GtPGKogPYT4p61R1biicqBXsUzo" /> Google+ Spotlight: Love Across the Universe -Scifi Romance Anthology | I Smell Sheep

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Spotlight: Love Across the Universe -Scifi Romance Anthology

Science Fiction provides writers and readers with the opportunity to explore strange and alien landscapes, intriguing new technologies, and many different ideas of what the future holds. We asked our authors to briefly describe the future world of their stories, focusing on elements that are most important to the characters/plot of the story.

Elsa M. Carruthers—“All B+ut You”
This is a bleak future world where most people are very superficial and shallow. It is drab, dull, and lacking in individuality.


M.T. DeSantis—“The Princess of Sands”
I actually have two future worlds—Andala and Belmret. Andala is a planet with amber sands and blue oceans. Perhaps the most dazzling feature is the towering sand castle, which is a beachfront hotel. Belmret also has a castle, but this one is inhabited by real royalty. It is made of stone, rather than sand, and goes from dark gray at the bottom to white at the tallest point. It is also right on the beach, and Belmret’s beaches have silver sand and lavender water. I’d love to visit both so much.

Traci Douglass—“A Dream to Build a Kiss On”
My short story, A Dream to Build a Kiss On, takes place in an alternate reality, near-future Earth where technology has run rampant, in both good and bad ways. The story is part of a larger story series set mainly within a fictional island resort called Dreamworld. The resort is owned by a mysterious man named Reziel Shaytan, who possesses ancient magical powers but who’s very existence is forbidden. He’s spent his long, immortal life in exile and has finally secluded himself on this remote island in the Atlantic Ocean, where he trades wishes for cash from the rich and famous. The Dreamworld trilogy is M/M Romance/suspense/adventure, but this short story is M/F and centers around Adam, Rez’s loyal android assistant. It takes place completely within the Dreamworld resort and centers on Adam’s whirlwind romance with a bookish botanist who comes to the island to study a rare, once-a-century blooming orchid. Love and sexy times ensue.

A.E. Hayes—“Tristan’s Tryst”
My future world is simply on another planet in a solar system that is not our own, but it is a habitable space – there is oxygen, life can grow and flourish, and it could be (if allowed, but at this point, is not) a very popular resort area. Delmar – the name of the planet, which stands for “of the sea,” is a planet completely covered in sand, surrounded by bodies of water not unlike our oceans, and has very few tree lines/forests except for one or two which do come into play within the story. But the ecosystem is Earth-like, despite the fact that this planet requires a faster than light speed to get to. Luckily, my main character has the ability to get there, and when he takes his fiancée – well, that’s when the real story begins, and it definitely heats up a bit. So the world is different, and remarkable in its own way, but not as remarkable as the people who visit it – or live on it.

Serena Jayne—“You Only Love Once”
In the year 2222, venturing outdoors is dangerous. Exposure to the searing ultraviolet rays of the sun could turn anyone into a crispy critter. The ocean is a toxic stew of chemicals and home to a horror show of mutant monsters. The story world acts as an antagonist. The environment is hostile and affects most aspects of the character’s lives. Ivy and Harry have their means for escaping the horror show Earth has become, in pushing limits and in watching reality television. On the other hand, Leo tries to focus his hope that scientists will find a way to reverse the environmental damage.

L.J. Longo—“Breathless”
Pangaea was a rogue planet (meaning it had no star) that was given an artificial sun to provide the light and warmth needed for human habitation during a planet-wide war on Earth. When the war did not destroy Earth, Mars, and Yuequi (the settlement on the moon), big corporations purchased the planet to capitalize on its enormous green beach and freshwater ocean and make it into a resort. However, they never really handled the problem of the original life on the planet, psychic, flesh-eating, monsters.

Oriana Maret—“Renewal”
· Kestrel and Mercer live on the planet of Jaster in the United States of Cadran, in Adalon City. Jaster occupies a remote part of the universe along with its sister planet of Tabara Gold.

· Tabara Gold (“Tab”) is unique; it sheds its dead “outer skin”; in scientific terms, it’s called demasquation. It sloughs off dead soil/earth and grows new.

· When Tab is in demasquation, space travel is banned between the two planets because of debris hazards.

· Tab’s demasquation puts a severe economic squeeze on Jaster, and the isolation on Tab makes it ripe for guerilla groups to foment rebellion and war.

Cara McKinnon—“The Pirates and the Pacifist”
This is space opera, so I don’t feel the need to be married to our understanding of science completely. FTL is achieved by folding space-time using specialized engines. Humans built a very rudimentary form of an FTL drive and met a far-flung alien civilization who taught them how to do it better, and also created a series of splices: humans mixed with alien DNA. The idea was to have emissaries who would exist between the races, able to be impartial and work for the best of both sides. But humans are intensely tribal, and splices ended up being feared and hated by many. The alien league also put their usual restrictions on new member races—no colonization of inhabited worlds, and standard trade and taxation rules. The humans weren’t happy with that, and a splinter group recently built up a secret space fleet and took over a small but significant portion of the inhabitable-for-human worlds.

