Episode 1: Ruby Dixon, Ice Planet Barbarians as Science Fiction, and Setup/Payoff

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Hello there and welcome to Nice Planet Librarians.
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I'm Tara Lederman, Laura Maven, and main fiction writer for Starship Falky, a science fiction crisis simulator game and story universe based out of Southern California.
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And I love all things science fiction.
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And I'm Parish Baker, being written through by Erna Semper, an author from the 32nd century.
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Erna is from the planet Iphigenia of orbiting Tao City.
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The Parish lives in Humdrum, Kansas City and Missouri.
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And you might know Parrish and me from the Illicit Liaisons podcast, where we discuss the good, the bad, and the naughty of romance fiction with Jenna Hart.
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This is our inaugural episode on Nice Planet Librarians, uh, and while we do work with uh uh on Ice Planet Librarians, and while we do work with a romance press and write sci-fi romance, Parish and I want to get into the nitty-gritty of sci-fi world building and things like that.
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Uh, we'd like to experiment a bit, read science fiction and sci-fi romance, and discuss it and see what works for us as a format.
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And we hope you'll come along for us for the ride while we iterate.
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This week we're starting with Ruby Dixon's Ice Planet Barbarians, the namesake of our podcast.
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As listeners might know, we both write sci-fi romance.
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So we thought assessing Dixon's work as science fiction, not just as sci-fi inflected romance, might be an interesting exercise.
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All right.
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So you know, you and I have both been uh let's call it struggling through this book for for some time now, and then we both, I think, both kind of figured it out and read it.
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Uh, I think at some point really late at night, I sent you a message that was like, okay, I finished it.
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What was that?
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Uh yeah, yeah, that.
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Yes, there are there are that's about it.
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Yeah, I mean, I I feel better now that I've been reading Barbarian Alien, which is the next one, because I I finished this and was like, that was it.
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That was that's the thing that everyone on TikTok was freaking out about.
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This is what everyone thinks of when they think of sci-fi romance.
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Uh, but I can I can see it reading the next one.
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Like I can see one, I can see the author kind of hitting her stride, which is always good.
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Um, but I can also see like more compelling things emerging.
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I think that this book has a lot of kind of curses on it, where you know, I think the author had a lot of ideas and a lot of energy, um, and kind of they kind of splatter all over in a lot of different directions, and she's kind of got to set up this whole thing.
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And I know she wanted to set it up so there's a lot of different couples that she could then explore afterwards, so you can kind of see her doing that.
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Uh, but I you know, I really wanted to talk about this as science fiction because I kept finding myself being like, oh, that you don't do that in science fiction, like, oh no, you don't do that.
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Oh my god, no.
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Uh, and you know, I know that it's thought of as like sci-fi romance, and primarily it's a romance.
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I I get that, but it's doing a lot of sci-fi, and that's what I want to talk about.
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Right.
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Uh so I think my my main thing that I always talk about when I read stuff that's like taking something else from uh like another genre, whether it's romance or science fiction, and then making a uh sorry, so whether it's fantasy or science fiction and bringing it into a romance, I always feel like there's a lot of impatience with that other thing.
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I feel like if I read a horror romance, it would also be impatient with all the all the splatter and all of the gore and be like, all right, I want to get to the, I want to get to the uh the horiness, you know.
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And I just feel like this book was a little impatient with the science fiction.
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Um what do you think, Parish?
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Well, yeah, I mean, there was there were a kind of a lot of moving parts here.
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And as of to me, as I particularly considering the length of the first chapter, it felt to me like she'd kind of written a treatment or imagined a treatment of of this scenario.
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We've got this this young woman uh who is abruptly snatched out of her existence, not to ever return in a practical sense.
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And so she explores this really horrible situation with his zero romance about it whatsoever.
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And um she's kind of like experimenting, Ruby Dixon was, with the with sci-fi elements to try to like emphasize the fact that uh Georgie is not in, you know, Florida any longer, if you will.
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She's like in a science fiction environment.
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And so she, but I don't think that the Ruby Dixon had the vocabulary initially to like describe that sci-fi universe.
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She's just making a really grungy situation and then abuses the hell out of all the spear-carrying characters, and um and then going to town with the rest of it.
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It's like it's it's I I don't want to I'm at no point in my as I'm talking about this, don't want to like fault her or like really overly criticize her as an author, as a person.
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It was kind of a piece of experimental literature, and it it hit hit a nerve.
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It was very popular, it continues to be very popular.
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So, but it's it's interesting to watch her kind of fumble's not the right word, explore her way into uh into her voice and her her world.
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And it doesn't always work for me by any stretch of the imagination.
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Yes, yeah.
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I mean, again, I I do I am finding the second one much better because that we have the setup done, you know.
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Yeah.
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Uh and I it's important to kind of let people know.
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Maybe a lot of people who've read this series haven't read the first one in a long time.
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So I kind of want to like remind you of what the first couple of chapters are like so you can remember those those moments, whether fondly or not fondly.
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It starts out with this like, oh my god, like 30 to 40 page long chapter with without really breaks.
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I mean, it's got section breaks in it, so you can put it down and go to bed if you dare.
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Um this woman just sort of wakes up on a spaceship.
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I mean, she's like, she goes to bed and she wakes up on a spaceship, she's in her pajamas, there's a bunch of other women with her.
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They tell her the situation that they are the extras and that like six women are the actual cargo.
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One of them has a translator in her ear and knows that they're they're going to be sold.
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There are little green aliens on the spaceship that are the ones that are sort of the brains of the operation, and then there are these big, quote, basketball-headed security guard guys who are keeping the women in line.
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And there is a like a large number of women who are the extras.
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I I I believe it's like I think it was 16 originally.
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Yeah, it's a good thing.
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Yeah, that number comes down.
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Um, and you know, there's uh basketball-headed guys uh grape one of the girls.
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Uh it's not described really graphically, it's mostly just the we only see the girl's horror in reaction to it, and then the young woman's reaction thereafter, and how much she sort of isolates herself, and then that that that poor girl then she dies subsequently after the the the crash.
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Um then for some reason I I don't I don't understand this because my my brain is very science fiction, and there's something about like they need to dump the cargo because of speed or something like that.
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I I can't help but be like, you've already hit your speed, like why does it matter how heavy your cargo is?
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Presumably that was already something you had to take into account when you got up to speed.
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Like, how are you surprised by it?
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But I don't know.
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And there's turbulence and stuff like that, anyways.
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They they dump the girls on an on an ice planet that I guess they know will kill them if they don't come back quickly.
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Uh, or at least the girls suspect that.
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Anyways, they the girls are basically like their compartment goes down.
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Georgie goes absolutely like crazy on one of the guards, kills him, which is kind of great.
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I'm loving that.
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Love that for Georgie.
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Uh um, and she's like, she takes his his suit and goes and explores the planet from there.
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That's the first chapter.
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It's that's all in one chapter.
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You can't go to a long one.
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Yeah, don't start this chapter before bed.
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So I did, I made this mistake.
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I'm warning you now, gentle listeners.
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Uh, if this is not bedtime reading, anyway.
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So that chapter, she gets she gets caught in this feather forest thing by a trap, and that's the end of her chapter, is her getting caught.
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And then we go into another person's perspective, and it's this alien guy, which is fun.
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I like that.
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I like the like vectal, and you're like, oh shit.
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And it's like it's this big blue guy, and you're you know, and it that chapter he he resonates with her.
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His Kooy, which is this like worm thing that lives in him that feels more like a spiritual thing, is like, that's your mate, and he's like, Oh, it's my mate.
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So he grabs her.
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This is I'm sorry, this is the caffeinated history version of this.
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You're just gonna have to bear with me.
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Uh, and he takes her to a cave, and that chapter ends with him beginning to give her conolingus.
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Boom, second chapter, done.
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So at that point, I'm yelling, what the shit is this at my book?
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What the shit is this?
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Like in a little what the shit is this?
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That's the shit, man.
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That's all that's what the book is about.
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I mean, that is that's the whole friggin' premise, outside of her absolute lack of any survival skills whatsoever, and her continuing to remember the people she's left behind, but not ever making really any strenuous effort to get him to go back with her to the ship, which I have added in me, which thank God it was not.
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I would have even an impetop, and I say, Okay, we're going this way now and and march through hill and dale and have him follow me.
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Particularly if he demonstrated such intimate interest in me, I would presume that he might want to like hang around for a second.
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So exactly.
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Just like just start walking, Georgie.
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Just start walking back towards the hill.
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Make the guy follow you.
