey Watt (PARAGON) is part of the Insatiable Reads Book Tour (March 4-31). There’s a brief interview with her here.

Nebula Awards drama

Pauline B. Jones (KICKING ASHE) alerted me to the drama arising from the fact that many books by female authors had been nominated. Read more here: Nebula Voters Hate White Dudes! by Jim Hines

T&A drama

Le sigh:


If those are the types of things happening in SF fandom, no wonder sci-fi romance is up against some pretty stiff obstacles.

On a more positive note, Chris Gerwel wraps up his focus on romance in his latest Crossroads Column at Amazing Stories: Is this a Kissing Book? SFF’s Relationship With Romance.

Maybe there’s hope for the menfolk after all.

Now I turn the mike over to you. Come aboard and share your SFR news and links!

Joyfully yours,

Heather