Sheri Queen—“Red Sand”
“Red Sand” takes place at a time in the future when technology usurps Nature and humans have become dependent on virtual reality. There’s a disconnect from what is real and relationships take place predominantly in virtual settings. Bria had a large role in developing virtual living and regrets what it’s done to life on Earth. She saw another chance to make things right when Thayne asked her to work on his new resort on Mars.

Mary Rogers—“Breakfast on Pluto”
I hope my future world finds a way to delete (pun intended) the technology override we have put on ourselves, sometimes myself included! We need to unplug sometimes, and get away and out of the heads of all that we know.

Emmerite Sundberg—“Fluid”
My story takes place in a time when space travel is simple and easy. Other worlds have already been discovered and one of my heroines just happens to fall on one that isn’t well-known. My other heroine is a human-like alien meant to live in the ocean. Science is advanced enough for my human heroine to have a sensor that is embedded in her hand and aural implants that translates what she hears for her.

K.W. Taylor—“Reprogramming”
My story, “Reprogramming,” takes place a few centuries in the future, at a point when the Earth has become inhabitable environmentally, and much of the wealthy population has retreated to a space station. Alex Graham is an astronaut scout sent to check the habitability of a nearby planet, but her ship goes off course and crash lands on the wrong planet.


Love Across the Universe
August 1 2017
Genre: Science Fiction Romance
Publisher: Stars and Stone Books
ISBN-10: 0-9977081-8-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-9977081-8-9
ASIN: B071JSHCGC
13 Stories of Science Fiction Romance Set on Intergalactic 
Shore 
#spacebeachlove
Summer love is summer love, no matter the planet. Climb aboard your spacecraft or time machine and travel across time and space with these thirteen tales of love on beaches in the future and among the stars.
Includes stories by USA Today Bestselling Author Traci Douglass, Cara McKinnon, Rhonda Jackson Joseph, A.E. Hayes, Sheri Queen, M.T. DeSantis, L.J. Longo, K.W. Taylor, Mary Rogers, Elsa M. Carruthers, Emmerite Sundberg, Serena Jayne, and Oriana Maret.

The Greatest Gift
by Rhonda Jackson Joseph
blog-FB-twitter-Facebook official-Instagram-Amazon Author Page
Tariq has chosen Jasmine and her family to rescue when the earth is destroyed. While her children and sister easily find their niches within their new society, based on their natural gifts and talents, Jasmine struggles to find her fit. Tariq’s patience and ability to see things within her that she doesn’t see in herself will help lead to Jasmine’s discovery of the greatest gift within herself.

A Dream to Build a Kiss On
by Traci Douglass
Website-FB-Twitter-Pinterest-Instagram-Google +
Goodreads-Bookbub-Amazon-Newsletter
Can passion bloom between a bookish botanist and an analytical android?

The Pirates and the Pacifist
by Cara McKinnon 
Website-FB-Twitter-Goodreads-Amazon-BookBub-Newsletter
Kai doesn’t believe in violence. Sam and Dek believe the ends justify the means. Will passion be enough to bridge the gap between the pacifist sent to broker galactic peace and the space pirates hired to keep him away at all costs?

Tristan’s Tryst
by A.E. Hayes
Website-FB-twitter-Blog-amazon
One mysterious being. Two lovers who find her. Can this threesome handle the heat of this scorching summer?

Red Sand
by Sheri Queen
Website-FB-Twitter-Goodreads-Amazon-Pinterest-Google +
If she can only save one thing, which will it be—the red beaches of Mars or a love she can’t imagine living without?

The Princess of Sands
by M.T. DeSantis
Blog-FB-twitter-goodreads-Amazon
Secrets and lies. Can they be each other’s freedom?

Breathless
by L.J. Longo
The manager of a resort planet and the head of its secret defense unit team up to save the guests—and discover danger is a potent aphrodisiac.

Reprogramming
by K.W. Taylor
Alex didn’t want to be marooned on an alien planet with a robot, but it may just be exactly what she needs.

Breakfast on Pluto
by Mary Rogers
website-FB
Doing the right thing isn’t always what’s best—but sometimes it pays off. A chance meeting of two people unaware of their destiny with each other results in a bond too difficult to break, but even duty has its boundaries. Will love help them break free—and willlove be enough?

All B+ut You
by Elsa M. Carruthers 
Lou is looking for the right guy and finds him where she least expects.

Fluid
by Emmerite Sundberg
website-FB-twitter
She’s everything she’s ever wanted but with one flaw – they can’t actually touch.

You Only Love Once
by Serena Jayne
website-FB-twitter-blog
Carpe diem the hell out of love.

Renewal
by  Oriana Maret
goodreads
She’ll brave the arms of destruction to shed the arms that betrayed.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the book spotlight! We're having a fun opening day with our FB Release party! All are welcome to join us. https://www.facebook.com/events/392072924567430

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for hosting Love Across the Universe and all of us authors on your website today! :)

    ReplyDelete