The Irresponsible Reader

I looked at what was labeled Science Fiction Romance and really didn’t care for the trend of shifters and mating rituals, alien lovers or world saviors, and very hot males where sex often came before relationship building. I wanted a series that was really based in a well-conceived science fiction world—preferably space opera for some fun and adventure. But I had no following in that genre. I did some research of the market and found, what I believe, was a missing niche. That is SF for smart women who liked the science but also wanted the relationships. That fit what I love to write. Character-driven stories, based in science but with definite romantic relationships that make a difference in the story. But I knew I couldn’t do it alone and get a following quick enough to make it work.

So I approached my friend, Jessa Slade writing as Elsa Jade, who’s story telling ability I love. Even when she’s writing shifters, paranormal, or alien lovers she is still writing smart fiction. She creates strong women characters who are as much in control of the situation as the men in the romances. She has been part of a number of multiple author group projects, and enjoyed the experience. So I asked if she would be interested in us co-coordinating this one. Fortunately, she agreed.

We both created the basis of the Obsidian Rim world. What you read on the Obsidian Rim website regarding the World background is what Jessa and I came up with. I’m the more sciency of the two of us, so things like metric measurements, wormhole time dilation etc. is from my research. The concept of Quantum Energy Drives and Bombs is Jessa’s idea and how that actually plays out in the science is both of us. The details of things like language, weaponry, etc. were contributed by individual authors as they built their own stories and is attributed.

Once we had the background, rules of the world, and contract details we began recruiting writers we knew personally who we believed could write these kinds of stories (based on what they’ve written in the past) and who we knew to be reliable. Because we have an aggressive release schedule with a new book every two weeks, we needed people who could get their books finished and through an editor on time. As we began recruiting in February, several of the people we approached were unable to join us because their annual release schedule was already full. But we are happy with the writers we have and if everything goes well this year, will open up to additional writers in 2020.

So, in Gravity, the concept of cryoborns is mine and their special gift for navigation is a central piece of my trilogy in the Obsidian Rim world. The characters, their background stories, and the type of travel and planets visited are all mine. The book begins on Ydro-Down which is a mining planet that Elsa Jade created for her trilogy in the world. She gave me the outline of what was there in her mind and the basic corporate structure, and we agreed on an intersection with one particular character who would be the hero in her first book. I took it from there. When I finished the section that took place on Ydro-Down, I sent it to her for review in case I took too many liberties with her world or portrayed the intersection character inaccurately. We were both writing our drafts at the same time, so we were both figuring things out as we wrote. Fortunately, there were only a couple of easy changes to make it mesh.

We have recently put up a revised map of approximately where the different worlds are in the galaxy that have been a part of a book so far. As people share what living environments they’ve created, we try to place them in the Rim in our best guess as to how it works with the rest of the bookso and the intersection of stories. It is definitely NOT exact or even close, as the further out you go along the spiral arms the less we know right now which means less to extrapolate for the future. Also, distances even within one sector of the galaxy are still tens of thousands of light years apart.

I would love to share a little bit about each author in the 2019 round of novels.

I’ve already talked quite a bit about Elsa Jade., my co-conspirator in this undertaking. In addition to writing great stories, she is also a developmental editor and has won two Rita awards for her editing on author’s books. Jessa Slade/Elsa Jade now has 50 books published, with the more majority in SFF Romance and continues to write amazing character-driven stories that keep readers coming back. Her Obsidian Rim trilogy features the primary mining planetoid for qubition—the ore that powers ships to get through wormholes and also powered Q-bombs that destroyed most of the galaxy.

Jane Killick lives in the U.K. She works for the BBC as her day job and her love of SF started with movies and UK series television. Her most popular book, Stasis Leaked Complete, is based on interviews with the cast and crew of the successful space comedy, Red Dwarf.  Another popular nonfiction work is her five book series going behind the scenes of Babylon 5. Her most recent SFF fiction series is The Perceivers, A YA telepathy thriller series of four books. Her Obsidian Rim trilogy features freelancersplying their trades throughout the Rim.  It’s a great backdrop for exploring both the good and corrupt parts of commerce in the future.

