Astrology Just For Writers Part 6: Targeting a Readership Part 3

I reviewed an Astrology book, ASTROLOGY A COSMIC SCIENCE, on Amazon which just turned up (with my review) on a Dating Website (Dating?!!! hmmm. Had to read that.)

http://awardwinningdatingsites.com/320/astrology-a-cosmic-science/comment-page-1/#respond

Astrology A Cosmic Science is very old and the author, Isabelle Hickey, is now gone, alas, but this book came back into print recently.

It was written around the time Pluto was just discovered and Astrologers were trying to figure it out.

http://www.amazon.com/Astrology-Science-Isabel-M-Hickey/dp/0916360520/rereadablebooksr/

I had written about the book on Amazon:

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Strewn With Hidden Gems Of Wisdom
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The strength of this book is the deep, rich context surrounding each topic. But for many, that would be its weakness.

I use it as a reference book – when I’m stumped by a chart, I just page through this book looking for new associations to break the logjam in my mind. But in truth, this is a book to read cover-to-cover, pasting in post-it-notes to mark the bits and pieces of unrelated but illuminating wisdom tossed into various discussions.

For example, in one very illuminating section of this book, Hickey discusses each of the signs as it manifests as the Ascendant – then under each sign as the Ascendant, she discusses each of the signs that would be on the other House Cusps if there are no interceptions, or if you use equal-house methods.

She shows you how the rising sign synthesizes with the signs on each of the cusps – to create some of the characteristics of people with that sign rising, and to color the house involved. This explains WHY a particular ascendant tends to produce people who behave a particular way.

The book is worth its price for that section alone — if you’re willing to just sit for a couple of hours and read all the rising signs, one section after the other. The faster you read it, the more sense it makes. The section is laid out very systematically, and that system reveals vistas of astrological truths in and of itself.

However, at random throughout the section, a few sentences, “throw away dialog,” and offhand allusions are tossed into other topics to point you to bits of knowledge about how astrology works and what it’s actually for. These bits are not taken up anywhere else in the book, not assembled, not set into a larger context, and not indexed. They just leap out at you as if outlined in soul-fire.

For example: In the section devoted to Capricorn Rising, which puts Libra on the 10th, Hickey says, “Venus’s sign in Saturn’s house is often loving for the sake of expediency. This is not true of the more evolved individual. Students often ask the question, “How can one tell the evolvement of an individual in the chart?” Character is shown by the signs in which the planets are placed. Planets in their sign of exaltation and in the signs they rule are indications of an evolved consciousness. Also the higher-octave planets — Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, and Jupiter — in the first, fourth, seventh, or tenth house show that the individual has had much soul experience in other lifetimes”.

You see? For that alone, this is worth the cover price, and there are lots and lots of those throughout the whole book.

Maybe these bits of wisdom aren’t actually true. But as you go, “Aha!” and pull out a dozen charts of people you know well to check out Hickey’s theory, you learn vast amounts more about astrology than you ever would have without investigating that theory.

I came to amazon today looking for links to used copies of Hickey’s book and was delighted to find it in print. I had been paging through this book at random the other day and it gave me a flash of inspiration. I used that insight to write two columns for my sf/f review column called ReReadable Books. Hickey had connected several sf novels for me, using the 7th House, the 6 of Swords and how they generate the art of storycraft. I’m a professional sf author, and teach writing online, and I needed to write a handout for the Writing Workshop at the World Science Fiction Convention. Before I leafed through Hickey’s book, I had no clue in my mind what I could offer at that Workshop. Then I produced a 14 page essay which will probably be the October and November installments of my column.

So, the strength of this book lies in the context surrounding the facts, a context which assembles random bits of the universe in which you live into a pattern that makes sense. But that context material is so randomly placed – so “stream of consciousness” in the style of Hickey’s writing that it’s impossible to use this book just to find out, say, the signature of the advanced soul.

You’d never find it if you searched the index or the table of contents. You have to read the entire book. (stock up on post-its).

And if you like this style of astrology (with a karmic and spiritual bent) – you really need Hickey’s book on PLUTO as MINERVA, and all about WISDOM. There’s a lot in that book I don’t agree with – but it surely makes you think.

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
…-------------------------------------------------------
http://www.amazon.com/Astrology-Science-Isabel-M-Hickey/dp/0916360520/rereadablebooksr/

So I tried to post a reply on the Dating Site blog but it wouldn't accept it, I think because I'm not a member of the Dating Site and don't have their cookie on my computer.

So here's what I wrote in my comment, addressing members of the dating site, now redirected at Romance writers (and readers, for that matter).

This seems to be a posting of Hickey's book with the reviews from Amazon, including mine. I've learned a lot about Astrology and Tarot since I wrote that review, from Hickey and most notably from the great Astrology Teacher Noel Tyl whom I quote all the time.

Hickey's concept of Minerva as the symbolism for Pluto explains a lot about how and why Relationships form then blow apart violently (in divorce or worse).

Pluto transits transform people beyond recognition, but still within their Natal potential. Pluto, slowly but inexorably, fulfills natal potential, which is why it makes a good source of believable plot for a novel.

