Cop meets artificial human woman and falls in love?

Isn't that Blade Runner?

Does she get a cool cell phone?

More like "Make out with me, V1BE-8R"

Wasn't the Garak/Julian romance good enough for them?

This reminds me of "The Lonely," a Twilight Zone episode I recently saw. Jack Warden is, Corry, a prisoner in solitary confinement on an asteroid. The captain of the rocket that supplies Corry, takes pity on the poor shlub and smuggles him a companion - An android female named Alicia. Initially repelled by the idea, Corry eventually falls in love with his companion. Of course, by the end, he's pardoned, and when he's told he can only bring 15 pounds of gear he refuses to leave. The captain shoots Alicia in he head reminding Corry that she's an android. "All you're leaving behind is loneliness," the captain reminds Corry and they walk back towards the ship.

Summers himself writes in the urban fantasy

Jordan Summers is much more of a herself: [www.jordansummers.com]

This is totally going to turn out to be another new TV from LG.

I could see myself writing sf erotica, but not romance. At least not any more romantic than usual. I don't think I've ever read a romance novel. Yucky.

Comment on Kiss Me, Cyborg Interesting. One prolific writer of romance-tinged science fiction is Anne McCaffrey, who's been writing the stuff for 40 years. I'd especially point out her Tower and Hive and Brain Shipseries as examples. Catherine Asaro is already very popular. She's a physicist who writes science fiction romance. Her novel The Quantum Rosewon the Nebula for best novel in 2001. Given this, I don't think science fiction as the new romance genre blend is a stretch...

in a consious effort to read more SF written by, or about, women I've been reading (among others) Linnea Sinclair's books...even after I realized they were romance novels I'm still picking them up when they come out...not bad, if a little obvious at times...
I don't mind more 'romance' in my sci-fi...the best stories are, after all, about relationships...

@goldfarb: I like 'em too. Not deep, but very entertaining.

The queen of romance novels, Nora Roberts, writes near-future police-procedural romances under the name JD Robb. It shouldn't work, but it does.

I did read Jacquline Susann's Yargo.
I remember not hating it.

[en.wikipedia.org]

Excellent, Robo-Fabio in space anyone? ;)

Back when I used to work at Borders, I was always amused by the fact that their shelving/section code systems had a specific break-out for "Time Travel Romance".

@downdb: Well, "The Time Traveler's Wife" would certainly qualify, as would...well...um...the novelization of that Meg Ryan movie?

Wow! How fortunate for the author that the next new exciting genre is *exactly* the same style as her upcoming book.

Rolling my eyes at the copy editors, not the author.

Speaking of the Time Traveler's Wife, that is the only book that I can recall uttering out loud ... what? they're going to have sex again? Oh, puhlease. give me a break and get on with the story.

Sign, perhaps, that I may not be the target audience for science fiction romance.

So all she's read are Scalzi and S. L. Viehl. Yeah. If those two are her inspiration, then this "Red" thing is guaranteed to suck beyond belief.

As a matter of fact, I'm positively sick to death of "romantic" sci-fi. I'm not saying that romance doesn't have a place in sci-fi--of course it does--but lately, it seems that many writers are putting more emphasis on the romance than the science-fiction. Elizabeth Bear is the worst practitioner of this. "Dust" could have been soooooooooo awesome, but instead it turned out to be Jane Austen with a little nanotech here and there. The book insults the intelligence of any serious sci-fi reader: it's nothing more than a Harlequin Romance aboard the broken-down generation ship Cliche.

@zerofritz: Whoops. I'm really embarrassed about the mistake. Let me fix that.

@Charlie Jane Anders: I won't tell her, don't worry ;)

Wasn't Journeyman a time travel romance?

Was Crystal Singer sf Romance? I think all those Pern books might have been a mix. And then I've read some Celtic warrior/romance/historicals. What is Romance, exactly?

@Jeff-Minor: So, you've never read one, but you know you don't like them. Interesting.

@YasmineTelamon: Good points. In Catch the Lightning, Asaro's FTL "inversion drive" works on paper.