Shree Aier is our only freshman writer. Her Obsidian Rim book, Coexistence, is her first published novel. I like Shree because she is even nerdier than me. Until recently, Shree has been pursing academic interests in science. She has two undergraduate degrees in business, psychology and biochemistry, and a Masters in materials science & engineering. She’s worked on research projects in psychology, biochemistry as well as cancer therapeutics using nanotechnology. Her trilogy features the Earth Conservatory, a place where original stocks of plants, seeds, and animals that came on generational ships are stored and monitored—not always with the best interest of humanity.

Shona Husk is a well-published writer, with 45 books published across several romance genres. The majority feature fantasy and science fiction worlds. She lives in western Australia and brings a definite knowledge of writing with multiple author series. Her Obsidian Rim trilogy, Dead Suns, features a royal family with a criminal element and mercenaries that sometimes work with them and at other times against them. Lots of page-turning adventure and great character-building within the Rim world. Her stories feature insights into social hierarchy, politics, and power and their impact on a personal level.

Jody Wallace is our humorous author, both in person and in her writing. Like any good comedian, she finds humor in the strangest situations. This is proven by her choice of planet for her trilogy—Trash Planet. Yes, it is literally a planet devoted to collecting and recycling all the trash from the Rim. With over 30 books published she has a great track record for delivering humor with good stories. Other writers may know her in her alter ego as the Grammar Wench, and/or the “cat lady” who has run a “meankitty” blog since 1999. Like Jessa Slade, Jody is also a freelance editor.

Sela Carsen is the author I’ve personally known the longest. We first met in an author critique group about 15 years ago. We were both starting on our novel writing journey in romance at that time and created a group of seven authors. Sela is particularly skilled at writing shorter works—short stories and novellas. Something I admire, as to me a short story is at least 8K words. The majority of her titles are in fantasy, a large number in the Nocturne Falls world created by Kristin Painter. Sela loves legends and fairy tales, so you are likely to see some of that seeping into her SF books as well. She agreed to tackle this slightly longer form for the Obsidian Rim novels and we are glad she’s joined us.

CJ Cade is another writer with a large backlist. With over 35 novels to date. Her SF Romances are written as CJ Cade, whereas her contemporaries and paranormals are written as Cathryn Cade. Right now the two pen names are running neck and neck for number of titles. Cathryn is also an author with a history of working in multiple author series, so she brings that experience of collaboration to the table. Her Obsidian Rim trilogy features a world where the plants are actually toxic to most humans, but some have adapted. An interesting dilemma indeed.

For me, I began this trilogy with the idea of how the Rim was populated or how humans were able to go tens of thousands of light years away from earth. I knew there needed to be generational ships and that likely meant most of the colonists would be in cryosleep. But what happens to people in cryo during the Oblivion War when large quantum waves wash over them? Something had to change, and that is where the special navigational abilities arise.

For me characters, and particularly with a romantic element, need to have opposing needs. I had a good idea of Kash. Though he starts the book enslaved, he has a memory of a past that was peaceful and loving before being put in cryo and that shapes his view of what is possible. That is juxtaposed by Lehanna who was raised a criminal, a pirate, and has no basis for believing anything good about the world unless she gets it or take sit herself. But these two are thrown together with these different world views and need to work it out. How do humans do that? And what pulls one to the other, even when the worldview is so opposite? I find that ultimately interesting and the basis for problem solving all the scrapes they get in. Both of their skills are needed and both of their worldviews are needed, because neither one has the entire truth.

But characters are the best part of “pantsing” for me, because they come from my heart and they are there to create questions or other views in the protagonist(s) life. It is not at all unusual that these secondary characters eventually get a story of their own.