But such major Pluto transits tend to project the energies. Your transit can manifest via other people or the world around you, rather than within the psyche. It's hard for a writer to show-don't-tell the connection between the character and a sequence of plot events such as this:

... your boss fires you just because she's angry at someone else and you can't prove it. On the way home, you stop cleanly at a stop light, and a car whirls around the corner and T-bones your car. Your spouse files for divorce (what a relief) and your dog dies, and your replacement car needs a new transmission, and the house you win in the divorce springs a leak in the roof, and the insurance wasn't paid up, then your Mother dies (expected but the TIMING is exquisite) and at the same time, you win some award or have some totally explosive success that makes everyone you know and respect jealous, then you're diagnosed with Breast Cancer (thank G-d it's caught early, but you have no medical insurance because of the divorce and firing so all the inheritance is gone but you're alive).

Yep. The stuff of soap opera! Remember I did explain how Pluto is the absolute epitome of pure drama, intensified beyond all absurdities.

When a whole series of stuff like that just avalanches into your life over about 2 years, it is very likely a Pluto transit interacting with a) your Natal Chart and b) other major transits to your Natal Chart being amplified by Pluto.

Knowing that Pluto's energy of wisdom ebbs and flows through our spirits, we can learn how directing Pluto's energy into life is somewhat like trying to hold onto a fire hose running full blast. You definitely need HELP to keep it aimed where it can do good not harm.

And that help is your mate. Your Soul Mate.

If you're sitting on a big fire-hose, you need a Wisdom-Heavy Soul Mate to grab onto it behind you and aim YOU at a constructive task.

Well aimed, Pluto does not produce such a list of wild effects as I described above. Instead, it produces one clean, definitive Event from which you learn a new Wisdom, yielding to the lesson and reorganizing yourself around it. That too can make for great story theme and substance.

Pluto is not Love. It's Wisdom.

Love without Wisdom = Disaster.

That's the kind of Disaster that makes fabulous reading!

Below is a link to a blog post I did on Pluto and the generations of young people changing the world.

Those who are attempting to understand Relationships and the phenomenon of the Soul Mate might like to read some of my blog posts based on what I've learned of Tarot and Astrology applied to the field of Romance writing.

You can start with Astrology Just For Writers Part 6 and work your way back through the links in each post. Isabelle Hickey's Pluto/Minerva concept explains a lot especially about sex mixed with violence, bondage, and practices exerting excessive force. Hickey's concepts can provide alternative scenarios especially suited to writing Supernatural Romance and Paranormal Romance.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

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Meanwhile, I've just finished reading Deborah Macgillivrey's WOLF IN WOLF'S CLOTHING, a Dorchester Romance.

http://deborahmacgillivray.blogspot.com/2009/09/wolf-in-wolfs-clothing-now-in-kindle.html

I think I found her on twitter, and the book sounded right up my alley. I'd read about a third when I asked her the following as a comment on her blog (linked above)

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I'm still reading WOLF. Can you explain why you put the first really hot sex scene at the 1/3 point of the narrative and why it's over 10 pages long with several settings?

Since I keep writing blog posts on writing craft for the Alien Romance blog ( aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com ) questions of structure like this keep coming up.

Is this a Dorchester requirement or a pacing you find works with your readers? (and may I quote you?)

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And she answered:

My characters act and react within their own parameters of who they are. In my second historical, “In Her Bed”, the first sex scene happened early on, simply because the plot opens with the heroine trying to get with child in order to hold onto her fiefs in Medieval Scotland. When and how characters meet, what is driving them, gives each story its own pace. In the first book in the Sisters of Colford Hall™ series, “The Invasion of Falgannon Isle”, Desmond comes to the island with vengeance on his mind. As soon as he arrives, he falls for the magic of the heroine and her quirky island, so their romance dictated the sexual scenes be put off. In “Riding the Thunder” the second book, Jago (Trevelyn’s twin) was in a flux, knowing their seeking vengeance against the sisters was not right. Thus, it pushed the sexual encounters farther back into the book because of his conscience gnawing on him.

When I created Trev, I wanted an arrogant man, used to taking life as he wanted, and little worrying about what happened after. He was a “wolf” in the truest sense. And he wanted Raven. He would not hold back, seeing sex as a way to bind Raven to him. Instead, it bound him to her?something he didn’t count on. Raven was the most vulnerable of the sisters, less willing to take risks. She’d spent so long creating a “Tolkein” faerytale world where she was safe, secure. Her letting go so early in the relationship and allowing Trev into her bed, her life, was her taking that ultimate gamble for something very special.

So, since I am allowed to write the stories as I want, it’s the characters themselves who say how the emotions and the sexual extension of that love occur and when. I love logic. Everything has to fit the logical make up of that character, or it just doesn’t fit. It won’t ring true for the reader.

If you find anything to help you, please feel free to use quotes.
November 2, 2009 4:56 PM
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Now you can see from Deborah Macgillivray's track record that she has gained a readership that Dorchester Love Spell and Zebra Historicals know how to reach and serve. That's why she's "allowed" to write them as she sees them. She has created a market.

She has gained a gut-level understanding of the story that her readers are following, so she just has to follow her nose through her story to turn out a slam-bang perfect of its kind novel (yeah, she's that good).

Then I was thinking about WOLF IN WOLF'S CLOTHING (BTW it's not werewolf, and the paranormal is left gray and equivocal) and the similarity to Sharon Green's first DAW novel series, THE WARRIOR WITHIN. Green does not write that way -- follow-her-nose -- she does it on purpose.

Green took John Norman's Gor novels and (in response to a challenge uttered at a party at an SF convention) turned the Gor novel formula inside out and upside down (a totally unthinkable feat in professional story-telling at that time).

Sharon Green:
on Amazon

John Norman
John Norman on Amazon
 
Sharon Green took the cave-man, sword-slinging beast-man who rescued and ravished damsels with total disregard for their person-hood, and switched the point of view.