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But I this book is uh, you know, uh my reaction to it.
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I want I want people to understand my reaction to it because like I think I was expecting something more like the second book, which is it's just clearly a romance.
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It definitely has like a lot of sci-fi, it's kind of comfortable with itself.
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I was expecting something more like that that was more comfortable.
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This was wild.
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This is a really wild time lancing back and forth between science fiction and like really strange romance ideas.
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It almost feels like half a sci-fi, half a romance.
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Um, so much stuff, right?
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Like it has these sort of impulses going in two directions.
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And I think it's romance impulses are solid.
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Let's call them solid.
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I'm not gonna call them good.
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Yeah, I'm gonna call them solid.
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Solid solid romance writer, she knows how to write romance.
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Um, that's fine.
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The sci-fi impulses are not solid.
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No, no, no.
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Uh that it is impatient with the sci-fi.
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And I I'm gonna tell all of you listeners the main reason I think it is impatient with the sci-fi.
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I'm gonna tell you a thing that this author does.
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And it it is a thing that made me like almost throw the book against the wall.
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She sets this whole thing up with the with the the aliens, right?
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Like they're in a flying saucer, we don't know why they're gonna sell them, they don't know why they've taken all these girls, why they're all 22, why there are six in the walls, all this stuff, right?
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And I'm not saying like spend all this time telling me about the alloy of the spaceship, I'm not asking for hard science fiction, I'm not asking for you to like calculate the speed at which we're traveling or how many parsecs we are from Earth.
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I don't need any of that.
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But what I do need is set up and payoff to simple stuff.
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If you set up the mystery of why these aliens abducted all of these girls and they've taken their power from them and they've like thrown them in a spaceship, they've abducted them, they've they've graped them, they you know, they've they've taken their lives away from them.
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Like they're like they can't go home and see their families, they've lost all their friends, they've lost their lives.
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And then you put in the book that they are coming back, that has to pay off.
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And they do come back.
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Does it?
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Does it does it really pay off?
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Tell us all about it.
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But it doesn't pay off.
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Like that's the thing, is it like the girls like the one with the little translator?
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She finds out that they're coming back, and they all have like a weird thing because they have like a little tracker in their arms, and they all freak out, like, oh, they're coming back.
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So, like the this is after they've gotten a rescue party together to go get the girls, you know, like they have figured out that they need to get the Kue into their bodies in order to survive the planet.
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And like Georgie has talked to all the girls about like, are we are we like commandeering the spaceship when they get here and going back to Earth?
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And they've all decided they need to stay, that it's too much of a risk to try to take the spaceship.
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That all that all makes sense, it's all fine.
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But then we find out that the aliens are coming back.
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Okay.
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And I'm like excited, right?
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I'm like, oh yeah, we're gonna have we're gonna have a battle with these guys, or we're gonna have like a catch me if we can scenario where they're like they're running from the aliens, and or they're like the maybe the the blue guys are gonna fight them, the sakuey dudes, like, or and and protect the girls, or like Georgie is gonna like help alien, uh something, anything, and we're gonna find out why these aliens abducted them in the first place.
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We're gonna get that answer.
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No, we don't get that at all.
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There's this point where Georgie and Vecto are having sex in the woods, and the friggin' flying saucer comes back, they pause, it flies around for a second, and then it leaves.
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Two sentences, y'all.
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Two sentences, no, bad.
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Very no biscuit, Ruby.
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Okay, here's here's the thing.
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You this is this is I I mean, I don't I am too ignorant to figure out exactly where all she's pieced together this stuff with Vectel from.
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Maybe it's just Highlander.
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I have no idea.
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But the alien bit, the alien bit here, I I know precisely and exactly where this comes from.
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It may not come from it directly, but it's filtered through something for it gets to Ruby Dixon.
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This is totally and completely John Norman.
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This is specifically the book Slave Girl of Gore, because what occurs to Eleanor Brenton, New York socialite, who was grabbed and taken to Gore the Counter for all kinds of fun and games, she is like literally abducted into a flying saucer.
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She's actually pursued rather relentlessly across upstate New York, I think it was.
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And uh she's shoved into a tube like these girls in the wall.
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She falls asleep, they fly her there, and she wakes up, it's crashed because of some never-defined incident with the with the UFO.
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And then she meets regular old barbaric gorge greens, and then it goes on in a John Norman kind of way for like 300 odd pages.
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But this is totally snagged from this because the uh but nothing, as you say, is done with it.
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She all she wants is well, how could you get a bunch of women from here to there?
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Well, you you would do this because she knows about this scenario.
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Um, again, whether she got directly from him or not, it makes no difference.
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It comes ultimately from him.
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Um, but then she doesn't ever have to get back to it, except she knows she has to like at least bow to the fact there was something going on.
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And then for reasons.
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See, when I was reading this initially, I'm thinking, okay, this is I've this is strangely familiar.
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I know what's going on here.
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And then it takes this really extra dark turn.
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And of course, John Norman, being the unusual individual that he that he is, he had no problem with his scenarios whatsoever.
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He he went to town with them.
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But Ruby Dixon has felt, well, you know what?
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If I'm trying to play this off in the same way, people are saying, you know what, that's really unpleasant and not modern.
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We don't need to think that way.
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We're going to like make things extra bad for these women to demonstrate how terrible this is for them.
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So instead of like making it better in some way, she makes it way, way worse.
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Because all this, I mean, all this stuff goes on in a Gurion book.
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You obviously know if you have these women being dragged around that things are occurring rapidly that they are not necessarily approving of, except, of course, being John Norman he manages to make them approve it.
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But inside this book, you have to like, when you're when you're doing terrible things to women, you it it you're going to be everyone's gonna understand it's terrible.
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So it's really worse for the characters.
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Yeah, I don't I don't understand why she needed to have the basketball heads grape one of the girls.
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Like, I was actually the you and I have been talking a lot about friction points in reading the book, like why it's so difficult to move through it when the when the writing is actually pretty easy to read, you know, it's pretty casual and not quite breezy, but easy, right?
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Like Georgie's perspective is basically like easy to grok.
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She's kind of a like a vessel character.
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Um everything.
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Yeah, it's not presenting prose uh friction, but uh I keep running into these friction points of unpleasantness that I'm often wondering about like, why is this here?
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Why is this so unpleasant?
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Like, what why are there no facilities for these girls?
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Why do they have to be extras?
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Why why can't all why can't there be just a large pen of girls that are being taken and maybe the dudes have like prongs to like electrify them or something like that?
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That seems more normal, you know.
00:16:57.200 --> 00:17:01.120
Like it doesn't have to be unpleasant from like they they can be injured and stuff like that.
00:17:01.200 --> 00:17:02.559
That's unpleasant enough.
00:17:02.879 --> 00:17:12.880
It all feels reverse engineered for something that feels like contrived and down the line, but as science fiction, it doesn't make sense, right?
00:17:13.039 --> 00:17:15.119
Like it's there for a reason for the romance.
00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:17.200
Like we need to, we need this setup for this romance.
00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:23.599
We need girls who are like this, we need girls who are like this, we need girls with different experiences, some who experience this and some who experience that.
00:17:23.920 --> 00:17:30.000
And that allows her to sort of like have you know interesting protagonists down the line that she can play with.
00:17:30.400 --> 00:17:46.079
Except that like really as a science fiction, it does feel reverse-engineered and contrived, and and that is troubling as you read it, you know, like in the cursing this one book for like to be kind of nonsensical in in various moments, or at least feel like it doesn't pay off in various moments.
00:17:48.559 --> 00:17:55.440
Yeah, I think the big thing for me is like also I I know that you write from deep perspective with a like a main character with in first person.
00:17:55.519 --> 00:17:59.839
I do not really write in first person, it's very rare for you to see me write in first person.
00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:06.079
Um but you do do that, and you do like deep perspective, and you'll even present a lot of friction in terms of prose.
00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:11.200
But like it is very easy to understand like Dardana's perspective or Elohi's perspective.
00:18:11.359 --> 00:18:16.880
And I know you had really strong feelings about Georgie while you were reading this, and I was like wondering if you could talk more about that.
00:18:17.839 --> 00:18:23.119
Yeah, I I mean I was uh conflicted about Georgie.
00:18:23.359 --> 00:18:26.480
I she is a she is a she's a very likable character.
00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:32.480
I mean, uh in in her normal environment where no one's harassing her.
00:18:32.559 --> 00:18:37.440
I mean, you she's I'm sure she is she's a great person to hang out with, very personal.
00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:41.039
She's not mean, vicious, snipey.
