Sandra Stixrude

Please welcome author Lisa Lane to Writer's Habitat! Lisa writes in several genres, including horror and speculative fiction. She's here today to talk about her Science Fiction Romance - and specifically, the difficulty of writing for aliens...

Alien Beauty

While writing science fiction romance (SFR) can be tricky, writing erotic SFR is a challenge all its own. As humans, our taste in sexual appeal is based at least partially on physical beauty—and aliens, at least how many of us perceive them, tend to lack the types of features most would view as arousing. While aliens in SFR can exhibit whatever characteristics their authors attribute to them, truly making them as appealing as their human counterparts takes care, planning, and dedication both to the story and to the characters themselves.

Obviously,humanoids are a good first step at creating aliens with sex appeal; however,the devil is in the details.  Humanoids need languages, unique physical characteristics (or specific mention of a lack thereof), and emotional attributes that complete their characters and prime readers for deeper interaction. They obviously must exhibit at least a modest level of intelligence, and culture always makes a character richer, but I think it is most important that the alien character has heart.  He or she (it?) might not have perfect attributes, or might even be unlikeable in some ways, but there must be some type of redeeming quality that adds to the story,gives meaning to the character’s place in the genre being represented, and keeps readers interested.

When I agreed to write the erotic, STAR TREK-inspired LUST IN SPACE, I knew that I didn’t want to write just another space opera—I wanted to turn the quirky title on its head, writing a work that would be both bold and experimental. The story worked so well, the characters so fun and memorable, that when asked to write the second installment, PANDORA’S HOPE (the name of the ship), I eagerly got to work on the outline to their next deep-space mission.  It took me six months to write PANDORA’S HOPE, as I had other concurrent obligations, but I worked hard to continue the episodic and speculative feel of its predecessor. The ensemble cast grows by a character or two, and the crew pushes boundaries like never before. Among those returning are:

Captain Nora Bradley and First Officer Robert Smith:  The lead love interests find their relationship on rocky ground after cold feet coupled with misunderstanding threatens to end them for good.

Leah the Barkeep and Jim the Locaru:  Being in a relationship with an insect-sized man has its downfalls, and when reality begins to set in over their differences, they might just determine that size does matter….

Tactical Officer Suxie Kasri:  Finds a new companion who is physically perfect for her—but her emotional Esirian mind might be too extreme for her composed and sensible new love interest.

Doctor Johnson and Engineering Manager Andrew Wallace:  Their budding relationship takes an unexpectedly kinky turn when they find they enjoy the thrill of having sex in public.

Navigator Geoffrey Stanton:  … is still a womanizing pig.

And introducing “Quality Control Manager”Patrice Jocar:  From a planet barely represented in Space-Corp, few people know much, if anything, about her people and her race.  When she boards Pandora’s Hope, sent by Space-Corp to monitor the mal-reputed crew, she proves that all parties involved look much different on file than they actually are in real life.

Excerpt:

Nora decided to stop by Leah’s bar for a snack before returning to the bridge,surprised to find Officer Jocar sitting on the stage with her strange instrument, strumming and singing a slow, sad song. Her singing voice was clear and powerful, moving from complicated trills to bold octave jumps, her words trembling from her lips like a morning herald escaping a delicate bird. Even more intriguing, however, was the unique effect that resulted from Jocar’s two sets of vocal cords harmonizing with one another in perfect pitch and sync, one carrying the melody in alto while the other met it with a breathtaking tenor.

She finished her song, and the handful of patrons sitting inside the bar gave her a standing ovation.

“I dedicate this next song to all of you out there who have loved and lost,” Jocar said, and startedher next selection in finger-style. The notes reverberated against one another, the sound of heavy bass echoing with a complex arrangement of pitches and tones.

Leah moved to meet Nora across the bar as she sat. “Hot chocolate and finger foods?”Leah guessed.

Nora nodded. “Have I become that predictable?”

“Yeah,”Leah said, smiling playfully. She began to heat a cup of milk as Jocar’s harmonizing voice filled the room:

The wind sings a song through the leaves of the tree,

and it whispers into my ear of a man I long to see. . . .

Leah swallowed hard, her distraction obvious.

“You okay?” Nora asked her.

Leah nodded and looked down, her lip quivering. She mixed the chocolate into Nora’s mug. “I think it might be over between me and Jim.”

Nora tried to look sympathetic, although she had never quite been able to understand Leah’s strange relationship with the bug-sized man. Sometimes size did matter. What the two of them had seemed incomprehensible, at least to Nora. It just didn’t seem natural, and Nora couldn’t help but feel the strange couple merely had finally realized the inevitable.

Jocar’s lyrics continued:

How do I let go of the only man whom I fully gave my heart?

All I want is to be with him, although we’ll always be apart. . . .

Leah’s eyes filled with tears. She held them just long enough to serve Nora her cocoa,then retreated to the back room with a self-conscious sniffle.

Alone, just this world and me . . . fighting the tears back with my dreams. . . .

She buried her face in her hands in an attempt to stifle her cries.

Thinking about what could’ve been . . . what should’ve been . . . what will be. . . .

She leaned against the back wall, missing him, wanting him. Images of his smiling face flashed through her mind’s eye, and she slid to the floor, the loneliness suddenly too much for

her to bear.

Alone, just this world and me. . . .

Nora could hear Leah’s intermittent whimpers from where she sat, and her mind wandered back to the dark thoughts just recently planted in her own mind by Phoebe. The knot returned to her throat as Jocar’s song only added to her melancholy:

Thoughts on paper,letters never sent . . . he has long let go of me.

Wish that I could just talk to him, to mend the past and set us free. . . .

She wondered what she would do if she found out anything had happened between Robert and Suxie, if even just a kiss. Was it possible? Phoebe definitely was not the best judge of human intention, so her words could very well have been misleading. Still, the conversation had left her feeling uneasy and suspicious, and she wasn’t going to write it all off on raging hormones.

The days go by slowly,and the nights are so lonely.

Will I ever truly love again? Will my heart ever fully mend?

Nora felt her eyes well up, and she snatched a napkin from a nearby silverware setting just in time to catch them as the tears escaped her. She turned her back both to the table of engineers sitting nearby and the officer sitting a few seats down from her at the bar,embarrassed, then turned again as she heard yet someone else crying.

In her awe, she surveyed the room, suddenly realizing the strange singing alien had every person there in tears.

LUST IN SPACE and PANDORA’S HOPE are both available through Kindle and othere-readers, and are also available at http://www.ravenousromance.com.

For more about Lisa Lane’s LUST IN SPACE books and direct buy links, go to http://www.cerebralwriter.com or http://newsensuality.blogspot.com.