She did it pretty much on a dare (yes, I know Sharon Green and I like her a lot!)

The first novel sold so well, she got to do a whole series, showing how this character, Terrilian, a very strong woman with massive immaturity, learns that her preferences aren't the only ones that matter.

I couldn't put The Terrilian Series down! Really. Those books are as fascinating and absorbing as some of the best fanfic I've ever read, and I had never been able to read the source-material by John Norman.

Sharon Green dealt with teaching this lesson in Relationship to a woman, using the same trope John Norman used, but mirror-imaged.

See comments on my post http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/7-proofing-steps-for-quality-writing.html for comments on trope.

In the 1970's when women were struggling to attain a new identity in mid-life, Sharon's mirror-imaging of the male fantasy founded a blazing career for her.

But if you check the reviews of Terrilian on Amazon, though they are plentiful, there is a segment of the readership that came looking for "Romance" that went away bitterly disappointed.

At the time Sharon invented Terrilian, there was no commercial place for ANY relationship-driven action novels on either side of the Romance/SF divide. That was an absolute. (before the Web and e-books, there really was no place but the author's bottom drawer or fireplace.)

That was the decade when "Warrior" meant "male archetype" and nothing else. The female warrior archetype was literally "unthinkable" and certainly not commercial.

Yet Sharon Green's Terrilian novels, the series called THE WARRIOR SERIES, sold like hotcakes and therefore built a bridge over that divide with a very sophisticated use of the male action trope.

Sharon Green generated a public, popular, Group Mind image of a female warrior and what it means to be a female with warrior traits -- and those warrior traits are on the psychological level more than the physical (though physical courage is not lacking, it's not where the battle is joined).

There is no battle more fierce than the battle against one's own self-image.

As I've said before, there are things about writing that readers don't want or need to know if they simply want to read for the pleasure of reading.

But all writers could wish that most readers knew the difference between a badly written book and a book they simply dislike. I tried to address that issue of "Quality" in my post:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/7-proofing-steps-for-quality-writing.html

Despite the scathing reviews juxtaposed against the over-the-top rave reviews for Sharon Green's WARRIOR series, what you have in the Warrior Series is a very HIGH QUALITY piece of work.

Regardless of whether you like the dark story, the brutality mixed with sex, the raw power nature of the sexual component of what later (7 huge novels later) becomes a more emotional and intellectual Relationship, you should be able to see the QUALITY of what Sharon accomplished.

In addition to that Quality, Sharon broke trope without breaking it. She did what Hollywood always demands: something the same but different.

A great deal of what you see on the Romance and Action Romance stands today is based on the breakthrough Sharon Green made with this series.

You can make a fortune if you can master the thinking method used to arrive at the CONCEPT of mirroring the insanely popular male-action trope the Gor books epitomize, and selling the same male action-packed trope to WOMEN who wanted freedom without the price of maturity. That's where we were in the 1970's and even into the 1980's among adult women raised to be subservient to men.

Today, news reports of more violence against women on TV dramas than ever before are bandied about as a horrifying development, not as evidence of women succeeding in becoming Combat Officers in the Army (unthinkable development - there might be a woman in command over men! Can't have that!) Women now FIGHT and even win against men, in combat or board room.

Fiction didn't exactly lead the way, but Sharon Green and other writers who portrayed for the young generation of women a way of thinking, living and feeling that is both feminine and aggressive created a new trope for female-self-image.

Find the next thing that needs changing and invert the trope of that in our fiction.

THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT.

If you're familiar with both WOLF IN WOLF'S CLOTHING and WARRIOR WITHIN, you can follow this contrast-compare more easily but I'll try to make it simple (OK, you can stop laughing now). This is important because it's about "targeting a readership."

Wolf in Wolf's Clothing is written to a generation of women raised to expect themselves to have to mature and remain women.

Warrior Within was written to a generation of women raised to expect themselves to get everything without maturing in order to remain women. (i.e. there WAS no archetype for THE MATURE WOMAN in American culture; we had to invent it. Marion Zimmer Bradley was one of the leaders with her Renunciates of Darkover -- but RENOUNCING protection isn't the key to a woman's maturity. It's only a step.) Think of I LOVE LUCY which I hope you've seen in endless reruns. Lucy portrays the archetype of yore. Wolf in Wolf's Clothing portrays the archetype of the near future, what the 14 year old girls of today will mature into (maybe sans magic; maybe not).

Both attitudes of the female READERSHIP addressed specifically by AUTHORS, (almost two generations apart) -- both attitudes are culturally inculcated. They do not represent Natal Chart personality or any individuality.

What you absorb subconsciously before you are old enough to speak is really hard to edit later in life. (Magical Initiation, Religious Conversion, or a massive Pluto transit as described above can force you to edit your operating system and "recompile" the code.)

That originally absorbed cultural material becomes part of your identity. (look up CULTURE SHOCK and read Alvin Toffler's book FUTURE SHOCK and Edward T. Hall's book THE SILENT LANGUAGE).

http://www.amazon.com/Future-Shock-Alvin-Toffler/dp/0553277375/rereadablebooksr/

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_4_10?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+silent+language&sprefix=The+Silent

Both of which are products of the 1960's & 1970's culture and give you tremendous insight into what exactly has changed and where the next change of that magnitude is coming from. But these books give you the principles by which civilizations change on the archetypal level, and thus let you do some worldbuilding that readers will believe.

Macgillivrey and Green are both taking a character and "teaching them a lesson." And that lesson breaks their self-image.