00:18:41.200 --> 00:18:46.799
She's uh, you know, she's uh just a total normal, everyday person.
00:18:47.200 --> 00:18:56.319
Uh and she's got a very breezy way of talking that, you know, she's she's she's obviously by the age that she was, the book was written, assuming that was when the story's taking place.
00:18:56.400 --> 00:19:06.559
She's you know, she's uh millennial, she's like, you know, you know, watch his friends, she's like, you know, she's like just totally solidly everything, like, you know, South Fool, South Florida person.
00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:07.200
Great.
00:19:07.440 --> 00:19:12.960
But she continues to talk like this, even under the most, you know, difficult circumstances.
00:19:13.119 --> 00:19:17.519
She doesn't ever kind of modulate her her tone.
00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:25.039
She's like, she's like, I mean, she when horrible things specifically happen, she can react to them in such a way that, oh my God, this is horrible.
00:19:25.279 --> 00:19:31.119
But she's she doesn't seem strongly affected by them.
00:19:31.279 --> 00:19:36.079
I mean, there's some of the girls, or at least one of the girls like absolutely loses her mind, obviously.
00:19:36.400 --> 00:19:39.599
Georgia's a soldiers on and doesn't even twitch.
00:19:39.759 --> 00:19:45.440
And there are people who are like that, and they might be sociopaths.
00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:45.920
I don't know.
00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:50.319
They might really be dead inside if you're beating on them that hard and nothing's changing.
00:19:50.480 --> 00:19:54.400
Uh, so it was it was it was difficult to understand.
00:19:54.799 --> 00:20:00.960
I mean, I really kept waiting for a psychological breakdown, and I began to realize this is never going to occur here.
00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:08.319
It just couldn't happen because she's got she's got strong vectals, she's got like a mission to save these people.
00:20:08.480 --> 00:20:14.960
Um, she's not exactly mary suing the whole business together, but it certainly flirted with that.
00:20:15.119 --> 00:20:20.720
I mean, she she didn't have any particular powers or strengths that anybody would not have.
00:20:20.880 --> 00:20:22.480
And I was kind of thankful for that.
00:20:22.559 --> 00:20:30.240
I mean, they if anything was an odd with her relationship in the universe, is between her and Vectel's worm thing.
00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:35.759
So uh I'm not being able to come up with a name on that.
00:20:35.839 --> 00:20:36.880
Uh the cooie.
00:20:37.119 --> 00:20:39.200
The cootie call it the cookie.
00:20:39.279 --> 00:20:40.960
Yeah, the cootie, that thing, yeah.
00:20:41.279 --> 00:20:44.480
So so yeah, that's that's kind of where I was with it.
00:20:44.559 --> 00:20:50.640
She's like, she's just very pretty brisk and uh business like and chatty all the way through.
00:20:50.880 --> 00:20:56.319
And she adapts and doesn't adapt the same way.
00:20:56.400 --> 00:21:02.000
I mean, she when forced to, she'll eat and do nearly anything, but she sure got a lot to say about it.
00:21:02.079 --> 00:21:03.119
I'll tell you that.
00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:14.160
She has uh what I would call Bella syndrome, and this is again, I want to note to people listening that this is not continued in other books, or at least not into um not into the second one.
00:21:14.240 --> 00:21:19.599
So like Barbarian Alien, I feel like Liz is a is a person with a history who is not me.
00:21:19.680 --> 00:21:21.359
Like she does not feel like a vessel character.
00:21:21.440 --> 00:21:29.200
So I I don't think this is a this is something that Ruby Dixon necessarily continued, but in Georgie's case, she feels like a vessel character, kind of empty.
00:21:29.359 --> 00:21:32.960
The thing that distresses me reading her, and this is a this is a preference thing, really.
00:21:33.119 --> 00:21:43.599
I have to note, like I don't think this is bad, but I do think that it is something I don't like, which is I don't like when the main character doesn't feel like they have a history or they don't feel like they have specificity to them.
00:21:43.680 --> 00:21:51.759
Like I always want them to be someone who's not me, like a separate person who I could maybe have a beer with who I could like, but isn't me, you know?
00:21:52.000 --> 00:22:11.119
So a person who has like a mom, dad, or an aunt who raised them, or uh, you know, like as a foster kid and has a Brothers and sisters and friends and a life and things they like doing and hobbies and like like skills and things that they think about, favorite places, favorite foods, things they'd like to return to.
00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:15.440
Like this person has just lost her entire life and she's not thinking about any of it.
00:22:15.680 --> 00:22:22.799
The only thing she I think she there's something out of cheeseburger that might have also been Liz, uh, but she doesn't think about foods from back home.
00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:27.359
I think she knows there might have been something about a cup of coffee, like, oh, I wish I could go to Starbucks.
00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:28.319
And it's like, that's it.
00:22:28.400 --> 00:22:30.079
That's all you're thinking about back on Earth.
00:22:30.160 --> 00:22:31.839
This lovely blue orb that we live on.
00:22:31.920 --> 00:22:33.839
The only thing you're thinking about is a Starbucks.
00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:35.119
Like, yeah, no.
00:22:36.079 --> 00:22:42.960
I it just I don't know it kind of upsets me that she's so empty, that she's like just waiting to be filled by this romance with Vectel.
00:22:43.039 --> 00:22:44.400
I've seen this in other romances.
00:22:44.480 --> 00:22:48.240
I know some people really prefer it so they can like insert themselves into the character.
00:22:48.400 --> 00:22:49.200
That's fine.
00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:51.039
It's just not a preference of mine.
00:22:51.200 --> 00:22:53.279
I don't, I don't personally like that.
00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:56.880
Yeah, I I I definitely agree with it.
00:22:56.960 --> 00:23:05.839
It's like, you know, she's there's it's a setup story, it's kind of experimental, she's like kind of learning her way into it.
00:23:06.160 --> 00:23:11.599
And Georgie does not contain much.
00:23:11.680 --> 00:23:16.720
I mean, she's she really is in as much as she's anything is task-oriented.
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:22.799
She is out doing what is literally impossible, which is finding anybody to help, but she does find somebody to help.
00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:28.400
Of course, getting him back to complete on helping was nearly damn impossible.
00:23:28.480 --> 00:23:32.400
And she'd been a bit faster, she might even say the girl had lost her mind.
00:23:32.480 --> 00:23:33.279
I don't know.
00:23:33.599 --> 00:23:40.640
But uh for sure, uh, everybody was suffering a whole lot, and that went on for I lost cat.
00:23:40.799 --> 00:23:42.960
It felt like three days or more.
00:23:43.119 --> 00:23:44.160
It was insane.
00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:50.240
And she's not really worrying about family, she's not really worrying about I really need to get to work on Monday.
00:23:50.319 --> 00:23:54.079
She's not worrying about losing her job, she's not wondering what's gonna have happened to her cat.
00:23:54.240 --> 00:23:56.480
We don't even know if she has a cat, I don't think.
00:23:56.640 --> 00:24:05.920
But you know, it's it's it's missing a lot of if I it is a I mean, when you get yanked to narn, you're not really worrying about mom and dad very much.
00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:06.880
I I admit that.
00:24:06.960 --> 00:24:20.160
I mean, everybody does this, but uh it there is a sense of non-reality if you're like not concerned about getting back and the life that you are been yanked out of.
00:24:20.240 --> 00:24:30.079
I mean, that's what they all want to do, is get out of where they are, but nobody really feels in in this book, at least, like that's an a tangible objective.
00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:31.839
It's like a stated objective.
00:24:32.160 --> 00:24:32.799
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:42.000
I mean, that to be clear, I mean, like Lucy, when she goes to Narnia that first time, especially, she's thinking, Oh, I need to show my brothers and sisters my my my brothers and my sister this.
00:24:42.079 --> 00:24:43.039
You know, she's thinking about them.
00:24:43.119 --> 00:24:45.039
And she's only she's a little kid, you know.
00:24:45.200 --> 00:24:52.960
It seems normal to have a sense of wonder and a sense of fear and not necessarily think about all the things you've left behind if you're a small child.
00:24:53.200 --> 00:25:00.319
But to care to carry that through to an adult woman who has had a full life and friends and all of that, I I find that a little bit strange.
00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:00.880
Yeah.
00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:06.960
It I I wouldn't say that it takes me out of it, but it when I'm reading it, I think to myself, like, don't you don't you miss home?
00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:08.799
Like it it, I don't know.
00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:12.960
For me, it it kind of breaks the sense of verisimilitude, maybe.
