Starbound Lovers

It all started for me with Princess Leia and Han Solo.  I was six years old and thought Han Solo would be the coolest boyfriend E-V-E-R.  He was cute, funny, he had an awesome side-kick (Chewbacca) and a space ship.  Does life get better than that?

I'm older now, but I still love those sci-fi heroes.  I love Sci-Fi and Paranormal Romance so much that I started a readers' fan convention just so I could meet my favorite authors.  The first year I did meet two of them in Nalini Singh and Christine Feehan.  I still adore them both and am a huge fan.

That was four years ago.  RomCon has grown and our fifth convention will be this coming June in Denver.  Each year we give out awards for the best books of the year submitted to the Reader Rating program. Over 500 readers signed up to read and rate romance books for other readers.  The best books win the Readers' Crown award in their category. 

And guess what?  Sci-Fi romance needs more readers and a larger voice in the contest.  (My opinion, of course!)  Readers...SIGN UP to be a judge.

So, I'm offering a FREE reader rating to Sci-Fi and FFP romance authors from now until Christmas.  Let's spread the word about how amazing, fun, entertaining and all-around awesome these stories are.  Tell everyone!    Authors...ENTER YOUR BOOKS FOR FREE.

The amazing authors on this blog are a great start.  Let's rock the sci-fi reading world together. Or leave it behind in a space ship with a hot alien hero.  I'm cool either way.

Cheers and happy reading!

Michele Callahan

 

This summer we had Oblivion and Elysium. Loved them both, but preferred Elysium.  Will Smith and Jaden Smith did a good job in After Earth. Star Trek, of course lived up to its fabulous fame.  Iron Man 3 was better than the previous two. The Man of Steel didn't shake the earth.  



I didn't bother to go see Pacific Rim. Big machines can be fun, but I'm more interested in deep characters and an intriguing believable plot. Never cared for RIDDICK, darkness, and more darkness, so I passed on that one.  Also passed on GI Joe Retaliation. Will wait until it comes on TV. Don't care for zombies, so didn't bother with WORLD WAR Z. Maybe I'll catch it on cable.



Out this fall is GRAVITY.





 I'm really looking forward to this one. I love Clooney and Bullock. The trailer looks fantastic. I might even go see it in 3D.


 
Much is expected from:ENDER'S GAME








   THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE
Releasing November 22,  will be looking for it.








THOR, THE DARK WORLD



Gorgeous hero of Viking mythology. Yep, I'll be watching for it.




More science fiction movies are expected in 2014. And further out, a new Star Trek in 2015 and a new AVATAR in 2016.

And if movies are not enough, you can always read sci-fi novels. Who knows, one day they may end up as movies as well. Find mine on the links below.

http://www.lsbooks.com/star-catcher-p799.php

Cindy isn't the only one between books.

For April, I've decided to start another one. But deciding which isn't easy. My brain seemed to think this indecision was a free party, posted the invitation on the internet and now all sorts of weird things are crawling out of the dark corners of my mind.

And then there's my own person obsession: Books. I love books, I love learning things from books, and sometimes I think I became a writer to justify buying so many books (shh, don't tell my husband). So I've been cyberstalking the two biggies, Barnes and Noble and amazon, and buying books.

Which would be good, if they were related to one book, but they're not. At least not to anyone who is relatively sane and logical:-)

I've been buying books on conspiracies, books on the Dust Bowl, books on the Spanish American war (turn of the 20th Century). I've been buying books on the future designs of cities and managing Earth's resources  the same day as I bought diaries about women living on farms during the depression. And lastly I've been buying books about mass murderers.

In all, I've bought over 30 physical books and 7 ebooks on these subjects.

But the really scary thing is, they're all related to each other in my head and I'll use the information I gleaned in my romances, my scifi and my horror novels.

A writer's brain is an undiscovered country. Well, at least until the story is written: then it's an open book.

To me nothing beats a good villain in a book or a movie. A villain doesn't necessarily have to be a person. It can be the weather, like in the movie The Day After Tomorrow or a group of people or humans as in Avatar.

I love writing villains probably just as much as writing about the hero or heroine. I also love learning what makes them tic and what motivates them to do what they do. I think if you have a great villain it really can make a good movie or book great.