Another series that does that with Pluto's huge hammer blows is the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series by Laurell K. Hamilton.

The Pluto-Minerva lesson in Wisdom has to BREAK the person, SHATTER a wall they don't even know is inside them, DESTROY their very identity at its core, in order to penetrate "down" to the layer where the error exists.

We accept anything that resides at that inner level as "Wisdom." Even if it's wrong. Perhaps especially if it's wrong.

The process of rewriting, debugging, recompiling and rebooting that internal Wisdom Operating System isn't likely to happen without a major Pluto transit with all the dark power-symbolism erupting full force. (Pluto transits can work the other way, too, changing correct information into incorrect information - Pluto is not survival-oriented except on the Soul level.) The older you are, the more force Pluto has to bring to bear to create real change.

Once that erroneous information coded into the core being is removed and replaced by new information, the PERSON literally becomes someone else.

What gives them pleasure changes. What gives them grief changes. All the emotional circuitry leading from events in the outside world to the gut-level responses within gets rewired and the resulting behavior in response to stimulus changes.

Ah, but the NATAL CHART does not change!!! This is still the same life lived by the same soul.

But any human observer would say, no, it's NOT THE SAME PERSON.

What is it that can produce this effect?

It's not the standard Saturn Transit that often opens one's eyes, strips away things you depend on, and shatters your ego, challenging your values. Saturn makes great plot material, but this is deeper.

connect what happened when you were 27, with what happened at 28 or 29 -- that's the maturing effect of the first Saturn return. Don't trust anyone over thirty -- is true. It's a gulf you cross to maturity and your responses to input will change.

Macgillivrey and Green are writing about a different kind of transit from the Saturn transit.

The reason that SEXUALITY and VIOLENCE and FORCE and ABSOLUTLY IMPLACABLE determination and total OBSESSION and HORRENDOUSLY COMPLETE CHANGE and even CRIME (Pluto is violent crime), DISEASE AND DEATH,INHERITANCE and HERITAGE are the forces driving both plots is that the transformation these authors are writing about is a PLUTO TRANSIT transformation.

Scorpio. Pluto. Force majeur. The underground. The subconscious.

For more on the symbolism I'm discussing with Pluto see my post on the generation signature by Pluto's Sign
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

That post is also Targeting a Readership Part Two.

For contrast with Wolf and Warrior, my first award winner, UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER is about a FIRST SATURN RETURN and is driven by all the keywords of Saturn, even the background and worldbuilding is derived from Saturn keywords.

The change that both Macgillivrey and Green were illustrating artistically was a change to the deepest core ASSUMPTIONS (not beliefs) of the main character each was dealing with.

In the early days, Green had to teach a lesson on that level to women.

Today, we feel the need to teach men a lesson.

As currently transiting Pluto enters Capricorn and shifts emphasis and coloration, we are in the mopping up part of the Gender Wars.

I didn't mention in Astrology Just For Writers Part 6 that along with Pluto's entry into Capricorn we also are looking forward to Neptune entering Pisces, it's own sign.

Remember how I made the point that the generation born with Pluto in its own sign (Scorpio) had a greatly emphasized Pluto energy in their personality, the source of what they obssess on and enjoy most, what they're willing to pay for in entertainment? Neptune will become exceptionally prominent like that when it's in Pisces, its own sign.

2011 or maybe 2012 should show us more of how that will work on the general group psyche of current adults, and it'll be a good 15-20 years before we know what the children of that generation with Pluto in Capricorn and Neptune in Pisces will go for in entertainment.

But note that as Pluto transited its own sign of Scorpio, we got the MORE-MORE-MORE-VIOLENCE-POWER-IS-EVERYTHING generation of video game players.

Neptune rules Pisces, and as it transits its own sign the keywords connected with Neptune will manifest in our cultural assumptions.

One pervasive effect of Neptune is to convince you that your highest ideal (12th House, Neptune and Pisces are about IDEALS among many other slippery things including entertainment itself) - that your highest Ideal already is a fact.

Saturn is Fact.

Neptune is Ideal.

Pluto is Force.

Uranus is Freedom.

Uranus will simultaneously be entering Aries, ruled by Mars (war; whereas Pluto is the upper octave of Mars which might be seen as nuclear war, supervolcanoes rather than mere volcanoes).

These 3 factors (Pluto in Capricorn, Neptune in Pisces, Uranus in Aries) will persist while Saturn sweeps through Scorpio and Sagittarius and maybe on into Capricorn which Saturn rules).

That is the "atmosphere" we'll be writing our fiction in. People battered by those forces, concerned by those issues, burned out over dilemmas and conundrums (Neptune), fighting with their teenagers over what the teens see as reality, will come seeking LOVE CONQUERS ALL and THE ALL POWERFUL H.E.A.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/snow-dogs-and-happily-ever-after.html

What lessons will the people born with Pluto in Scorpio (1985-1995 or so) need to see worked out in their Art (our novels) as they live through these transits?

What lesson in Relationship, what Wisdom, has to be "beaten" (Pluto) into their "heads" (Aries rules the head).

What do they assume is true (Neptune) which actually might become true if they would "wake up" (Uranus) to themselves (Aries) and accept the Discipline (Saturn) of Wisdom (Minerva-Pluto).

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.jacquelinelichtenberg.com

FFFig! Fantasy, Futuristic & Ghost (or why the wrong label sucks)

Heather and passengers have had some interesting and productive discussions on the labeling and categorizing of science fiction romance over on her blog, The Galaxy Express recently. This is no new discussion, but it is one we evidently must keep having because apparently even those deep in the business trenches of commercial genre fiction Don't Get It.