00:25:13.039 --> 00:25:17.920
But it's also just I have a resistance to a character being a vessel for me to insert myself into.
00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:20.400
I'd rather have a person who's not me to empathize with.
00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:23.920
The reason I like your world so much is that like Dardana ain't me.
00:25:24.079 --> 00:25:30.400
Like, I empathize with her, but she's so unlike me that it's interesting to learn about her through that deep perspective.
00:25:30.559 --> 00:25:34.000
I want to discover things, I want to learn about a person who's not me.
00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:35.920
And again, that's a reading preference.
00:25:36.319 --> 00:25:42.319
Uh, I do think that it's a nicer way to read because like it's a way of learning how to empathize with other people who are not you.
00:25:42.559 --> 00:25:45.039
Every like in in life, everyone around you is not you.
00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:46.480
They're never going to be a vessel for you.
00:25:46.559 --> 00:25:48.880
So really, you need to like empathize with them.
00:25:49.039 --> 00:25:55.599
So it's just, I don't know, like a much better brain exercise to me to read about characters who are, not just me.
00:25:56.720 --> 00:26:04.079
I've I've never never encountered, you know, a me out there who wasn't like basically basically a vessel and just putting myself into that person.
00:26:04.400 --> 00:26:07.759
You I I am I'm interested in in different people.
00:26:07.839 --> 00:26:16.960
You see, I'm interested in writing different people because they're it it's it's fascinating to write somebody, you know, uh like Lily or like Darlene.
00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:30.960
It's like you're you're finding exactly how how different this human being can be from you and still be empathetic and still be identifiably human just from a totally different cultural lens.
00:26:31.200 --> 00:26:33.039
Yeah, I mean, this is why I like writing Sora.
00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:36.240
She's I mean she has some things from me, but she's not me.
00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:38.240
She's she's a freaking cyborg.
00:26:38.400 --> 00:26:40.079
And like, and she's also not a power fantasy show.
00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:42.000
I mean, she's just kind of a she's kind of a jerk, right?
00:26:42.160 --> 00:26:43.759
She's a she's a space jerk.
00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:46.400
And it's fun to write a space jerk.
00:26:47.359 --> 00:26:48.640
Who can who can punch wraiths?
00:26:48.720 --> 00:26:54.000
Like that that is very fun to, but it's like not just like a power fantasy, and it's not an she's not a self-insert character.
00:26:54.079 --> 00:26:57.839
Like if you read Sora and you're like, it me, like you're probably wrong.
00:26:58.480 --> 00:27:00.480
Unless you're a finger jerk with a cyber arm.
00:27:00.559 --> 00:27:01.920
Please tell me if you are.
00:27:03.599 --> 00:27:16.000
Yeah, it's yeah, she's I've I I like Sora a lot just because she is, she's a I mean, she's not even by any means like a perfect here, she's a damaged person physically, psychologically, emotionally.
00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:22.079
And there's aspects of that in her personality that are I feel like are like predate anything that's ever happened to her.
00:27:22.559 --> 00:27:26.799
So to write about a some somebody like that, you're having to do a lot of exploration in her.
00:27:27.039 --> 00:27:42.880
And I mean, not to continue slogging on Georgie, she's to write, she's not complex because she's just got the mission on a piece of paper and she's conducting the mission, and she's gonna get to end the story, and there's gonna be vectile in the middle of it, and that is fantastic for her.
00:27:43.359 --> 00:27:47.519
But it's not it's not a satisfying thing to read.
00:27:47.680 --> 00:27:53.759
I was interested the first time I read it, and I was punished the second time I started crawling my way through it.
00:27:53.839 --> 00:27:54.880
So sorry.
00:27:56.240 --> 00:28:07.519
Yeah, I mean I feel like it is important as sci-fi romance authors to have this in our repertoires as things that we something we have read, because I do think a lot of people think of this when they think of sci-fi romance now.
00:28:07.839 --> 00:28:17.359
You know, I mean, when I see people like looping like shifter romance, omega verse romance, and sci-fi romance together, I didn't get it until now.
00:28:17.519 --> 00:28:19.680
Now I think I understand why that's happening.
00:28:19.920 --> 00:28:36.160
I I do think that there is something about the Sakui and everything happening on this planet and the way that these relationships are coming together that reminds me of Luniverse Omega verse, you know, the sort of faded mate stuff, the like the sort of very interesting uh penile anatomy.
00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:52.640
Uh there's a there's a weird, again, another reverse reverse engineering science fiction thing where I it almost feels like the men have been constructed from the perspective of a sex toy, in order to like what can I do with their anatomy to make them more like a sex toy?
00:28:52.799 --> 00:29:05.279
Like they're they're ripped for her pleasure, and they even have like little like bones or something, like little spurs that are for clitoral stimulation, except that their women don't have clitoris, so it doesn't make any freaking sense.
00:29:05.680 --> 00:29:07.599
Yeah, why would they have that?
00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:09.759
Is clitoris which declension?
00:29:09.839 --> 00:29:10.720
Is that third declension?
00:29:10.799 --> 00:29:11.599
Clitorous?
00:29:11.759 --> 00:29:12.640
I don't know.
00:29:13.440 --> 00:29:15.839
I wouldn't be able to guess at this point in my life.
00:29:16.160 --> 00:29:17.599
Which Latin declension is that?
00:29:17.680 --> 00:29:19.839
Anyway, make a declension.
00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:26.240
Uh but yeah, I mean, like it to me, it feels very like funny to me.
00:29:26.319 --> 00:29:38.400
Like they're just reverse engineered to be like appropriate like sex toys for human women, and that they can breed with human women despite being only vaguely humanoid, is very strange to me.
00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:42.400
But again, it doesn't have to be hard sci-fi, it only has to be hard sci-fi.
00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:44.240
Oh, it's hard.
00:29:44.480 --> 00:29:45.440
Oh, it's very hard.
00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:57.519
I mean, yeah, it's it's it's uh I mean it doesn't I wouldn't say it was objectivize Vectal necessarily or anything, but it it kind of does.
00:29:57.680 --> 00:30:04.720
It kind of like he's I mean, the first thing he does when he like gets a hold of her and say, Okay, we're going downtown because that's what we do.
00:30:05.039 --> 00:30:09.680
And then then, of course, he's all as you say, ribbed for her pleasure.
00:30:09.920 --> 00:30:14.000
And it's like, I mean, it's it's a skate fancy.
00:30:14.079 --> 00:30:24.880
Why not make up a perfect man who can take care of you and then help you conquer the basketball heads and stimulate in every every possible way?
00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:32.079
Nothing wrong with that, except we run into somebody like me or in you who are like saying, Well, none of this makes sense.
00:30:33.119 --> 00:30:38.160
He even has like like a bumpy ridged tongue, so he's also speculation.
00:30:38.640 --> 00:30:41.839
Oh, he's vertically and I was like, Are you shitting me?
00:30:42.079 --> 00:30:44.960
Again with the like, what the shit is this?
00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:46.000
Let's reading it.
00:30:46.160 --> 00:30:47.119
I mean, it is fun.
00:30:47.200 --> 00:30:50.880
I'm gonna say right now, it like I I did laugh a lot reading this.
00:30:50.960 --> 00:30:56.880
There's something kind of like like kick up your heels and like throw all the the like rules away.
00:30:57.119 --> 00:31:06.640
It did, I said this on the Elicit Liaison podcast that like this book proves that like whatever rules you think there are in romance writing, like you could probably just throw them all out and do whatever you want.
00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:08.559
And then there will be people who want to read it.
00:31:09.279 --> 00:31:11.440
Chapters are only supposed to be this many pages.
00:31:11.680 --> 00:31:15.440
Well, no, Ruby Dixon did a like 40-page chapter as her first one.
00:31:15.599 --> 00:31:17.279
Like, you can totally get away with that.
00:31:17.519 --> 00:31:18.319
Absolutely.
00:31:20.079 --> 00:31:27.759
You know, you you you need to have, you know, like a uh a protagonist who like feels like a f a person that you can like go shopping with.
00:31:27.920 --> 00:31:28.640
Well, screw that.
00:31:28.720 --> 00:31:30.160
Look at Georgie over here, you know.
00:31:30.240 --> 00:31:33.759
Like people are tired of stabby, stabby FMCs.
00:31:33.839 --> 00:31:36.400
Well, she beats a guy to death in the first jacket.
00:31:36.799 --> 00:31:37.839
Certainly does.
00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:41.279
She does a good job of it, and I'm proud of her having done it.
00:31:41.759 --> 00:31:42.160
Me too.