I really enjoyed writing about Malcolm, the villain in my paranormal, sci-fi romance, Shrouded in Darkness. I tried to make him as three dimensional as possible. He’s self-centered, has great taste in clothing, somewhat of a metro-sexual, has a bit of a God complex, and surprisingly loves the heroine Margot in his sick, twisted way. Secretly he’s very jealous of Jake and doesn't understand why ethics make Jake do the things he does. Below is an excerpt of when Malcolm and Margot first meet after having not seen each other for a number of years.

Malcolm’s casual shrug made her forget caution, forget anything but the anger. She waved her frozen dinner at him. “I want you off my property. Now.”

He caught her wrist. “Or what?” He pulled her toward him until he peered down at her and his breath, moist and hot, brushed her temple. He arched a brow. “You’ll beat me? Or better yet—spank me? Sounds kind of kinky, but I’d like that. You still have a tight little body—at least from what I’ve seen of it. I could go for a little T. and A. right now.”

She jerked her wrist from his grasp. “You make me sick!”

“I never used to.” He reached out to touch her cheek, but she stepped aside. “There was a time when you liked it.” His voice turned husky. “Seriously, Margot. It was good there for a while between us. You have to admit that.”

He was being serious. She saw it in his eyes and was stunned, so stunned that she couldn’t form a coherent response.

“Remember when we’d go to Jackson’s after dinner.” His face softened. “Damn, but you knew how to dance. The way you moved that body of yours.”

She finally found her voice. “Sex. You’re talking about sex. For a brief second, I thought you might have changed, might have actually had some feelings for what we once had.”

He looked insulted. “Of course I did! Why do you think I married you!” Anger darkened his face. “And we’d still be together if it wasn’t for you. You and your damned divorce!”

“My divorce? You’re the reason for the divorce. Any sane person couldn’t live with someone like you. Your temper is frightening. You lose control all the time and—”

“Are you calling yourself sane now?” His lip curled at the corner. “My. I don’t think that would be the correct term to use...not with your past record-—”

“Don’t!” He’d hit way below the belt on that one. Her voice turned sharp with anger. “I’ve had enough of you and your snide innuendoes. You always have to push me, back me into a corner every single time until I can’t do anything but hit back. I think in some sick way you enjoy doing it. I don’t know why, and I don’t want to know why. But I do want you to leave. I don’t want you here—now or anytime in the future. Got that?”

A red flush stained his cheeks. “Oh, I hear you. Loud and clear. You can yell all you want, and I’ll be the only one able to hear you. It’s just you and me up here. All alone. All by ourselves. Got that?” He stepped toward her.

She didn’t move back. They were only threats. She wasn’t about to show him they bothered her as she walked past him, brushing a shoulder against his arm on the way to the front door. And anyway, she could threaten just as well as Malcolm. “I’m leaving, and if you’re not gone by the time I get to the phone, I’ll call Carl.”

“Carl? You can’t be serious. The guy’s a joke. I’ve had the bad luck to meet him twice, but hell, that’ll do me for a lifetime. He’s got the brain the size of a pea. The only thing not funny about him is the way he blabs and snoops into everyone’s business. If he doesn’t watch it, someone’s going to make sure he shuts his trap for good.”

“You might not take him seriously, but what about another restraining order? Will you take that seriously?” Stopping at the front door, she looked over her shoulder and watched his expression change, the slight tensing of his jaw, the angry glitter in the back of his eyes. She’d hit home. “I’ll do it again if I have to.”

“Don’t push me, Margot.”
Fear shot into her veins. That low, deadly tone of voice was far too familiar. If she let herself remember... No. She wouldn’t let herself think back. She hitched her chin up a notch and stared back, hoping like hell she looked self-assured. “Then don’t push me, Malcolm. I won’t be pushed. Not anymore. You’d be smart to remember that.”

She hugged the groceries against her chest and fumbled with the key to unlock the front door. Her hands were stiff, dangerously close to being frostbitten, which right now was almost a blessing. The cold masked the pain from the slivers of wine bottle embedded in her palms. She didn’t want to think how they would feel when warmed.

Sighing with resignation, she gripped the brass doorknob. Suddenly, Malcolm lunged, shoving her away from the door and barring her path into the house.