Case in point: Amazon. Now, many of you know I have no love for Amazon. I recognize it as a necessary evil at most times. I also recognize it's a hugely popular site and I am appreciative of their innovations in on-line book marketing and such. So given that they were one of the first, one would think--wouldn't one--that they'd know what in hell they market.

Sadly, they're perpetuating part of the deep problem science fiction romance has in declaring it's identity. Amazon--arguably one of the largest on-line marketers of books--has (if one goes to the ROMANCE categories) lumped science fiction romance/futuristics/romantic science fiction in the following category:

Fantasy, Futuristic and Ghost

If you don't believe me, click here for the Romance section with the categories on the left. Click here for their FFG category.

Notice they break out "vampires" and "time travel." They don't have a category called Fangs and Far Back in Time. Noooo. Vampire romance is recognized as a (sub)genre of its own. So is Gothic. So is Romantic Suspence. But science fiction romance? We're lumped in with elves and temporal disorientation and things that go boo.

I can understand if space was a consideration, as it would be in a brick-and-mortar store. It's not. This is a website. It's a matter of creating pages and hyperlinks to same. It's a matter of coding. It's so simple it's ridiculous.

So is lumping in science fiction romance with magic swords and ectoplasm.

Is it any wonder readers can become confused?

Granted, science fiction and fantasy have long been lumped together. But ghosts? I wasn't even aware Ghost Romance was a valid subgenre. But if it is, shouldn't it belong with vampires? I mean, vampires and ghosts seem to have more in common (at least, on Halloween they do), than starships and ghosts.

I'm now tempted to pen a story about a haunted starship that crash lands on a planet and is eaten by a dragon. At least then it would be properly categorized on Amazon.

'Nuff said. ~Linnea

http://www.linneasinclair.com/
Watch for Rebels and Lovers, Book #4 in the Dock Five Universe! Coming March 2010 from Bantam Dell

Eclectic doings

If this video posts, it is my latest attempt to use images of galaxies to accompany a recording of me reading... so the sound track is important, and the visuals are not.
It's the reverse of music accompanying text and specific visuals, which is the usual way of book trailers.

I'm trying to keep up with NaNoWriMo, and at this time of year I always seem to have a lot of balls in the air. (Juggling metaphor)

One of my earliest memories of story-telling technique lessons in school might be called "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" method. (It wasn't called that). You start with a list of unlikely ingredients, or characters, go with the flow, and try to create a rational and cohesive story.

This method may have harmed me for life! Anyway, I am still more of a puzzler than anything else, and my four unlikely bedfellows (in a literary sense) are the corner pieces of my jigsaw.

I've been researching Pagan ladies... which has been absolutely fascinating, not least because there is a pattern of similarities which includes psychic gifts and the ability to dowse. Also, weather which is a bit of a work in progress, but it helps that I am a member of the Cloud Appreciation Society. My third subject is British police-cars of the 1990's.

In the past, I've posted about my love of lists and of pinning down what is about my hero and heroine's person. I cannot make use of the fact that modern British police fleets include a discreet van that contains a toilet for the comfort of modern officers who may have to spend six hours at the scene of a motorway accident. However, the information that some patrol cars carry a dog catcher set my mind racing in a whole new, and twisted direction for my next alien romance.

Lizard Overlords

Could the remake of the vintage TV series "V" about reptilian extraterrestrials invading Earth in the guise of benevolent humanoids, which premiered this week, actually be a covert warning? Maybe this program is trying to alert us to the ancient, worldwide conspiracy of our secret lizard overlords, psychic-vampire alien reptiles who lurk among us after withdrawing (literally) underground. By all accounts, this complex of beliefs is serious, not a joke. Here's a website:

Reptilian Agenda

Now, I enjoy a solid, multilayered "theory of everything" -- for instance, the combination of demons, witches, werewolves, and vampires in the Homo lycanthropus species of Jack Williamson's classic DARKER THAN YOU THINK. In that novel these pseudo-human beings have been preying on us since prehistoric times and are responsible for all the evil that has plagued the human race. I adapted a section of my book DIFFERENT BLOOD: THE VAMPIRE AS ALIEN into an article about Williamson's novel. It's online in issue 4 of the JOURNAL OF DRACULA STUDIES:

Journal of Dracula Studies

Come to think of it, one form taken by Williamson's "witch-men" is a dragon-like winged lizard. Maybe Williamson was already trying to warn us in 1940?

The trouble with most real-world, allegedly factual conspiracy theories, unfortunately, is that they're not only implausible but *dull.* Shapeshifting, humanoid, energy-vampirizing, super-intelligent reptiles controlling us from the shadows are at least interesting! And, as Oz says on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER upon learning that Sunnydale is infested with vampires, "It explains a lot."

Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt

RION

It's that time again. RION the second book in the Pendragon Legacy series will be hitting the stores at the end of November. So if you haven't read your copy of Lucan yet, please catch up. :)

Now I'd post the cover here but for some reason blogger is turning the image strange colors. What is up with that???

RION
The Pendragon Legacy #2
Mass Market Paperback
ISBN-10: 0446543322
ISBN-13: 978-0446543323
Publisher: Forever (Grand Central Publishing)
Pub. Date: December 2009 (11-24-09)

POWER IN THEIR PASSION

Marisa Rourke is a beautiful, fearless telepath who tames dragonshapers on Earth. Rion is a tall, dark, and sexy space explorer whose home planet is a galaxy away. The attraction between them is undeniable, but Rion is hiding a desperate secret that will change Marisa's life forever.