00:31:42.559 --> 00:31:45.359
But but damn, girl.
00:31:49.200 --> 00:31:51.039
She deserves Starbucks at this point.
00:31:51.119 --> 00:31:54.079
I I think the talk we need to build her a Starbucks.
00:31:55.200 --> 00:31:56.160
Agreed.
00:31:56.799 --> 00:32:05.279
Yes, it's like, I mean, there's other world-building things about that I didn't that I didn't that it made me try to figure out what what the hell is going on here.
00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:10.160
Like their whole planet being she's they go say, well, it's Hoth, you know, it's Hoth.
00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:15.599
Well, to my my perception of it, maybe I just didn't, you know, understand what I was reading.
00:32:15.680 --> 00:32:19.599
Well, it did seem to be more, a lot more like the north of Canada than Hoth.
00:32:19.759 --> 00:32:29.759
I mean, like it seemed to be forested, it seemed to be, you know, a bit more piney than just flat, you know, icy wasteland.
00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:31.839
It it looks it's felt different than that.
00:32:31.920 --> 00:32:42.319
I mean, Hannah, how would they really know that it wasn't just winter someplace, which I think they they brought that up because they said we don't even know if we're on or around Earth, where it could be like someplace else, we don't know.
00:32:42.559 --> 00:32:46.079
But they've managed to settle it was the two sons, I think, that twigged into it.
00:32:46.160 --> 00:32:47.359
And that, or was it three suns?
00:32:47.440 --> 00:32:48.559
How many two suns?
00:32:49.119 --> 00:32:55.119
So, but hey, I mean, immediately I'm saying, okay, so we have two suns.
00:32:55.279 --> 00:32:57.359
Last two sun place I saw was Tatooine.
00:32:57.440 --> 00:32:59.200
So there's we got we have an issue here.
00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:01.519
The climate, it's okay.
00:33:01.680 --> 00:33:04.720
So if it's not a hot star, then it needs to be really dim.
00:33:04.880 --> 00:33:10.240
But if it's really dim, they probably have a lot of ultraviolet or God knows what else coming at you.
00:33:10.400 --> 00:33:13.519
So none of these things, you know, I've done plenty of thinking about this.
00:33:13.680 --> 00:33:24.000
None of these things are hard or even remotely hard signs, because if they're whitish suns and there's two of them and they're roughly comparable to the sun, you are probably soaking in something terrible.
00:33:24.079 --> 00:33:26.000
It's giving you cancer while you stand there.
00:33:26.319 --> 00:33:32.480
So, no, and no, and there wouldn't be snow away in the atmosphere, it'd be blown away by two suns and yada yada yada yada yada yada.
00:33:32.640 --> 00:33:39.119
So, all of that, like, I mean, I had to like, you know, toss up my hands and just go along for the ride at that point.
00:33:39.200 --> 00:33:42.400
Because it's like, this is obviously not going anywhere scientific.
00:33:43.599 --> 00:33:45.039
And that's fine.
00:33:45.599 --> 00:33:55.119
When I'm reading sci-fi, I'm usually doing that calculation in my head of like which where are we on the scale from space opera to hard sci-fi?
00:33:55.519 --> 00:33:57.680
You know, like where where are we landing, right?
00:33:57.759 --> 00:34:01.119
So that I can set my my expectations appropriately.
00:34:01.599 --> 00:34:09.440
And I set us somewhere a little bit above space opera, you know, like okay, there's no magic here, she's definitely going to adhere to some rules.
00:34:09.760 --> 00:34:16.400
Um, but she's not super interested in like developing things beyond what she needs, right?
00:34:16.480 --> 00:34:18.800
Which is that's basically the notch about space opera.
00:34:18.960 --> 00:34:24.000
I will only develop what I need, and I am not interested in all of how all of these things fit together.
00:34:24.320 --> 00:34:27.519
You know, what is a parsec in my universe?
00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:32.880
Uh what is this element that everybody is is breathing that is making them ill?
00:34:33.119 --> 00:34:34.960
Where do the kuey come from?
00:34:35.119 --> 00:34:36.960
Where do the sa kuoe come from?
00:34:37.039 --> 00:34:41.440
I'm gonna cover that quickly to get you to stop asking questions so we can get back to the alien sex.
00:34:41.760 --> 00:34:42.880
That's the important part.
00:34:43.679 --> 00:34:52.239
And if you if you understand it from the angle of a writer trying to get us to the thing that is important and get us to stop asking questions, that makes sense.
00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:57.519
As world building, it is a little bit annoying for a person who really likes science fiction.
00:34:57.679 --> 00:35:03.440
Um, but if you're here for primarily romance that is sort of sci-fi inflected, it can be fine.
00:35:03.679 --> 00:35:05.440
It's just a little frustrating.
00:35:05.920 --> 00:35:06.400
Right.
00:35:06.639 --> 00:35:08.400
It it's it it bugged me.
00:35:08.480 --> 00:35:35.760
I mean, I figured out pretty quickly that I was I was not going to ever be satisfied, and I said, okay, and then we're just we're just gonna go with this, and we're just gonna accept all this, and we're gonna have the alien sex, and that's cool, and we're here and we're there, and it's a ride, and then at the end of it, it all kind of basically folds up shop and punches the clock really, really quickly.
00:35:36.239 --> 00:35:38.159
Yeah, so okay, I want to talk about that.
00:35:38.400 --> 00:35:44.639
I think I think the main problem that this book has is that it is about half the length it probably should have been.
00:35:45.679 --> 00:35:50.639
Yeah, uh it's like a I think it's maybe 40 to 50,000 words.
00:35:50.719 --> 00:35:54.719
I don't have an exact word count anywhere, but I think most of the books are around that length.
00:35:55.199 --> 00:36:01.760
Um, and while that is a legal quantity for that is a legal quantity of pages for any romance.
00:36:02.239 --> 00:36:08.000
I I do think that once you are doing speculative fiction, you need to start moving into the 80,000 word range.
00:36:08.960 --> 00:36:14.559
And I I think that if this thing is about 40,000, it probably accords with my senses that it needed to be 80.
00:36:14.800 --> 00:36:20.960
That would have given, I mean, does I'm not saying all of them needed to be 80, I'm just saying this one, this particular one.
00:36:21.199 --> 00:36:22.079
This could have been 80.
00:36:22.559 --> 00:36:24.639
Particularly, particularly all the walking around.
00:36:24.800 --> 00:36:39.920
I mean, the first 17 million chapters was her marching up and down the woods with Vectel and eating or not eating and complaining or not complaining, or talking English or talking gibberese, depending on whose perspective it was.
00:36:40.320 --> 00:36:47.599
And I mean it it and the switching the viewpoints, I mean, that eats up time too, because you're always got a little bit of overlap in that.
00:36:47.760 --> 00:36:50.320
So you're losing, you're losing margin.
00:36:50.559 --> 00:37:04.719
And so if we're gonna do all of these things, it definitely required if you have if you want to improve the world building any at all, you need to toss another 10,000 words on that sucker, just yeah, just to make it comfortable.
00:37:04.960 --> 00:37:11.599
And then if you're not gonna edit out a lot of the trooping around, you're gonna have to add another 10,000 words to make up for that.
00:37:11.760 --> 00:37:15.760
And then if you want an ending, you need another several thousand on top of that.
00:37:15.920 --> 00:37:18.559
So she's like 25,000 words short in my books.
00:37:19.039 --> 00:37:19.440
Exactly.
00:37:19.519 --> 00:37:24.880
Yeah, at least at the very least, even with all of the all of the uh the economy that she could have made.
00:37:25.039 --> 00:37:29.920
I think she's at least, yeah, to me, 25 to 30,000 words short.
00:37:30.159 --> 00:37:33.199
Um, and I think it would have been more comfortable to be far longer than that.
00:37:33.360 --> 00:37:37.599
Um, the main thing, of course, is the the setup and payoff of the aliens.
00:37:37.679 --> 00:37:46.960
I think having not having them come back in any meaningful way, other than to fly around for a couple of sentences was really I probably the thing about the book that made me craziest when I think about it.
00:37:47.280 --> 00:37:48.239
It blew my mind.
00:37:48.400 --> 00:37:49.519
It blew my mind.
00:37:49.679 --> 00:37:52.159
I was expecting anything except that.
00:37:52.239 --> 00:37:53.519
And I was like, what?
00:37:54.159 --> 00:37:59.360
Oh man, all that for that criminally wasted felonious.
00:38:00.159 --> 00:38:03.440
I mean, we killed a woman, we nearly froze a bunch of others to death.
