I understand, now, why Sci Fi fans are angry over Sci Fi writers putting too much romance in their novels. Sci Fi has a noble tradition of delivering not-so-well-hidden social statements under the guise of fiction. You want to know why other genres think they are so far above the romance discipline? It is because of books like Brave New World, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and basically everything Heinlein ever put down in print. Is EVERY Sci Fi writer of that caliber? No. There’s some seriously dreadful Sci Fi out there on your local bookshelf and now you don’t even have to leave the romance aisle to find it. Three recent and not so recent works of fiction come immediately to mind, and no, I am not going to tell you which books they are if I can at all help it.
I am going to tell you what I believe is “right†in Sci Fi Romance and what I believe is horribly “wrong†with Sci Fi Romance. Let’s begin on a positive note and work our way down, shall we?
What Sci Fi Romance writer’s generally get “right†about their audience is that we want romance, hot, sexual tension going out with a bang, romance. We want HAL9000 in 2001 to be a girl and we want to know if the sex in space, aided by a lack of gravity, no audience to set moral limitations, and the occasional assist by benevolent aliens with interesting body parts … I’m pausing to imagine that for a moment … wait one … where was I? Ah, yes. Is it good for them? Man I hope so, because in Sci Fi, ladies and gentlemen, we can create the prefect world for hella hot romance.
What we DON’T want is a virgin in space thinking she’s some kind of intergalactic emissary pulling the species of the universe together in harmony, causing warlords to lay down their laser guns and photon torpedoes, disavowing all war and weapons for love. Freak’n kill me already, I will never, ever recover from reading that book. It’s been four years and I am still bruised. The anti-gun message just kept whapping it up into my face, over-and-over again. I had to read three Harry Harrison books before I could speak coherently again in public.
There can be some humor in that social service message, disguised as a romance novel. One book I read had the heroine handed over to the victorious barbarian as a slave. He wooed her. She resisted. He purchased gifts. She would do what was asked of her, but her heart just wasn’t in it — as a slave, even as a slave who was so very, very special and loved and adored and not handed over to the men as this weeks barbarian Barbie snack. In the end, someone explains to her that, there must be some cultural disconnect. She is not a slave, she is, in fact, the equivalent of a wife in their world, a treasure, she is loved! Upon hearing this, she shakes off her near mortal injury – sustain less than two days previously – races to find her he-man and pounces him like a cat in heat.
The irony of this nearly killed me. First, the squick factor for a Sci Fi fan reading it, thinking they might be able to tolerate a taste of romance because the world building is awesome and up until then the sex has been marginally alluded to and totally secondary, just gushed up to Ipecac levels. Let me lay it out in plain English in case the subtlety of it is escaping you. Slave equals, not OK to have sex or give up virginity. Married and the man is suddenly catnip? Worse, it flies in the face of every Rodney Dangerfield piece of wisdom, ever! “She said, I do. And now, she doesn’t!†It wasn’t supposed to be funny, but (god help me) I laughed for half an hour. With the exception of the rare Phillip Jose Farmer piece and Douglas Adams, humor is not a – what’s a diplomatic way of putting it? – staple of the Sci Fi genre, especially when it wasn’t intended and does not result in the explosion of small planets.
Sci Fi romance writers – and this is just me begging you, other opinions may differ – please check your politics and yen for social reform at the door or at least hide it really well when you write.
No related posts.
I admit I’m not particularly fond of “preachiness” in fiction either, even if I agree with the author’s obvious opinion. If it’s integrated into the plot well-enough where the “message” serves the story rather than vice versa I’m on-board but otherwise I’ll throw it at the wall.
I read a recent mystery/romance where human cloning was apart of the plot and it was obvious the author was against. That’s swell, I think so too, but ever so often she’d have characters awkwardly, seemingly out of nowhere, pontificating on the issue which made me roll my eyes and skip a few paragraphs.
Now see, being a sci-fi newbie, I thought example #2 was good.
I think I may have to wratchet up my sci-fi intake so I can better judge.
I missed readng your columns in RT. Isn’t your book coming out soon?
Actually #2 was a fabulous book. I loved it. It was very nearly the perfect mating of Sci Fi and Romance. The first book won awards but man … the political message just ruined it. The thing is, Sci Fi has a long tradition of taking science-potential and fleshing it out into “science-reality”. When you fictionalize “Feelies” (Movies where the chair wires into your brain and you are feeling the movie) when virtual reality games are just an idea, that’s cool. When you have video games subliminally reprogram player’s heads to hate France, that’s kinda funny but what’s the point? Re-program them to do the dishes, something useful at least. Get the politics and social issues OUT of Sci Fi romance and get the Science IN — for the higher purpose of better, longer and more interesting sex scenes.
Sorry about the double post. I got carried away on the Sci Fi lecture.
My part in The Path to Publishing is over but I will write other things for RT. And it’s out September 1st.
I know one of the books you’re talking about, Cindy, and that bit bugged me, too. (And what was with the obsession with bathing? It seemed like every time they turned around they were taking another bath!) The first book in that same product line has a lot of author preaching. It was so intrusive that it seemed like the story was being interrupted by Public Service Announcements. Come to think of it, there was another book in the line that I thought was seriously goofy: In order for the heroine to awaken the psychic abilities that will allow her to save the planet/galaxy, she must be kept in a state of perpetual sexual arousal. When I tried to explain the plot to a friend of mine, he said, “Hey, that’s just one tin foil bikini away from being a great B movie!”