“Is that a threat?” he asked harshly by her ear, his palm pressed flat against the doorframe.

Margot froze. He was so close that she smelled peppermint on his breath. “It’s more than a threat, Malcolm.” She stood her ground, not about to back away with fear. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. Clenching her jaw hard, she glared at his chest and said through gritted teeth, “It’s a promise. I swear if you step into my house one more time without being invited, I’ll call the police and happily press charges. If Carl doesn’t charge you with breaking and entering, I’ll be damned sure I find something else he can arrest you for. Assault and battery is a good one for starters. I bet you’d like that. And what about stalking? I think Arizona has a law against—”

Malcolm grabbed her upper arm. His hand on her made her react without thinking, and she swung the carton of milk. It landed against his cheek. The thin cardboard cracked open, spraying milk everywhere. Chips of broken glass frozen to the carton caught on his cheek, scraping his smoothly tanned flesh and drawing blood.

Margot broke free and dragged frigid air into her lungs as icy milk trickled from her face, down her neck to seep into her sweater and jacket.  For several, long heartbeats they stood without moving, breathing heavily, staring.  A muscle ticked along the edge of his jaw while milk coated one side of his face and dripped from his ear lobe. Then Malcolm growled and lurched for her with both hands.

She stumbled back onto slick ice. This time, she couldn’t regain her footing, couldn’t do anything but helplessly clutch at air.

Her skull hit the side of the railing as she went down. White pinpricks flashed across her vision as the world blurred around her. Then she was falling into blackness.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games is a smash hit. Oh, if we could all be so lucky.


In real life, I work in a county library as a catalog technician. I've only been at this job for about two years, so I missed out when The Hunger Games first came on the scene. I did catalog a copy of Mockingjay that our sister library lost (i.e. some punk stole it!) at the end of last year. I read the first few pages and was confused as heck. What was this supposed to be about? Is Katniss a boy or a girl? You miss a lot of info if you just pick up the last book in a series. What little I read was kind of gruesome and depressing. I was like, pffft, so not reading that.


Admittedly, I didn't pick up The Hunger Games until the movie came out. I wanted to see it because I liked Jennifer Lawrence's performance in Winter's Bone. Daniel Woodrell, the author of Winter's Bone is actually a local author here in Missouri. I've never met him, but I really admire his writing for his portrayal of life in the Ozarks. Winter's Bone is eerily accurate for some of the things that go on in this part of the world. No wonder he doesn't have a Facebook page.


Anyway, my husband and I went to see The Hunger Games. I was motion sick about five minutes in because of the camera. But Katniss' character really caught my eye. She was a survivor, right from the start. Never giving up, never backing down. Which makes her a danger to the Capitol, which wants bloodshed, not heroes.


I managed to get my hands on a copy of The Hunger Games right away because a generous patron donated a paperback copy. Did I mention some punks stole not only Mockingjay, but the first book too? For shame! A pox upon your house.


I struggled with Katniss, who fought and bled and came pretty close to dying in the arena on more than one occasion. I pulled for the romance between her and Peeta because I'm a sucker for a love story. And I liked how Katniss came by the mockingjay pin in the book a lot better than they showed it in the movie.


Dystopian YA has never been on the top of my list for reading. I've since changed my mind. Until last week, I'd been on the hold list at the library for Mockingjay for two months. What was taking so long? The day it came in, I devoured it in about six hours. Collins did a remarkable job of writing a character that people--not just the YA scene--can relate to. Actually, I think if I'd read this as a teenager, I wouldn't have been as responsive to it then as I am now. She crossed a genre that adults can get in to because so many can relate to the sense of loss she presents.


Not your typical sci-fi and sure not an average romance, it had enough of that in it to keep me occupied. If you haven't read it, get your hands on it, because it's amazing. My other recommendation, if you like YA although it's fantasy rather than sci-fi, is Maggie Stiefvater's The Scorpio Races. OMG, easily the best book I've read this year (it came out in Oct. 2011). I wish I had the lyrical voice Stiefvater has.


Next on my list is Veronica Roth's Divergent.


When I'm not here, you can find me at my blog Have Novel, Will Edit, on Facebook, Twitter and sometimes G+.