00:38:03.599 --> 00:38:04.079
We killed a couple.
00:38:04.239 --> 00:38:06.800
How many what what one or two died in the crash?
00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:08.320
Then the one froze to death.
00:38:09.280 --> 00:38:10.320
Then the woman froze to death.
00:38:10.400 --> 00:38:11.360
That's three, they're down.
00:38:11.679 --> 00:38:19.840
We killed three women, we committed sexual assault, and we then just roamed around a circle.
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:23.519
Now, I'm gonna come, I'm gonna may mention this again, but I'm gonna say it right now.
00:38:23.840 --> 00:38:28.719
Ruby Dixon is incredibly successful, and I wish to God I had one-tenth of her success.
00:38:28.960 --> 00:38:40.639
So I I cannot pee on her parade at all, but I am I I am I I I was startled by this book.
00:38:41.039 --> 00:38:43.039
It achieved everything for Ruby Dixon.
00:38:43.119 --> 00:38:45.360
She could hope for it to do, and God bless her.
00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:47.599
Man, that that this book startled me.
00:38:47.920 --> 00:38:49.280
I I it was very revealing.
00:38:49.440 --> 00:38:57.440
I read her, um, she's got like a little uh kind of afterward um in the I've got the special edition of Ice Planet Barbarians.
00:38:57.599 --> 00:39:06.800
And I read that, um, and that was that was useful because she was talking about why she started writing this and her her history and of what science fiction she liked to read.
00:39:06.880 --> 00:39:13.760
You know, she's talking about like sort of old science fiction magazines they had laying around, sort of, I'm assuming it's asimovs or analog or something like that.
00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:22.159
She and her mom would read them, and um, you know, there's a lot of good pulpy stuff in there, especially if they were really old, like older ones from like the 70s or 80s.
00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:38.800
Uh and I I can I can imagine that you know, she she basically said that she had been like writing stuff in a completely different realm before that a lot of romance, and she was tired of it, she's getting sick of it, and she just wanted to write something for herself, and this was just something she wrote for herself.
00:39:38.960 --> 00:39:55.280
So, like she had read all she said she had read all of the sci-fi romance in the Amazon sci-fi romance category before this, which at the time I know this too, was just a bunch of like weird alien barbarian hunk guys who were very like, Oh, get in my cave.
00:39:55.360 --> 00:39:57.760
I I I have sex with you, woman.
00:39:58.239 --> 00:40:11.519
You know, very like kind of the also kind of Omega Versey kind of you know, like dystopian trope kind of type of stuff, you know, like you've been abducted and now there's a barbarian, and now you are his wife, and and you must enjoy yourself.
00:40:11.599 --> 00:40:12.639
You have no choice.
00:40:12.880 --> 00:40:14.800
And she wanted something softer than that.
00:40:14.880 --> 00:40:22.960
And this is a reaction to that, with like guys who are like interested in taking care of the girls and and protecting them and stuff.
00:40:23.119 --> 00:40:33.920
And so, like, she is just putting in the trope of these aliens who, like you said, um who abduct the women and are quickly sort of shooed aside as a thing she doesn't want to deal with anymore.
00:40:34.159 --> 00:40:40.239
Uh, and you know, if one had read a lot of those kinds of stories, I think that it would not be something to remark upon.
00:40:40.320 --> 00:40:44.880
It's like, okay, yeah, we've got the aliens, they they've left, we don't want to deal with them anymore, get them out of here.
00:40:44.960 --> 00:40:46.960
It's time for the barbarian fucking, right?
00:40:47.280 --> 00:40:51.119
It's I think weird to us because it's not the kind of thing that we tend to read.
00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:58.079
Yeah, it it's it is it's uh it's stage setting, and then you move on to the important stuff.
00:40:58.239 --> 00:41:01.039
I mean, this is what this is the important thing.
00:41:01.199 --> 00:41:04.719
I mean, she's got Vectel and his people have a serious problem.
00:41:04.960 --> 00:41:17.199
Vectel suddenly finds out, oh my god, we've got X teen number of women, and I have all of these brothers and cousins and uncles, and they all need wives, and by God, let's go save them.
00:41:17.440 --> 00:41:21.199
It's it's it all it all works together.
00:41:21.679 --> 00:41:22.159
Sure.
00:41:22.239 --> 00:41:25.840
I've I'm I'm I don't take that away from it one bit.
00:41:26.079 --> 00:41:27.519
And it is definitely rich.
00:41:27.760 --> 00:41:37.119
I mean, the Vectil is practically an intellectual compared to some of these, you know, alien barbarian conqueror types used to see about you know 10 years ago on Amazon.
00:41:37.199 --> 00:41:38.159
I suppose still do.
00:41:38.239 --> 00:41:40.639
I don't haunt those sections very much these days.
00:41:40.880 --> 00:41:44.079
I mean, this I I first I first read this.
00:41:44.559 --> 00:41:45.920
Why why did I do this?
00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:56.960
Because I was like, those were my erotica writing days when I was like saying, I'm going to be in a I'm gonna write erotica and I make a bunch of money and I can save that and for the my kids' college.
00:41:57.039 --> 00:42:00.239
And that's seems really odd, but that was the thought.
00:42:00.400 --> 00:42:04.639
Um, it would that's not been very successful on several different fronts.
00:42:04.960 --> 00:42:18.239
But um I I picked this up and attempt to kind of get a feel for what some stuff would be like because I was already at that point finding it very difficult to write erotica because I really can't.
00:42:18.400 --> 00:42:21.440
I because there's a story, it's always more important to me.
00:42:21.599 --> 00:42:25.119
So I I you want to get distracted by the world building.
00:42:25.440 --> 00:42:27.199
I very eagerly picked this up.
00:42:27.440 --> 00:42:45.199
I was very interested to see what she did with it, and I was, I mean, in certain ways, I did not mind the realism of the first 40 pages, because that's you know, given a certain set of circumstances, that's pretty much what you're gonna get.
00:42:45.440 --> 00:42:48.079
But at the same time, I'm saying, what year is this?
00:42:48.159 --> 00:42:49.440
And she's writing this?
00:42:49.599 --> 00:42:52.320
What how how is she getting away with this?
00:42:52.480 --> 00:43:02.239
Because on my on the Reddit that I used to hang out on, you know, there were amongst many things they would say is you really can't do a certain number of things, or Amazon's gonna flush you.
00:43:02.320 --> 00:43:05.679
And she violated a number of those rules out of the gate.
00:43:07.599 --> 00:43:11.440
Yeah, she didn't describe the uh the basketball-headed grape very much.
00:43:11.519 --> 00:43:14.239
And I think that might be to avoid the Amazon censors.
00:43:16.559 --> 00:43:20.559
So, yeah, so that that's kind of how I got into reading her.
00:43:20.639 --> 00:43:23.840
And I I read, I forget what it was.
00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:28.480
This was it's been about three years going on now.
00:43:28.559 --> 00:43:42.239
There was another one, very similar, very, very similar scenario, except it's not an ice planet, it's it's uh uh is more civilized place, and she gets pulled off Earth in a similar way.
00:43:42.320 --> 00:43:57.199
And then, but they some enforcement type group, you know, Shano bushwacks the the kidnapper aliens, and she gets taken to a civilized planet, except they can't send her back because she knows about it, and apparently you can't lobotomize people.
00:43:57.360 --> 00:43:59.760
So uh she's like stuck in.
00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:24.079
know in the household of this not exactly barbarian but certainly you know like eight foot tall you know gorgeous hunk of a guy and I forget how it ends honestly but that that author wrote a number of them in in that similar vein and it's like it's like is it but the I could see where the pattern was going I could see where I'd come out of and what the reaction was.
00:44:24.400 --> 00:44:29.599
So I was like until recently I would never even contemplate writing anything like that.
00:44:29.679 --> 00:44:39.199
I kind of am now but it's again it's different and worse in some ways better in others perhaps you're not doing the alien abduction part of it.
00:44:39.280 --> 00:44:50.000
I and I think that the alien abduction thing is probably the part you and I are reacting the the hardest to um you know it's kind of a it's a contrivance to make this possible right I I do think it's really common.
00:44:50.239 --> 00:44:59.679
I think it's um it reminds me of a conversation I had with Marissa about the the one bed trope that like when you think about it too much it's ridiculous.
00:44:59.840 --> 00:45:00.079
Right.
00:45:00.159 --> 00:45:11.199
And but it's so accepted in romance that like if you're reading and you've read it a lot you're sort of like oh there's only one bed okay cool you just you your brain just does not really like question it too much.
