World Building with High and Low Tech @CailinBriste

By Cailin Briste

The characters of both my Sons of Tallav and A Thief in Love Suspense Romance series inhabit a world that is a mishmash of current and futuristic technology. People drive cars. Sure, they have auto-drive capability and don’t run on gasoline, but I don’t explain the details of how they work. The reader gets the idea of a motor vehicle with four wheels that moves along roadways or throughways which is all they need to understand what’s happening in the book.

On my domed world, transport is provided by trams. An image probably popped into your head when you read the word trams. Good. That’s what I hope for in my novels. I want a reader to connect to the familiar with any story set far into the future, because I also use shuttles, space darts, air cars and other futuristic tech that isn’t as easy for non-sci-fi readers to picture. Sci-fi lovers have no trouble with my sci-fi light style, but I want my readership to expand beyond sci-fi romance lovers by allowing others to enjoy dipping their toe in the genre.

One reviewer of Shane: Marshal of Tallav said, “The world was an odd (but pleasing) combination of old world elements (horse & buggy), current (cars) and futuristic (space travel & advanced medical options) that I was surprised to find delightful!”

One of the best things about writing science fiction romance is the ability to experiment with each world and society you invent. Tallav is just as the reviewer described because it was founded by wealthy individuals who wanted to create an aristocratic pastoral society. The setting for the A Thief in Love Suspense Romance series is a standard Federation planet. It’s an average world for a galaxy-spanning civilization. Most citizens don’t take a space-capable shuttle from home to the spaceport. They’re consigned to the streets and throughways below. Much like most people today don’t use helicopters to get from point to point. On a Federation standard planet every home has a med-bed to provide routine medical treatment. And yet even on these advanced worlds, the poor or desperate fall through the cracks. A hovel is still a hovel.

I have yet to create a world in which all the technology is futuristic. Perhaps that would be the setting for a Silicon Valley type society. But even today’s Silicon Valley has people living in RVs along the streets because, although they work there, they can’t afford to live there. Yes, that could be an interesting planet.

A Thief in Love Suspense Romance

 

My next release is due out April 23, 2018 and available for pre-order now for $2.99. How to Steal the Pharaoh’s Jewels is book #2 in the A Thief in Love Suspense Romance series. This series of novellas is best read in order. The love story in each book is complete, but each book builds on the previous one. You need to read Sebastian and Darcelle’s story before you pick up Cade and Bassinae’s friends-to-lovers romance.

It Takes a Cat Burglar by Cailin Briste

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Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/cat-burglar

When Darcelle Lebeau throws off the invisible chains that keep her bound to her family, she discovers a new vocation. Tempted to enter the illegal playground of a man she nicknames Matou, she becomes a cat burglar in training. Deeply ensnared with each task he entices her to fulfill, she fails to discover his identity and true intentions.

Sebastian St. Croix, a wealthy businessman, has a dark side. He’s a thief, a cat burglar who steals art and historical objects. For one year, he trains Darcelle to become his assistant, remaining incognito, observing her from afar. His admiration grows along with his desire for her with every phase-one challenge she completes. Phase two will test the limits of his control. Hands-on personal training? Yes. Sex? No. With his sister’s happiness at stake, nothing, not even the tempting Darcelle Lebeau, can interfere with accomplishing the biggest break-in of his career.

How to Steal the Pharoah’s Jewels by Cailin Briste

Pre-order Now for $2.99

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/pharaohs-jewels

Cade’s fantasy is to seduce his best friend if he isn’t murdered first.

His comfortable routine as a member of Sebastian St. Croix’s cat burglar team is shattered the day he’s pinned in a crushed car. In a moment of clarity, before everything goes dark, he realizes he’s in love with his best friend, a woman who has sworn off intimate relationships for life.

It’s taken Bassinae years to overcome a past filled with physical abuse and embrace the truth that she is a powerful, capable woman in her own right. Tamping down a case of nerves, she’s ready to take on a larger role as a thief in Sebastian’s next caper. If only Cade would stop acting like a lovelorn idiot. She needs her best friend’s support to help steal the Pharaoh’s jewels.

