CulverDoris

EellenAndromeda

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.

Mfitz

Linnea

Susiq2

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

Linnea

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

Mfitz

dangrgirl

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.

dangrgirl

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.

dangrgirl

dangrgirl

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

dangrgirl

dangrgirl

dangrgirl

Jeff-Minor

Priam

zerofritz

Charlie Jane Anders

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.

Pegritz

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.

davidsmith

92BuickLeSabre

downdb

Silver_Back

[en.wikipedia.org]

Jeff-Minor

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.

Evil Tortie's Mom

goldfarb

Jeff-Minor

92BuickLeSabre

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

zerofritz

drift_marlo

Priam

Log1c

Anticontrame

Isn't that Blade Runner?

diverguy