@goldfarb: There's quite a spectrum of choices out there with books leaning more toward Romance at one end and more toward Science Fiction at the other. Sinclair is right in the middle, as far as I'm concerned, balancing the two.

Love and romance are fundamental to the human condition, and it just seems like lazy writing to me to deliberately leave it out.

@davidsmith: I haven't read the Time Traveler's Wife, but just like any other scene in a novel, if a sex/love scene doesn't move the plot forward or develop character than it's gratuitous. The same is true of overly violent scenes-- if there's a purpose over and above simple titillation, then it belongs.

@Pegritz: Have you read Bear's Hammered (Jenny Casey) trilogy? I haven't read Dust, but I enjoyed the Casey trilogy. Also, the Shomi line has some fun novels with their anime covers. I also enjoyed several of Susan Grants novels, specifically Contact.

Every week I profile strong female characters in Science Fiction movies, TV and book. I've covered more than a few heroines from novels that could be classified as "Science Fiction Romance" to one degree or another, and they were all great.

@Jeff-Minor: The Celtic/Warrior one you're thinking of, might that be the Patricia Kinnealy Morrison Arthur series. There were love stories in that, iirc. There are as many different kinds of Romances as there are readers, so to define it is challenging. Essentially though, a Romance is "a love story that has an emotionally satisfying, optimisti...

There are all sorts of subgenres of Romance, and because it speaks to a fundamental aspect of the human condition it blends well with other genres. The most recent explosion of the "Paranormal Romance" is an example of this and I think the next market break is going to be its combination with Science Fiction.

There are many ways and degrees that an author can create this blend with lighter stories where science is a backdrop element to harder stories where science is just as important and element as anything else in the story.

I don't know why the hyperlink is being cut off in my last comment, but the whole description is this: "A romance is a love story that has an emotionally satisfying, optimistic ending."

Writers like Nancy Kress, Connie Willis, C.J. Cherryh, Catherine Asaro, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Julie E. Czerneda often have interpersonal relationships dive their plots or at least have romantic sub-plots in their work.

On the Romance side there are a few writers like Susan Grant and Linnea Sinclair who really understand SF and write wonderful HEA centered Romance stories in SF wrappings that work well in both genres

Unfortunately many other people writing SF romance don't get the SF half of the equation and seem to think giving the hero a laser instead of a broadsword, is all they have to do to write SF/Romance, their books have bad science and stupid world-building mistakes that are almost an insult to the SF genre. Those sort of books may be great Romance reads, but are really painful to get through for SF fans

I could write a blog on this subject. Actually, I've penned several but I'll try to be a lot more succinct here and just hit a few key points. I also apologize in advance if its bad form for an author to comment when her name's mentioned in a blog. But SFR is relatively new (this incarnation) and as someone who's up to her patootie in the (sub) genre, I hope I can provide some valid input.

First, Evil and Gold, thanks for reading my books. I try for entertaining, not for deep, so you're spot-on with that. My philosophy is that in life you can cry for free. If you pay $6.99 for something, it dang well better give you a giggle.

That out of the way, I'm always interested in the intense reactions SFR gets from the SF community. It's almost like, dang, you got peanut butter in my chocolate, with a touch of 'how dare you' added.

I'm just one of those people who thinks peanut butter and chocolate make a satisfying mix.

I also find it interesting that it's not emotions that are most objected to in the books. It's the positive emotion of love. SF books that detail rape, murder, torture, greed, avarice and other fun things are accepted. "Buddy books" are fine. But love...

See, as dangrgirl noted, I find love a part of the human condition. I'm fascinated by why two unrelated people would go to the lengths many do to share their existence. It's not an easy task (I've been married for almost 30 years--I know). Yet the need to find a companion is a huge driving force for most humans (and in my books, other alien species).

I wouldn't expect the SF community to turn its back on an SF novel detailing a parent's efforts to reconnect with a child. I'm not sure why there's such an 'ick' factor when the book details one individual's emotional need to connect with another.