Set in the distant future, this sci-fi suspense romance has action and adventure as well as a sizzling romance.

My Current Giveaway

I’m giving away a Kindle Fire 7 to one follower of my Facebook page when it reaches 1500 followers. https://www.facebook.com/cailinbriste/

I’d love to have you subscribe to my monthly newsletter here: http://cailinbriste.com/cailins-newsletter-sign-up/

My Facebook readers’ group, Cailin’s Romance Immersion Therapy, also has openings for anyone who needs group romance therapy sessions. We support one another’s need for romance, and as the group therapist I regularly add useful and entertaining posts to help you keep yourself fully dunked in romance. https://www.facebook.com/groups/CailinsRomanceImmersionTherapy/

Science Update

Happy Tuesday Brigaders!

All us SF Brigaders know the science is as important as the romance in SFR. In my opinion, where we SFR writers excel at bringing out the human and social elements of the story we also excel at infusing the small details of future technology without nauseating the reader with thesis-like paragraphs and chapters. We're good at the details and the subtle world building of the future. So, today I've got pretty cool stuff on some great Science Updates that have great opportunities in SFR.

First up, bandages that change color to let you know your wound is becoming infected. How cool is this futuristic medical treatment? Expand this and you'll have patches, gauze, and medical tape that indicates...whatever. Maybe even blood pressure, heart rate, healing progress...


Next, the sad news that chocolate is going the way of the dinosaurs. Don't fret, it's not anytime soon but still, it gives pause for thought. When you're writing, what of today's commodities will not be around, in proximity, or evolved into something else? To tell the truth, I haven't really explored this concept in many of my works but it has intrigued by the ideas and will definitely infuse some of this in my next works. Thinking beyond just the fact that a yummy treat will be going away, we need to think of the full implications. Cocoa beans are a commodity ...

Okay, I'm starting to get too excited so I better hurry and get to the most exciting find. What we Sci-Fi geeks have been waiting for...Light bending camouflage. 'Nuff said. Check it out. I'm struck speechless and typeless yet again at this news. There's been work on military flight camouflage but this new metamaterial research is going to open up doors for all kinds of smaller scale ideas and more field battle uses. I imagine a futuristic Patton play. Not just creating a false military site, but hiding our military posts, our men in the field, our ground vehicles, and our small reconnaissance flyers...

For the full article, please feel free to stop by Adventures of a Sci-Fi Writer.

Technological update

As an SFR writer I'm always on the lookout for interesting technological advances. So when I saw the title- "Man Injects Himself With Computer Virus," my mind went all sorts of places.

Here's the link to the news story if you're interested, or looking to get some inspiration for a story.

Let me know if you enjoy posts like this. If you do I'll make sure to share things as they pop up!

Augemented Senses

For the cyborg fans among us, it appears that science is on the cusp of integrating technology with human information processing. It's on a limited scale, at the moment, but if you're familiar with the D20 gaming system Shadow Run and the novels the game has spawned, then you're familiar with the concept of hardware implants designed to let human consciousness mesh with computer generated visualizations. The questions (and therefore story points) just keep popping up. At what point do technological enhancements turn a human into a cyborg? What happens to the human brain when the admittedly cool tech like that detailed in the article linked above makes it so that our brains no longer have to learn to operate on a spacial basis? Is there inherent mental/physical benefit - beyond being able to find your way from point A to point B - in having to learn how to read a map or visualize your city and your position therein? Can something as simple as a pair of glasses giving directions really influence how humans evolve? In what way? Aren't there at least a thousand stories in this single article? I have mine. The third, as yet untitled, book in the Enemy series (Enemy Within, Enemy Games - from Berkley Sensations in November 2010 and Spring 2011) includes a heroine using technology to enhance and sometimes to compensate for her senses. What's your story?