00:45:11.280 --> 00:45:24.159
Like of course the other author tries to make sure that they have enough contrivances in order to make sure that it works most of the time you know but like really it's a contrivance to get these two into bed together obviously right so you just sort of accept it as a reader.
00:45:24.239 --> 00:45:30.400
You know there's like that's a trope it happens they're they're in a snow snowstorm there's only one bed oh no what are we gonna do?
00:45:30.480 --> 00:45:40.960
Well I don't want to sleep on the floor you know and all of those other like those other things that you could have done instead like kind of fly out the window because it's like yeah but there's only one bed and we want you two in that bed so we're fine with it.
00:45:41.119 --> 00:45:46.960
I and I think that's kind of what's happening here that like you and I are encountering only one bed for the first time and reacting to it.
00:45:47.039 --> 00:46:09.119
Whereas most people like oh yeah alien abductions yeah of course why are you worried about the aliens coming back what's wrong with you people it's a great book he's got a ribbed tongue what is your deal exactly so I mean yeah our our our analysis on on many counts simply fails to account for the reason that people read things which is to have fun.
00:46:09.440 --> 00:46:18.559
So we're just picking ancies is all we are well the reason is that it is romance right and like again gentle listeners like we're assessing it as science fiction.
00:46:18.639 --> 00:46:24.960
It is it is my contention that if something is sci-fi romance it should also kind of tick the boxes on the sci-fi end.
00:46:25.039 --> 00:46:36.960
Like I I want to read it and for it to be good science fiction as well as good romance you know and so like if I read it and it's like oh this is a fun romance but the sci-fi is like really wanting uh that's like unsatisfying to me.
00:46:37.039 --> 00:46:40.000
That that doesn't mean that that is everyone's preference.
00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:41.840
This is merely a preference thing to me.
00:46:42.079 --> 00:46:50.000
Uh and because I I come in from sci-fi and I I want it to hit those those sci-fi feels I I want to feel satisfied in that way.
00:46:50.079 --> 00:46:52.079
I want to explore and I want to discover things.
00:46:52.239 --> 00:46:55.599
So that's where I come from but you know like if it works for you it's fine.
00:46:55.679 --> 00:47:04.400
I also think that Ruby Dixon finds her stride after this very quickly and uh it kind of becomes fine uh even by the second book.
00:47:04.480 --> 00:47:08.239
Like that's my sense of it that like she's just way more comfortable once she's got her set up.
00:47:08.960 --> 00:48:23.840
Didn't slow her down any I mean she's obviously just gone to I mean so what how much she up to now is it's it's over 20 isn't it is it uh that's a good question I'm looking that up all these all these women I think there's a sapphic one in there too I'm actually kind of curious I think there is are there enough barbarian alien women I've I that's a good I mean it I suppose with the the with all the Ruby Dixon money running around I'm sure she could get one if she needed one so there's 21 there you are right good lord wow yeah it didn't slow her down at all oh my god the old covers she she's got uh yeah the old covers are hysterical I mean the new covers are like I I like the new covers is sapping the various choice of sapic is right I told you I told you we gotta read that uh the uh she's I mean the new covers are are great I mean there's uh hating on covers is a whole new another topic for us but uh her her new series of covers I think although they're not what I would personally choose for any particular thing they are so much better than what they could be that it's just it's it's I was really happy to see them I was really happy to pick up it's really hard to pick up the books I have just to see those was it's really good.
00:48:24.159 --> 00:49:06.079
Yeah there's a like a side there's side stories as well I call them Ice Planet Barbarians as a baby on the cover ice ice babies oh my god yeah she goes with she goes with the pregnancy trope which is which certainly has its thing god knows that that enters into my universe as well so yeah it it's it's totally it's an understanding what why are you why are you ribbed for her pleasure because you're wanting to make more babies that's the whole freaking point because they're running out of so yep yep yeah probably the cooey doing something to them wow yeah they're 21 of these for sure there you go I do like seeing that she like hits her stride in the second one and like the just sort of gets into the romance tropes and and and goes from there.
00:49:06.159 --> 00:49:10.639
Like I I think it she is definitely much more comfortable writing romance like you can just see that.
00:49:11.039 --> 00:49:37.039
Of course I keep hoping to like learn more things like what happened like what happened to this the Sakui's pleasure crews that got them stuck here you know like what is our is there a hidden trove of like civilization like documents or things like that is from their original civilization that they can learn more about them you know like maybe they'll come at some point and try to rescue them maybe we'll learn actually like why these these like aliens tried to abduct the girls and like what's going on with them.
00:49:37.119 --> 00:49:40.159
Like of course I I want to learn all of those kinds of things which is a good sign.
00:49:40.239 --> 00:49:47.360
It means I'm I'm curious I want to know more about stuff you know like that's that that means that I am interested that's a good thing.
00:49:47.599 --> 00:49:58.559
We're we are invested we're investing a lot of time talking about it because we have dissatisfactions because we liked enough of what we saw that we were frustrated what we didn't like and we wanted it to be better.
00:49:58.719 --> 00:50:01.519
And apparently after this it does get better.
00:50:01.760 --> 00:50:12.400
Yeah I mean at least at least at least it's romance I don't know if it gets better as science fiction I I I will know I think Barbarian Alien is better for not being science fiction or at least being less science fiction.
00:50:12.480 --> 00:50:21.199
I think that just being an oil of romance not normal it's not I'm not gonna call it normal it is definitely not blue crapus it's definitely not normal.
00:50:21.440 --> 00:50:35.360
No it's it was definitely I mean it's got all it's got its its thing going on but like it's it's you know we're we're not hunting giant suckosks and we're we're not getting abducted by aliens and we're not finding you know machines that talk or anything like that.
00:50:35.519 --> 00:50:42.320
We are in a cave having an enemies to lovers that's what that book is it is very comfortable with that and that is fine.
00:50:42.639 --> 00:52:33.039
It was a spoiler perish oh I'm I'm I'm not worried about the spoiler more personally it's an enemies to lovers story you've read lots of those oh my god I certainly have I I can I can tough another one out it's actually pretty well done uh as part like I'm now I'm now like a a connoisseur of enemies to lover stories I've read so many of them I'll read I'm like oh yeah that's pretty good enemies to lovers yeah you know like from a person who didn't read it at all to now I blame you for this it's all my fault it is entirely I don't even know how we got how how did we come up with it what was wrong with this what'd we do how did this occur to us I think we were trying to think of the most sadistic thing we could do to people in a zine that was definitely it oh god but uh that was so horrible to do like oh well let's take these people make sure they have a long backstory have a big conflict and then bring it together in 7000 words let's people make it work people make it work fantasy world believable fantasy world absolutely you don't make it believable I shall be shocked and shocked this will be on the test I'm sorry to all of our authors who are listening to us right now we love you uh we are we know that we are sadistic editors and you did wonderfully we're really sorry that we're like this okay with us you did really well all right folks what we're reading uh for next week we are continuing to do uh it's Ice Planet Barbarians uh we're gonna be doing reading Barbarian Alien I'm already halfway through torturing Parish with ideas about it um also you know want to talk about other hopes that we have about the the podcast um I'm hoping that we will eventually talk about more science fiction here it's a really good opportunity for me to just sort of need to read science fiction and have a place to talk about it uh so that I'm not always in romance world.
00:52:33.119 --> 00:53:40.559
Uh so that's my my high fluton uh hopes what about you parish oh I just like I want to talk about world building and talk about you know how to how to have voice and how to like you know approach some of these things is there's really as I've demonstrated with my intolerance at some aspects of Georgia it's really important to have the right voice have the right level of world building not too much not too little to balance yeah so you want to talk about craft I like that yeah talk about science fiction craft that's a very good idea that'd be good for both of us it's nice to you know I mean I spend a lot of time talking about romance over on illicit liaisons I love that it's really cool I've learned a lot about romance doing that and talk to really cool people um but I I crave science fiction like I went to WorldCon and WorldCon by the way people is uh basically like a moving convention that moves around every year um that like basically is associated with the folks who do the Hugo Awards um so they have different names depending on where they're at uh and it's really cool um is associated with like Los Fist here in Los Angeles um and you'll you'll meet really cool science fiction people of like when I went this year uh George R.