DANGER IN THEIR TOUCH

Marisa's gift is the only way Rion can communicate with his people, enslaved by a powerful enemy. He knows that kidnapping her is wrong, but saving his planet is worth sparking the fiery clairvoyant's fury. Yet hotter-and more explosive-is the psychic bond growing between Marisa and Rion. Could their passion be the key to freeing Rion's people? Only if he and Marisa can discover how to channel their desire . . . before a vicious enemy destroys them all.

Read an excerpt at www.susankearney.com

DoubleBlind by Ann Aquirre

This is not so much a "review" as an exploration of a significant development in the SFR field.

I do intend to review Doubleblind by Ann Aguirre and it's a 5-star read if you overlook a couple of small things that irk me (matters of taste, not quality)

- see my post on Quality
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/7-proofing-steps-for-quality-writing.html 

Since I now have 3 titles of my own available on Kindle (The Dushau Trilogy), I've taken a sudden interest in Amazon again.

I don't understand that place as well as I once did, but I'm learning fascinating things about how they're growing, building independent sections then linked them in a crazy-quilt.

I found that Linnea Sinclair apparently started using the tag sfr and when I added that tag to a couple books, I suddenly found myself looking at a Community for SFR. (color me perplexed)

Tags? Something changed. I'd always ignored tags. What are they for, anyway?

So I started adding the tag "Jacqueline Lichtenberg" to some of my own books (haven't finished that yet) and suddenly found myself staring at a "Jacqueline Lichtenberg Community" -- huh?

OK, well, it had no posts in it so I wrote one. *shrug*

Then I went on poking around trying to trace the connections (there aren't many or even any!) between the Kindle Editions and print books.

The Dushau Trilogy Kindle edition is linked into a print edition page, but there are several print edition pages for each book.

The other pages are about copies from used book & collector jobbers often without the cover image, and no link to the Kindle edition on those separate pages. Most people shopping for Dushau won't know it has a Kindle edition.

When a listing for a used copy gets deleted (probably because the jobber sold all copies in stock), the reviews posted to that particular page apparently get deleted by Amazon.

The Dushau Trilogy has had many more reviews posted than are now showing, but somehow Kindle has let the remaining ones onto the Kindle edition pages.

Then on the Sime~Gen fan List, I discovered from a Kindle owner (I don't have one) that people can search for books by number of reviews listing it as whatever # of stars. Dushau would be closer to the top if the reviews hadn't been trashed by Amazon. *hmmmm*

So I went poking around again, and dropping the tag "Jacqueline Lichtenberg" on books by me. And on one of the pages, I found out that people who had bought that book by me (I don't recall which one) had also bought Doubleblind by Ann Aguirre.

What a coincidence!

If you've read my posts on Tarot you'll see that I treat "coincidence" more seriously than most people.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/12/10-pentacles-cake-comes-out-of-oven.html

You see, I was just finishing reading Doubleblind, and when I saw Amazon associate the two with a "readers who bought this bought that." But because I'd been studying Doubleblind I understood how ingenius the amazon.com algorithm has become.

Usually, the "readers who bought" suggestions that I see do make some sense. There are vast similarities. I can see it most clearly when readers who've bought a novel I wrote (and know the mechanism of) have also bought a novel I've read. But rarely has the similarity shouted out at me like this one.

Amazon is getting better at associating apparently unrelated works, and that may be because of all the tedious effort put in by readers to rate books and group them into communities by tags.

This development -- computers associating and grouping ART -- is extremely significant, perhaps in all the history of mankind.

It was the potential that originally attracted me to Amazon, but at first launch, Amazon worked in a very clunky way, putting things together that don't belong together.

I was disappointed when Amazon branched out into general merchandizing and then started merchandizing books (getting publishers to pay extra to get a title featured or tossed into your face whether you like that kind of stuff or not). But they lost tons of money the first 5 years or so and only now are turning a profit, mostly based on that ingenius and innovative algorithm and its modern derivatives.

What's disappointing is not that they're merchandising books, but that in order to be profitable, they must merchandise rather than concentrate wholly on grouping works of Art.

In that context, my astonishment at finding Aguirre's Doubleblind associated with my novels may make more sense. And it may be the "tags" feature, or some additional algorithm behind the tags (this new Cloud Computing concept I discussed in some of my Web 2.0 posts) that did the trick. But something changed on Amazon.

There really is a texture in Aguirre's writing which is characteristic of what I like to read -- which has always been what I like to write.

It's very hard to pin down or articulate, but Doubleblind held my attention despite a couple of irksome traits. It's written in the awkward and distasteful(to me) first person present tense instead of first person past. First person present is used to disguise the artsy-fartsy shallowness of "literary" writing, not in serious storytelling. (see? I have a prejudice. How sad.)

But there are some good techniques in Doubleblind. The narration POV stays steady in the woman's head the whole book through, and she's the more or less sane one while the man she's determined to rescue/cure/love is pretty much flipped-out during most of the book. She knows she loves the sane version of this guy.

I dislike stories told from the POV of an insane person, but this novel has a big story to tell that is HIS story. Aguirre very cleverly gets at his story through her story. It's a well controlled, and well structured narrative.

I will include Doubleblind in my professional review column.

It's part of a series (everything is these days), and I do vaguely recall reading one of the previous novels, but this one reads just fine as a stand-alone. That's a difficult trick to pull off.