Back in the day when LoveSpell and a few others were publishing SF&F romance, I bought every book that came out because I wanted to support the subgenre. I do have to say, though, that there were some real stinkers in the bunch, and I wonder if that’s why SF&F romances got so scarce there for a while. I really hope that the subgenre doesn’t jump the shark again.
I’m inclined to disagree with the author for two reasons:
1) Not all (or even, IMO, most) of good SF has a MESSAGE. There’s plenty that doesn’t and much of it is very good and character oriented. I say this as someone who’s read SF/F since she was 13 and didn’t start on romances until she was 25.
2) Several of the romances I’ve read do have a MESSAGE. Women’s Equality is a relative constant across the board. I’ve read at least 2 novels with Women’s Lib as a message. Several historicals I’ve read do political commentary on the ruling class of the time. A couple of contempories preach about Small Town over Big Cities and I’ve seen Western Romances that are heavy on conservation/environmentalism. So, IMO, Romances have just as much chance as a SF for having a MESSAGE that isn’t all that subtle.
Furthermore, I don’t mind having a slight to large message in my fiction. If I don’t want a message at all, I’ll go read erotica. If I want some sex and a happy ending and maybe a MESSAGE I’ll read romance. If I want space ships & guns and maybe a MESSAGE I’ll read SF. If I want elves and tragedy and war, I’ll read Fantasy.
See? And I completely missed the bathing thing. It was a great book, though.
Ha! I love B Movies! Mystery Science Theater 3000 snark fuel. My favorite bad weather day activity next to reading.
I think I bought ALL of the LoveSpells and not for any altruistic goals either. I just love the books, even the stinkers. I still like them.
I started reading Sci Fi in highschool. There’s some seriously bad Sci Fi books out there with political messages and social messages harsh enough to corrode your eyeballs. I still read them (Piers Anthony comes to mind almost immediately for some reason — would someone PLEASE tell me what FireFly was all about? What WAS that?). But the Sci Fi message books are far less prevalent than the romance message books. (How many of us have groaned in pain at another Historical Romance Heroine who rails at the hero for being old fashioned when he’s actually acting correctly for the time period of the book. That’s the author placing herself in the arms of the pirate and wanting to modernize him syndrome.) The “message” is the least attractive thing in romance novels IMHO, why drag that baggage along into the Sci Fi Romance genre? Slough it off, pull in the good parts of Sci Fi, mix in a little hot sex and it’s all good as far as I’m concerned.
Justine Davis had a couple of scifi romances that weren’t so heavy on message, but I guess there was an anti-authoritarian theme to them. I loved ‘em so much that I made my physics geek (and fellow scifi fan) husband read them. He was quick to point out the flaws in the science and tech, which I had conveniently ignored, of course, because I liked everything else about the stories. When I reread them, I found myself wishing that they’d been more solid as science fiction books, but I still loved them anyway.
My favorite sci-fi/fantasy books are the Dragonriders of Pern books,and they combine messages with a great story (although the earlier ones are better than the more recent books IMO). Anne McCaffery had gay dragon riders (a YA reade might miss it, but I remember saying to my husband, “Did you notice the thing about the green and blue dragon riders?”)and “preached” toleration in her books.
Anne E. I am ashamed to say I have never been able to get into a non-romance fantasy book — except Harry Potter and if I did not have kids I probably wouldn’t have read those. This morning as I was driving to the office it occurred to me that Star Trek started to seriously suck after they started taking the Prime Directive more seriously. Kirk Vs. Khan was the last decent Trek movie and it seriously skirted my “Message” meter overload with the whole Genesis Project thread. I forgave them since it brought back Spock. My husband loves Ann McCaffery. I’ll have to ask him if he ever noticed the subliminal agenda as he was reading them.
On the other hand and completely off center, it’s possible that the romantica writers have been overtly preaching that we should all have more sex and no one noticed because they were just too busy … you know … having sex.
Just a thought.
Erotica with no messages? Not the ones I’ve read. They too have messages.
It sounds as if the story could have been a little longer for her to observe and try to see for herself that slave = wife. Lavish gifts + contrived explanation = jumping bones – well, I’d laugh myself silly too. It sounds like some the premise of some bad fanfic I’ve read (recommended to me by friends).
Cindy, I’ve never been much of a Sci-Fi reader, so I admit to monumental cluelessness. However, you’re such an entertaining writer, that I loved this column — even without knowing a darned thing about the topic! Loved Revenge Gifts, too!
I’ve loved science fiction and fantasy my whole life. When more women started writing it, adding the relationship touch to their stories, everything just got better.
One thing which irritates me about the new remake of Battlestar Galactica is the sex all over the place. It’s not there for any storyline purposes. It’s sex for the sake of having sexy babes. I guess they think their target audience is a bunch of thirteen year old males.
I do like the sexual part of romance. I just don’t want it there because somebody cried, “Sex sells.” Call me old fashioned.
I don’t mind some message in my story, as long as the story-telling doesn’t come to a halt for it, and as long as it’s handled intelligently.
My problems with sf/romance cross-overs have more to do with the author not having done the homework: like having no concept of what interstellar travel or communications would require. The first example you cited sounds like an author with no concept of real world politics or political science.