Except this: we're culturally conditioned for that ick factor. In the ten-odd years I was a practicing private detective (and dang, was they odd!), I learned people watched a fist fight in fascination but turned away from two people kissing. Human (conditioned) nature. The whole kissing thing was a ploy my husband (also a PI) and I used in surveillance cases. It kept people from noticing us, recognizing us.

So I don't discount that some of the 'ick' factor resides in that.

But there's another ick factor and it's one I'd like help with from the SF community. It's called Women Who Fear SF. I'm an SF reader ::Linnea genuflects in front of a shrine to CJ Cherryh:: and a romance reader. I have a similarly tough time convincing many romance readers to read SF. They assume SF is cold, boring, pedantic.

What I write is my effort to bring portions of the two camps together. I like to think (and I know for a fact) that because of SFR, some romance readers who'd not read SF are now doing so. And because of SFR, some SF readers who'd eschew romance have given it a go.

Is that such a bad thing?

BTW, romance novels account for around 45% of all paperbacks sold. Romance readers are voracious readers. That's not a bad thing. IMHO. ~Linnea

I started reading Linnea Sinclair several years ago, and my discovery of her works I consider to have been a Very Lucky day for me. I adore her science fiction style. Her books have grand Adventure in outer space, with spaceships, orbiting space bases, spaceships, and all of the adventure anyone could ever want, IMHO. The romance aspect in her stories is wonderful, and very touching, but are only one aspect of the total sum of the adventure. My favorite book is Gabriel's Ghost, which won the Eppie, and it has it all, as far as I am concerned. Sinclair's books are the best of science fiction around today.

Susi, Gabriel's won the RITA not the Eppie. ;-) The RITA is a romance industry award so most SF fans don't know it as well as they would the Hugo or Nebula, but it's of the same ilk. ~Linnea

To go back to the original comment that started this thread "science fiction could replace vampires as the next "paranormal" romance genre"

All I can say is it's about time. I like a good "paranormal" from time to time but I'm a little bored to death with the whole vampire thing. Tall, Dark, mysterious, avoids sunlight - yawn, yawn, yawn.

Comment on Kiss Me, Cyborg Thought I'd stop by and share my penny's worth, since several of the comments refer to my upcoming release. I'm not sure where the 'cyborg' came from other than as an entry title. There are no cyborgs in my book. Yeah, I know, it's disappointing. In fact, I wouldn't even call my book science fiction. Gasp! Does RED have elements of sci-fi? Sure, but it could just as easily be called a dark fantasy romance. (That's what I consider it to be.) I've even had a few people suggest that I've written a horror romance. I suppose the latter is fair, since the book starts out with someone getting eaten alive. Editors claiming that sci-fi romance will be the next big thing does not make it so. Only time will tell what the next big thing in romance is going to be. (Right now it's supernatural and urban fantasy.) As for it being 'convenient' that my book has elements of science fiction, I suppose I'm lucky I wrote it 2005. If I hadn't, it wouldn't be releasing this year. *** So all she's read are Scalzi and S. L. Viehl. Yeah. If those two are her inspiration, then this "Red" thing is guaranteed to suck beyond belief.*** Geez, all this time I thought my biggest inspiration was fantasy. LOL! The above statement cracks me up, since I just named a couple of authors off the top of my head. Obviously I should've tossed Gibson, Bear, Masamune Shirow, and Morgan in for good measure. *g* The bottom line is that people are going to believe what they want to believe about my books and the books of other sub-genre romance writers out there. There is nothing I can say to change anyone's mind, especially when it's not open to outside influence. As for the debate over romance having a place in science fiction, I think Linnea said it best. Jordan Summers

Comment on Kiss Me, Cyborg I'm with Mfitz. Paranormal is great, but I still want more science fiction romance books to choose from. I'll read the campy Dara Joy novels *and* the serious novels of Sinclair, Grant, Aguirre, etc. Bring it all on! When I stumble onto a romance subplot in a "straight" SF book, I consider myself very lucky indeed. clara --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.