An Alien Take on the Familiar by @CassChandler

by Cassandra Chandler

I’ve loved Science Fiction for as long as I can remember and devour it in any form I can find. Books, short stories, movies, TV shows. I have a special place in my heart for B-Scifi movies—where you can see the threads holding up the hubcaps and almost smell the corn syrup and red food coloring (or grape jam, with some of the black and white movies).

It never mattered to me if the effects sometimes just kinda…did their best. My imagination could fill in whatever I needed it do. Nothing could compare to the wonder of those shows, the feeling of infinite possibility. I actually enjoyed the cheesey dialogue, over-the-top performances, and weird outfits that I sometimes recreated with my mom’s old sewing machine. But there was one thing that I adored more than anything else.

The rubber monster suits.

I loved the aliens in those movies. There’s something about the characters created by a person wearing a big rubber suit that has always fascinated (and sometimes terrified) me. Practical effects have a different feel than CGI, and the artistry that went into sculpting and animating many of the costumes from the earliest Scifi movies adds to my enjoyment of the stories.

The variety and imagination at play with some of the weirder creations has always delighted me, but I’m most drawn to alien takes on the familiar. I’ve been playing with this quite a bit in my Scifi romcom series—The Department of Homeworld Security.

It started in Entry Visa, with a four-armed, white-furred, gorilla-like humanoid named Craig. I envisioned Craig and his mate, Barbara, as Space Sasquatches (but don’t tell them I said that). I had a blast writing them, especially the first scene where Craig meets the human hero, Henry, and learns about weird human body functions like “sneeze.”

 Of course, with my love of all things reptilian, I had to create a race of lizard people. I had so much fun with the Space Sasquatches, I decided to make these my take on “little green men” (and women). Thus, the Vegans were born.

          

The most recent addition to my non-human characters are the adorable Antareans—giant ant people. The Antareans have been building in my writer’s mind for a long time. When they first popped into my imagination, they were terrifying (because, you know… giant ant people.) But as I learned more about them and their culture, I realized that they are actually what I would consider the most “human” of all the aliens I’ve introduced in this series. They’re the most loving and compassionate and the most connected to one another (hey, I’m an optimist). I was so happy to have them show up in Export Duty.

I love it when new characters, new planets, and new cultures just grow from my writer’s mind. And the best thing about using them in books? I’m not limited by rubber monster suits or hubcaps on strings. The only limits are my imagination. That’s the very best part of writing Scifi.

The Department of Homeworld Security #9 — Export Duty

Her next delivery will be out of this world!

Lily’s main priority is to steer her family’s import/export company toward altruistic pursuits. That is, until her Nana starts talking about doing yoga with a little lizard person from outer space. Lily’s new goal is to help her Nana see through her delusions. But then, the alien in question actually shows up in the green-scaled flesh, dragging along a doctor that Lily would love to have examine her.

As field medic for the Coalition soldiers stationed at the Earth base in Florida, Rin is pretty non-essential. His job is to smile and distract people while med-tech takes care of whatever issue they're having. So why is a Vegan—the creators of that technology—coming to him for help?

Throw in some desperate Antareans wanting to start a trade agreement with Lily, and an attack by dozens of fanged, furred Earth-monsters called “cats”, and Rin’s going to need some of that med-tech for himself. Or maybe he’ll just let Lily tend to his wounds Earth-style…

Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Export-Duty-Department-Homeworld-Security-ebook/dp/B07NV62PVD/

Buy it on Apple Books: https://books2read.com/u/mqVgnO

Buy it Elsewhere: https://books2read.com/u/bMZRDB

Author bio:

Cassandra Chandler spent her preschool years daydreaming that she was an android from the planet Mars sent here to observe humans. She's not entirely sure this isn't true. She uses her vivid imagination to make the world more interesting, spawning the ideas she turns into her whimsical Science Fiction romcoms and darkly evocative Paranormal and Urban Fantasy Romances. Fast-paced and funny, lighthearted or dark, her stories will introduce you to characters you want to be friends with and worlds where you'd like to build a vacation home.

Let’s stay in touch!

Web Site: https://cassandra-chandler.com/

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/boZm9j

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/casschandlerauthor

Facebook Reader Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1562856810451659/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CassChandler

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Science Fiction Romance Brigade.

Worldbuilding Gets Punk’d @j_c_hay

by JC Hay

For me, cyberpunk has always been the genre of rebellion. It eschewed the shiny futures and far frontiers that other science fiction genres promised. More importantly, it focused on the rebels and runners who made their living in the cracks where society had left them – thriving like weeds in the neon-soaked concrete. When I started the Corporate Services books, I knew I wanted to keep that rebellious cyberpunk ethos. That meant I needed something to be rebelling towards – an end state for the world that would level the playing field between the haves and the have-nots in my stories.

For me, that meant the Singularity. Or at least some version of the singularity.

For the unfamiliar – the Singularity is considered to be the moment when technological growth of artificial intelligence exponentially increases and bypasses human ability. I could talk at length about how we’re already seeing hints of what that could look like (look at what AlphaGo is doing to our perceptions of how Go is played, for example), but for the Corporate Services world I needed to create a over-arching story point that would usher in the end of the anthropocene. And, more importantly, that all of that would be set-up for the next arc in the series.