It has another awkward structural quirk, but one that I've used myself.

Aguirre inserts communications between people scattered around the galaxy, communications that the main POV character, Sirantha Jax, does not know about and which telegraph that her current mission may become much more complicated very soon now.

This is a device that I have seen used much better than this, and one that I have used with the awareness that readers will SKIP reading the insertions except maybe on re-reading.

Now here's something that happened to this book in production which is not Aguirre's fault or responsibility.

The insertions of "emails" flying around the galaxy are printed in such tiny print with such a thin font that I literally couldn't read them. There was a time when I could read that small fine print without difficulty, and many readers won't have a problem with it.

But this is one of those book-design quirks that may irk readers. It could put off some readers who will report (on blogs or Amazon communities) that they didn't enjoy the book, but they won't say why because they don't know why. (Really - not all readers know why they like or don't like a book! And many of those don't care why!)

The tiny print on the message inserts probably happened because the book designer ran out of space because they inserted a chapter of Aguirre's next book at the end, leaving no blank pages or author comments for the final folio.

That will be another book in a series I really like, the Corine Solomon Urban Fantasy series. This one is due out in April 2010 and is titled Hell Fire. It's about a magic worker and her sidekick who has a wild talent, and I love the Relationship between them.

It would be interesting to discover if those message insertions in Doubleblind were requested by the editor because the surprise ending didn't track without them, or if Aguirre planned it that way, or if she used the inserts to avoid changing point of view, or to make the book shorter. Or maybe she had to make the book longer? Or maybe she just wrote them to keep us advised on developments with characters we're going to get back to in a sequel and was just hoping to get away with it as a teaser to sell the next book.

At any rate, I would advise readers to get Doubleblind in the e-book or Kindle or Nook edition so you can adjust the print size to suit you. I found even the bulk of the text to be on the small side.

That should tell you something. I didn't have to squint my way all the way through the novel, you know.

Readers often attribute to author's choice what must rightfully be accounted for by publisher's choice or demands or by an author's attempt to comply with commercial requirements (such as how do I get readers to wait for my next book in this series?).

These are questions that readers need to learn to consider before "blaming" an author for something they don't like about a book.

The same is true of feature films and especially TV Series episodes. To get the thing OUT at all, it is often necessary to do things that distort the art. So it's worth a beginner's while to invest time in mastering craft skills that can solve the mechanical production problems in such a way that the art does not become distorted.

Now why did Ann Aguirre's Doubleblind come up as recommended to those who like my books? (or one could hope, vice versa)

It's this Web 2.0 thing that I've been discussing in some of my posts.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

Amazon started collecting information about what readers like and want and milling it through their proprietary computer program. Others have imitated, but can't keep up with Amazon's innovation rate.

That's partly because Amazon started out tremendously well FUNDED. But that's not the only reason. Some other startups of that era are long gone, and of course Microsoft started on a shoestring.

When the whole era of interactivity with web visitors burst into high gear with Web 2.0 -- video, blogging, social networking, connecting web visitors not just with the purveyor but with each other -- Amazon was uniquely positioned to take advantage of the new web-savvy customer who was comfortable giving up personal information and asserting matters of taste in a public forum.

Amazon was ahead of the changes in the book-buying customer base, and ahead of changes in the general web-customer base. They even cater to the individual merchant providing a platform on which others sell things. Amazon gets all that cusomter information to mill over.

So far they've guessed correctly about the direction of customer behavior.

While I was writing this, Linnea Sinclair posted a note on my previous blog entry here pointing out how commercial writers, genre fiction writers, must LISTEN to their readers.

What Amazon has done (and others have copied) is LISTEN to book buyers.

That's why their computer associated Aguirre with Lichtenberg. It may have something very simple behind it - or something much more sophisticated than I can understand. That "tag cloud" thing may turn out to be the most powerful artist's tool yet invented.

Other book sellers - maybe e-book publishers? - may do what Amazon has done, and get AHEAD of where the "public" is going with this interactivity thing.

I suspect in that "tag cloud" instrument Google and Amazon are using, we will find the key to the next step in SFR, and the Romance genre in general. I have a lot more to say on the shifting sex-roles and sexual identity, and in general the "battle of the sexes" and Pluto's influence on our society, but that has to wait for next week.

There are ramifications here that I don't understand yet and so can't explain to you. Very likely, some readers of this blog entry already see the shape of the future to come.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Whither Copyright?

It's November the first, and I am doing NaNoWriMo... therefore, I will be brief here. (And loquacious there.)

Announcement and Plug:

On November 3rd (Tuesday) I will be discussing the finer points of the law regarding intellectual property rights of artists and content creators, fair use, first sale doctrine, musicians and more on my 10.00 am (Eastern Time) radio show on http://internetvoicesradio.com/CrazyTuesday

COPYRIGHT: WHAT'S RIGHT AND WHAT IS NOT RIGHT?

Patrick Ross and Lucinda Dugger of the Copyright Alliance.org will explain why you should be concerned about authors' and artists' rights.

Brenna Lyons, EPIC president; Marci Baun, Publisher Wild Child Publishing, in person and other authors via texting will share common misconceptions and some horror stories about copyright infringement.

Useful urls
http://www.copyrightalliance.org
http://www.copyrightalliance.org/letter


A Preannouncement and another Plug:

Please notice the sidebar. This blog is participating with Heather Massey of The Galaxy Express in a massive, multi-blog promotion of our genre (science fiction romance) on December 6th. So far, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Linnea Sinclair, Margaret L Carter, Susan Kearney, Susan Sizemore, and yours truly have pledged either books or ebooks as prizes for those who visit our blog on 12/06/2009.