Adira was created out of a need to steal something from the evil slave overlord on Ydro-Down. Because he was truly evil, I had to develop a character who somehow survived him no matter what trauma she felt, and yet kept her humanity because she also remembers (like Kash) a time in her life when things were beautiful and peaceful. Adira also serves as a good mirror to Lehana—who also comes from trauma but has shut down her ability to feel or sublimated it with anger and aggression.

Layla is actually a personification of my cat, Layla. ☺ She was so named because the name, from the Arabic, means “dark beauty” or one born at night. My cat, Layla, is primarily black with streaks of golden brown around the face. She is very calm, but also astute and can lay in wait for an attack for hours if needed. Layla in my book therefore is also dark skinned, calm, but very astute. I made her unusually tall to emphasize that juxtaposition between largeness and peace. Also, compared to Adira who is small, like Lehanna, it seems like another subtle way to show how diversity still brings commonality.

I don’t know yet, how Adira and Layla are going to feature in the next two books or if they will eventually get stories—or series—of their own. For now, in many ways, they are the centering force for extremes that occur with my protagonists.

I think for many people, that is an ongoing question in our lives. How much should I, can I, do to help make things better. From stories of jews being protected in WWII at the risk of the protectors lives, to those who dedicate their life to causes that are beyond challenging and take you away from everything you know—those who fight for climate justice, homelessness, science, the arts—whatever the cause it can become all consuming and is that good?

These heroic stories are always ones that interest me. What kind of people make those choices and what price do they pay? At the end, I and the reader are left to answer the question if the price was worth it. Life is not black and white, and I like exploring the complexity of those questions.

Will Lehanna and Kash choose to change so much that they can never go back to “normal” again? Or will only one choose? Or will they find a way out of total commitment? All answers are possible and all choices are ones that help.

I didn’t plan to go to college because I couldn’t afford to go. However, my father guilted me into using my savings from working as a waitress for three years to go to one year of college instead of moving out. He was a smart man and I loved the challenge of learning. I never considered pursuing a creative path because I was paying for it all myself and I knew it would never pay me enough to live on my own. My career and eventually academia was a great way to satisfy my love of life-long learning and get paid for it.

My need for creative outlet was satisfied by writing short stories on the side—occasionally getting them published in magazines and anthologies. I have about 60 out of more than 100 I wrote that were published. I participated in community theater until into my early 40’s and occasionally got a small part in a B movie being filmed near where I lived. One week of filming at base SAG rates was more income than I got paid in a month of working as a therapist at a university. But those films only came around once every couple of years.

Somewhere around age 45 I realized that the best way for me to pursue a creative life was to be a novelist. I’d had nonfiction work published in books, along with a variety of articles—from academic to every day articles in local magazines or tourist features. Being ever the planner, I decided if I started my novel career by the time I was 50, and could write three books a year while working full time. I would have built up 30 books by my retirement and have a following.

It didn’t work exactly how I planned, but that’s another story. I retired early, at 56, and began writing full time then. I’m up to about 20 books but picking up steam. I don’t know that I’ll ever achieve the income I had in academia or consulting. But I make enough to keep food on the table and a roof over our head and I love what I do.

In terms of a book, in 2008, a good friend told me about Suzette Haden Elgin’s trilogy. She is a linguist who created an entire language, Laadan, specifically for women in her fictional series. She wrote a series of books about a future time when the 19th amendment was repealed. Women had been stripped of their civil rights. Yet, it is the women who have the skills to communicate with alien races. And those skills create the language Laadan which gives them power and

Though the trilogy was published 1984-1987 I’d never heard of it. It was the first time I’d read a book that might be described as feminist. She played with form and function and made them a part of the story. I personally liked the story as a whole, and liked that the women never gave up communicating with each other and with trying new ways to communicate with aliens. It was a “smart” book for smart readers and I appreciated that. It opened my mind to new levels of writing I hadn’t considered.

Ultimately, once a book is in a reader’s hands, the story becomes their story and they may see things I never thought/knew were there. That is the beauty of creation and sharing it with others. If I kept it to myself, I’d never learn more about how we as humans can make connections that are common even within such diversity of thought and experience.