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#SFRB Showcase e/ Exclusive Excerpt

Exclusive excerpt from Hunted, my latest Science Fiction Romance with vampires!  I’ve been calling this novella my space vampire book for so long, it’s sort of cemented in my mind as… space vampires.  I had a lot of fun writing this and I hope you enjoy my excerpt. (more…)

The Stuff of Legend is live!

It has been a long time coming, but I’ve finally finished what was for a very long time “the current WIP”. I had hoped it would be out in 2016, but life-as-we-know-it got in the way. Anyway, it’s finally done.

Dreams2Media’s Rebecca Poole has done a wonderful job on the cover (as usual) and I had some fun with the graphics. The story revolves around an open cluster in that galaxy far, far away…

Browse the rest of the showcase here Deadlocked is now and Audio Book! The lovely Hollie Jackson narrative Deadlocked and it’s now available! Brielle Connors, former officer for the elite bounty hunters the Cavalier Security Corp, is on a mission. To get her job back and make her old boss and ex-boyfriend look like a fool. After weeks of research and leg work, she finally discovers the holy grail…

SFRB Summer cafe – pop in for an appetiser #sfrb

Hi and welcome to the Science Fiction Romance brigade’s summer blog hop. This year, we’re offering a menu of delights guaranteed to pique even the most jaded appetite. This week, the menu is space opera. But first, let’s talk about food. Dinner can very definitely be very sexy, a part of foreplay. Food’s a nice thing to have anyway, isn’t it? So here’s my recipe for my wonderful starter that uses…

Social Media Platform: Facebook #writetips #amblogging #wordpress #WP #writetip #SFRB #SFR

My second most used platform is Facebook. Bet you didn’t realize that.

See that little icon on the right…go ahead click it. Ya know you want to…

Or let me make it easier for you. Here is the traditional thumbs up, Fonzy, like icon. Click it.

There are those that never come to Pressville for the blog. I’ve got around 150 friends and 9 followers. I just turned on the follow feature on FB. No idea…

Hello hello! So, a quick post today. As some of you will know, I'm an editor as well as a sci fi writer, and that means that I fix a lot of errors. But, being a writer, I also make them. I've been watching Mythbusters a lot lately. Unfortunately, I don't spend my days firing guns, breaking down doors, fending off wild jellyfish, etcetera, so my understanding of how to do these things is impaired. And Hollywood certainly doesn't help. Did you know, for instance, that bullets don't ricochet and produce sparks? Sure, they do ricochet, but--as frequent readers of Cracked.com may also know--they certainly aren't as fatal as advertised, either. In movies, TV, and a lot of books, one shot means you die. But what about science fiction? We often talk about matter transporters, Faster Than Light (FTL) travel, fast-growth cloning, and other semi-realistic and sometimes purely fictional technologies. (Yes, I know cloning is real, but we haven't cloned any humans and we haven't sorted out that pesky issue of the telomeres yet.) So when it comes to the little details, do we follow the 'Rule of Cool' (doing whatever seems coolest) or do we try our best to create something realistic? There's a few approaches to this, which I'll outline below.

Approach 1: Whatever is The Coolest

This is what it says on the tin. Ricocheting spark-bullets? Diving through suspiciously close asteroid belts? Ignoring side-effects of a drug treatment? Convenient amnesia? Arguably, this is sloppy writing, but it's also within most readers' comfort zones and is often easy to picture. As well, most readers won't be experts, and most who are will recognize the value of entertainment rather than something that's, well, more rigorous in intent. However, some readers are annoyed by this, and too many scientific errors or historical anachronisms will bounce you right out of a story.

Approach 2: Scientific Rigor

Jack McDevitt stands out as an author who follows this; Charles Sheffield, too. It characterizes a lot of Golden-Age sci fi, but not the pulp sci fi (which tends to follow Approach 1). This is more realistic, and that can be nice, but it can also be bogged down by exposition. Sometimes it's also a bit inaccessible. After all, not all of us who write sci fi are teachers or astronomers. It also involves a lot of research. However, 'getting it right' is really satisfying, and readers often compliment it.

Approach 3: Stuck in the Middle With You 

Most sci fi falls into the middle, but there's a skew towards each end. Personally, I think that due to the lack of scientific education, we should be aiming a bit more towards Approach 2, but modifying it. Really, it's okay to have space be silent and sacrifice sparkly bullets and deal with injuries realistically. The thing about Approach 1 is that it arguably makes a story too easy for the characters. Consider Starship Troopers, which is intentionally a satire, and which makes use of Approach 1 very heavily. Consider Alien instead, which was a bit more realistic, and much more difficult for characters to survive. It's a matter of taste, but consider doing your research very thoroughly before your next story--question the little stuff, too, not just the location of the nearest habitable moon or planet. How would doors work? You don't have to--and shouldn't--explain everything, but a little realism can go a long way.

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