No Trick: A Treat For Our Readers (one day late for Halloween)

There's strong demand for accessible, convenient, reader-friendly ways for readers to discover new authors without having to go on a scavenger hunt all over the internet, or to play virtual lucky dip
on the online bookseller sites.

Therefore, with the help of my friends, I have compiled, and Charlotte Boyett-Compo has formatted
two samplers which we are proud to call The Best Of Futuristic, Fantasy and Paranormal Authors. If it's not actually the best it may well be one of the first. And it's free.

 http://www.freado.com/book/4645/The-Best-of-Futuristic,-Fantasy,-and-ParaNormal-Authors-#1

 http://www.freado.com/book/4647/The-Best-of-Futuristic,-Fantasy,-and-ParaNormal-Authors-#2

Authors include: Linnea Sinclair, Jade Lee, Joy Nash, Deborah Macgillivray, Susan Kearney, Susan Grant, Cathy Spangler, Kathleen Nance, Charlee Compo, Rowena Cherry, Dawn Thompson, Nina Bangs, Cindy Spencer Pape, C.L. Wilson, Laurel Bradley... and many more.

For those not familiar with the Book Buzzr site:
Click the link
Wait for the yellow loading bar to do its thing
Scroll over to the far right to "Read Now" (in oxblood red)
Click that (the cover art will shift to the right, there will be a central crease down the middle, the left side will be blank)


Alternatively, you can click on "Read Now" in the yellow bar.
It is not such a good idea to click on the front page of the book "to zoom" as you will get formatting bars in front of your text.


Next, look at your own desktop browser toolbar.
Click on View. Then on Zoom. Then on Zoom In.


You can turn the pages using the video/tape style solid arrow.


Enjoy.
Please feel free to snag the urls and share them (but always in their entirity, please)

Maybe one can trick an ancient, fantasy or futuristic genie back into his or her bottle, but the silicon chips of time may be running out for artists and creators of copyright protected materials.


And a Warning:

I was amused and flattered to receive a Google Alert for my name, pointing me to a download request for one of my paperbacks on a site where members are known to share e-books.

However, I am not so amused to see that a link (on a blue field) has been posted which is only visible for visitors to the site who are NOT members. I'm told that members of the site do not see that link. Therefore, my friends should know that the link is probably malicious or else a fraud.

/request/14460/0/Knight%27s_Fork_by_Rowena_Cherry/?sms_ss=blogger">XXX - Knight's Fork by Rowena Cherry download request

please help,I need this book and others by the same authorWhen the Queen Consort of the Volnoth asks him to father her child, not realizing that he is the son of her greatest enemy and that he has taken ...

Now... I'm going back to NaNoWriMo where I am writing "Devil" Deverill's come-uppance. My chess title for this one is "Grand Fork".

Rowena Cherry

Going to College in Virtual Reality

At one of my schools, the University of Hawaii, some professors are holding classes in replicas of college settings in the Second Life online environment. The University of Hawaii island in Second Life includes four buildings around a courtyard with a view of the ocean, “as well as two floating skydecks and a treehouse.” Here’s an article, with a video:

Malamalama

My mind is definitely boggled. I’m amazed at how close we’ve come—in the short time the Internet has existed—to the virtual worlds we read about in science fiction. There’s a Globe Theatre island where full-length Shakespeare plays are presented. And I’ve heard of authors doing readings in Second Life, an idea that sounds really cool. The opportunities sound practically boundless (for instance, a kind of freedom for disabled people that they can’t attain in the physical world). On the other hand, interacting in virtual space is open only to the affluent; in addition to buying the equipment, a user has to pay real money for online resources. If such a realm of interaction eventually becomes commonplace, I can conceive of it as yet another barrier between the haves and have-nots.

I’ve never entered Second Life myself. If anyone here has, please tell us about the experience. For instance, how much does meeting someone in the virtual world feel like meeting a person in real life?

Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt

On the road

Hi All,
I've been out to San Diego to see my daughter. Then on a road trip from Florida up to Pennsylvania. And of course along the way I stopped in lots of bookstores, left bookmarks and signed stock. And I noticed that stores tend to shelve my books everywhere. It's almost as if aliens tried to see how many different places they could hide my books. I found copies of Lucan on new release tables, shelved under romance, under new books, on end caps, under the cash register and ever on the center isle turning styles. It was actually quite an education, but you know it's really hard to be an author. When I saw copies of my books on the shelves i feared the book wasn't doing well. When I saw no copies, I was worried that we didn't have enough on the shelves. So either way i tend to worry.

I returned home to find out that RION, my December book and the second in the Pendragon legacy series received a 4 1/2 stars from RT book review. "The review calls Pendragon a “sizzling series,” ending with, “Leave it to Kearney to build a passionate relationship and combine it with political drama and adventure!”

So I hope that those of you who enjoyed Lucan will preorder Rion to make sure you get a copy. Luckily Grand Central Publishing increased the number of books out there.

While on the trip we went to Hershey Pa. And of course we had to tour the chocolate factory. Now are you wondering what chocolate has to do with books? Well chocolate is an essential writer's tool--as necessary for creating great stories as my computer.

The pictures above were taken at a book signing, of me and my husband at a 3-d movie, very cool, and at the Hershey facility. Even the traffic lights in Hershey are in the shape of kisses. :)

Enjoy,
Susan Kearney