00:53:40.719 --> 00:54:25.440
Martin was just wandering around apparently he he goes every year just about and you know it was neat it was nice to talk to a lot of people who like do science fiction art who write a lot of science fiction who do science fiction anthologies and one reason why when uh we were we were like noodling about this one reason I was like I was like we we need to actually like pull the trigger is I just want to talk more about science fiction I want to keep that as part of my repertoire who I am uh yeah and all right Parish uh what are you what what are you reading this week other than having to read uh Barbarian Alien and what are you working on all right well what I'm reading this week uh and maybe for a couple of weeks I'm reading uh a book called The Silver Pigs and I need to look up the author's name because I'm not gonna come up with it fast enough.
00:54:25.679 --> 00:55:30.559
Uh and basically it is a it is a a mystery uh it's set in the Vespasians Rome so it's basically like the year 70 odd or so um and it the uh the main protagonist it's a it's a first person it's noir uh and he is named uh yeah noir yeah it's it's a it's a it's a it's a Roman noir cool Roman noir mystery and he's um it's also a bit of a romance because he is so far in the book he's like encountered this rather young girl who's actually the younger cousin of a woman who's he's going to have a relationship with Lindsay Davis that's her name and uh uh Helena is the elder cousin she is in Britannia at the moment and uh uh Didias Falco is going to be sent by Vespasian to Britain to do whatever he does and he's gonna run into her and she is going to hate him.
00:55:30.719 --> 00:55:34.239
So it is a bit a bit of an enemies to lovers in this first book.
00:55:34.320 --> 00:55:41.039
And so I'm um I've already read one farther into it than this in the series and I'm really I'm starting from the beginning and really excited to get into it.
00:55:41.280 --> 00:56:02.400
As far as what I'm doing writing my tail off I have a whole schedule of nonsense I got to write I'm pretty sure that I have to I know I have to write um some edits on uh on uh Fallen from Stars and I have to write a a chapter in line in the garden uh to do uh this week upcoming as well as prompts and things like that.
00:56:02.639 --> 00:56:09.679
Yep there you go I like it when I ask you that you're like holding your head together like you're trying to stop your brain from flying apart.
00:56:10.719 --> 00:56:13.199
It it it really is some days exactly like that.
00:56:13.280 --> 00:56:32.719
Because I like some I mean this week for instance things went slightly off the rails and I was because I thought I had to write something for Thursday of this week and I act but yeah I thought I was writing that I was writing for like the week after and so I had to go back and then write the thing for Thursday.
00:56:32.880 --> 00:56:43.519
So I was actually down a day this week oh I gotta get that thing done and then it it just normally modestly more organized than that but it worked out okay.
00:56:43.599 --> 00:56:44.000
I'm fine.
00:56:44.159 --> 00:56:45.920
And normally you're you're pretty well ahead of yourself.
00:56:46.800 --> 00:56:59.360
I've managed to stay I'm now working on being seven chapters ahead of myself in box protocol that makes me comfortable I like that I'm working on that seventh uh and scheduling one for tomorrow so I'll be back to six anyways.
00:56:59.920 --> 00:58:47.360
And I'm going to be starting to serialize uh uh Elysium Sands next week so like I know I need to be on top of stuff uh before we yeah that's gonna be fun I it's a it's a Sora novella and um it's talking about the world event that we did in Starship Valkyrie with the with the uh the smaller private community and um I'm hoping to put it in the Sora collection that I'm putting together it needs a novella so that this will be this will be it I'm really excited about that and it's nice to write from Sora's perspective she's a fun time especially like 2157 because you know that's like kind of after she's been through a ton of therapy so she's like she's not just constantly wanting to punch the walls and getting drunk and like waking up on the floor of the bathroom wondering what the hell's happened wearing a sombrero with a goat outside the door you know day that ends in one must be Tuesday uh so yeah I'm I'm I'm looking forward to starting that and bringing what remains over um we're closing down the ghost site this this month so I have to start bringing it over and serializing it and I wrote a prologue for it that's right people I wrote a prologue prologue no no agent will ever pick you up with a prologue this is it's very much a romance thing I don't remember this ever being a thing over in sci-fi fantasy that prologues are are no goes I love prologues they're big on fantasy sci-fi starting to work your way down i i love a i love a good prologue i might even have to post that like unpopular opinion romance stance i love prologues and you should too there's nothing wrong with a freaking prologue if you're too busy to read a prologue maybe you're too busy to read a book i like a prologue it's just a short chapter smacked on the front but what's the big deal yeah I mean I mean you could call it chapter one that's the funny thing it's I I'm talking about Harry Potter and I I I don't I'm I'm not wanting to platform Harry Potter.
00:58:47.440 --> 00:59:11.519
I'm not I don't love JK Rowling um but this is a really good example of that that like when you read Harry Potter the first book I actually thought it had a prologue because it's chapter one is prologuing it's doing the thing a prologue does and it's called chapter one and I it's called the boy who lived and it's it's set like you know 10 years before the rest of the events of the book and it it's a chapter you gotta read you to know what's going on.
00:59:11.679 --> 00:59:29.119
It's the chapter when Harry is taken to his aunt and uncle and and it's basically right after Voldemort has died and right after Harry's parents have died spoiler for a series that started back in 1997 folks uh and like you you do need to read this chapter to know what's going on if you were to skip it you would be like what what's going on why does he have a scar?
00:59:29.199 --> 00:59:30.079
Who is this kid?
00:59:30.960 --> 00:59:32.239
No clue no clue.
00:59:32.400 --> 00:59:33.360
Why is he an orphan?
00:59:33.440 --> 00:59:35.280
Like all of that stuff like it's a very important chapter.
00:59:35.360 --> 00:59:37.440
It's prologue it's doing the work of a prologue.
00:59:37.519 --> 00:59:38.480
Why is it called chapter one?
00:59:38.719 --> 00:59:45.199
Oh I don't know maybe JK Rowling was shopping it to agents who wouldn't read prologues which is ridiculous.
00:59:46.480 --> 00:59:58.000
It is doing exactly what a prologue is supposed to do there's no difference between calling it chapter one and calling it a prologue really except that it's a prologue and it should just be called a prologue I find this I find all that very silly.
00:59:58.159 --> 01:00:06.079
Do you need a prologue writers like not necessarily like don't make a prologue just to make one but like in the case of something like Harry Potter yeah it needed that prologue.
01:00:06.159 --> 01:00:08.800
It's a good prologue perfectly fine.
01:00:08.960 --> 01:00:11.519
Sometimes it's good to have prologue sometimes good to have an epilogue.
01:00:11.760 --> 01:00:15.760
It got your interest maybe what what are all these weird people running around with Mr.
01:00:15.840 --> 01:00:28.320
Dirley saying what's going on with these freaks yeah you know it definitely set up the two parallel worlds I mean that is like the moment where you understand completely the separation between the two it's a good mood moment.
01:00:28.400 --> 01:00:35.119
I kind of like that it's from Vernon Dursley's perspective for a minute in there you know like you don't really get Vernon's perspective really ever after that.
01:00:35.280 --> 01:00:43.119
So it's kind of neat you know like you know what's going on with Vernon Dursley you kind of know who this guy is and why he's such a bastard in the rest of the book.
01:00:43.679 --> 01:00:44.400
And that's nice.
01:00:44.480 --> 01:00:47.280
I like how getting other people's perspectives at the beginnings of books.
01:00:47.440 --> 01:00:48.320
Uh like George R.
01:00:48.480 --> 01:00:50.079
Martin does this too and has a prologue.
01:00:50.239 --> 01:01:00.400
I'm probably gonna write a whole blog article at this point why we prologue and talk about that from the perspective of fantasy and sci-fi you know moments when you need a prologue moments when it's a great idea.
01:01:00.559 --> 01:01:03.360
Don't skip them people it's not just author yap.
01:01:03.519 --> 01:01:05.280
Unless I mean like whole books are author yap.
01:01:05.360 --> 01:01:06.159
Like that's that's what we do.
01:01:06.239 --> 01:01:08.800
That's what when we're writing it's we're yapping that's what it is.
01:01:09.599 --> 01:01:21.360
Anyway that's what we're doing this week we're prologing all right folks we are nice planet barbarians yet another science fiction podcast talking sci-fi and sci-fi romance and whatever the hell else we want.
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If you have topics you'd like us to discuss please do tell us this will be hosted on YouTube where we're creating our very own channel as well as Parish Baker's Substack and on both sprouts so you can listen on your favorite platform.
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If you're hearing us right now thank you for tuning in.
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Nice Planet Barbarians is written by moi Tara Lederman and hosted by Parish Baker and Tara Lederman with sound engineering and editing by Parish Baker.
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Anything else done for this thing was probably figured out by one of us and we have no sponsorships nor art copies of what we're reading we buy the books ourselves.
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See you on a planet far away folks