To do that, I had to come up with my idea of how the Singularity would arrive, and then build backwards from there, laying out the foundations that would allow an artificial intelligence to begin quickly iterating itself and surpass our own capabilities. Once I knew where it was going, the rest of the world building dropped into place quickly, pieces I could build into the individual plots of each book as the AI begins its quest to free itself.

For this first arc, which began with Dubai Double-Cross, I knew that multiple organizations in the world I was building were doing their own research into Artificial Intelligence. I also knew that their researchers were smart enough not to allow their work to have access to the whole of humanity in the ‘Net. Something that the AI ultimately needs. Setting up that moment of choice was the point I wanted the series to drive towards.

As a result, the first three books in the series can be seen as a prequel of sorts, or eve like the first season of a TV series, where the final episode sets up new changes for the season to come. Certainly things in the Corporate Services world will be very different when we return. Both old and new characters will find themselves dealing with the repercussions of the choices made in this first series, and antagonists from old books may become newfound allies as a communal enemy begins to make itself known.

And that means more rebellion, in a classic cyberpunk fashion, as everyone tries to level the playing field once more.

Dubai Double Cross

Elise is looking for an exit. Too many years as a top-talent thief in the digital shadows have whittled away her patience and her humanity. She’s not looking for complications, but with one more job, she’ll finally have enough money to leave the life for good.

Na’im does what he must to survive. Whether it’s selling his body to the corporate glitterati, or going on the run when things get bad – but even a survivor can be caught off guard, and his boss’s murder has left him with no one to trust but a thief with her own agenda.

Together, they’re on the run trying to figure out who framed them both and stay one step ahead of the murderer who’s close behind. Trust is a rare commodity for accidental lovers, but in a dark future where everything can be upgraded and emotions can be programmed, sometimes all that can keep you human is your heart.

On the fence? See what the SFR Brigade had to say: http://sfrcontests.blogspot.com/2017/04/sfrb-recommends-71-dubai-double-cross.html

Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01M1M8FRL

 

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/dubai-double-cross/id1162248808 

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/dubai-double-cross 

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dubai-double-cross-jc-hay/1124769476  

Author Bio: 

SFR Galaxy Award Winner JC Hay has never seen the distinction between science fiction and romance, having been raised on a steady diet of Robotech, Babylon 5, and Farscape. A proud resident of the Pacific Northwest, he writes science fiction and cyberpunk romances where the relationships matter as much as the shiny tech. After all, the coolest gadgets in the world are no fun without someone to share them.

Website: http://jchay.com

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My Travels On Earth: Feeling Like a Stranger in a Strange Land by Cara Bristol

By Cara Bristol

(My opinions are my own and not the SFR Brigade’s).

In 2007, my family went to China. Previously, I had little interest in visiting China, but the year before the Beijing Olympics we got such a great travel deal, I couldn’t afford not to go.

China changed my attitude toward travel. I’d been to Europe, the Caribbean, and Canada & Mexico, of course. Before China, I traveled for vacation, to go someplace familiar and comfortable so I could rest & recreate. Until 2007, the places I’d visited were westernized. But while Europe is pretty impressive, it’s not that different from the US.

However, China was like a different planet. Oriental culture is so foreign, so unlike anything we have or know in the West, it felt alien to me. I felt like a “stranger in a strange land.”  China made me want to travel for adventure, to see what the world had to offer.

That sense of foreignness and the quest for adventure is what I try to bring to my science fiction romance settings. I want to take readers to places they’ve never been,—but that are not so different that they feel at a loss to understand. So I try to make my alien locales relatable to something they do know.

Planet Xenia, created in an earlier Cy-Ops Sci-fi Romance, is the main setting in Claimed by the Cyborg. It’s a vibrant, colorful planet with fields of purple grasses, unusual flowers, and squat trees. The animals are unusual: fish have legs and land mammals have feathers and wings, the sky is pink, not blue, and it colors the planets streams and other waterways.

If the planet’s flora and fauna are strange, the people’s mating customs are even stranger, which the hero soon finds out.

Claimed by the Cyborg Description

March Fellows assumed he had all the time in the galaxy to pursue a relationship with Jules, an alien exchange student from Xenia, until she vanished without a trace. After years of searching, he finds his lost love on the eve of her arranged marriage.

The daughter of the Xenian emperor, Julietta never meant to fall in love with a Terran man while visiting Earth. Leaving to fulfill her responsibilities on her home planet opened up a hole in her heart that could never be filled. When March, now a cyborg, unexpectedly shows up just before she is to be bonded, she struggles to find the courage to turn him away a second time and follow through with her duty. Before she can act, the lovers are thrust into a political conspiracy that threatens the Xenian empire and their lives.

Claimed by the Cyborg is available in ebook and paperback

Amazon: http://hyperurl.co/Claimed-Amz

iBooks: http://hyperurl.co/Claimed-iBooks

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/claimed-by-the-cyborg

Barnes & Noble: http://hyperurl.co/Claimed-BN

Author Bio
 

USA Today bestselling author Cara Bristol has been the no. 1 best seller in science fiction romance, bdsm erotica, and holiday fiction on Amazon. She’s the author of two science fiction romance series featuring tough alpha heroes: the Cy-Ops Sci-fi Romance cyborg series and the Breeder science fiction romance series, which emphasize character-driven stories written with a touch of humor and sizzling chemistry between the hero and heroine. Cara lives in Missouri with her own alpha hero, her husband.

Website: http://www.carabristol.com

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Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Cara-Bristol/e/B004D8KZTQ/