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What is it about the future that captures our attention? Is it the wonder of inventions yet to come? The fascination with life forms or planets not yet discovered? Or the intrigue of what our personal journey has in store?
For me, it’s imagining what might be. I have no doubt when my grandmother was traveling to school by horse and buggy in the early 1900’s, she couldn’t even imagine a world where everyone (including her) owned a car. Or that you could stand in the middle of a busy sidewalk and talk to someone half a world away on your mobile phone, let alone access map information from a global satellite to help you find that new restaurant. Amazing stuff.
But there are gifted writers like Gene Roddenberry whose imaginations stretched far beyond the mundane. It amazes me how many of his “futuristic” inventions in the original Star Trek series have come to fruition. The communicator? I watched my niece last week put her phone on speaker and hold it to her mouth like Captain Kirk always did with that flip top communicator. Video phones? Pneumatic doors? Access using finger print recognition? Communicators in ears? Personal computers that sit on a desk? Okay, so they haven’t invented the food replicator, which is soooo on my kitchen appliance wish list (right next to the cleaning-bot from the Jetson’s), but you get the idea. Mr. Roddenberry showed us a world of possibilities. (Okay, for those of you not old enough to remember the original series, you’re just going to have to take my word for it … it was ground breaking stuff in its time.)
It’s simply astonishing how quickly things are changing. We can barely keep up with the newest and the best. We’ve gone from 8mm movies to videos to DVD and now to blu-ray. I don’t know about you, but I just got my video collection all purchased in DVD’s, I can’t afford another upgrade! I barely have time to learn the newest computer program before the next thing is rolled off the assembly line. (Heck, I just figured out how to program my VCR. I have no doubt a tivo or DVR would throw me over the edge.) With the explosion of the digital age it seems nothing is impossible and gadgets will continue to evolve at break-neck speed.
Now we’re looking at space travel for the every day person through Virgin Galactic. And with satellites already traveling to distant planets, I have no doubt human space travel beyond the moon isn’t far behind. I don’t think I’m alone in believing (and hoping) there’s more out there than just us. Perhaps the next satellite or the next probe will make that contact.
Though I may not be able to keep up with all the new technological advances, I am completely enthralled by what the future may have in store. My latest release from Ellora’s Cave, “Healer’s Garden” is an erotic suspense novel set in the 23rd century. Imagining a world where global warming has melted the polar icecaps and released a virus which wiped out most of the female and nearly all the male human population was a wonderful challenge. Trying to work out how humans would continue their race turned the story into an erotic romp into this new world.
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In the female dominated society of the 23rd century, mating with a male, even if it is to save the human race, is a distasteful task and one Healer Jahara Hriznek has successfully avoided—until now. Brenimyn is a gifted breeding instructor at the Garden of Serenity. Forced to copulate with all females requesting his services, he yearns to find the one woman who responds to his touch. When Jahara arrives with the new class of breeders, Brenimyn’s body immediately aches for her, but convincing the stubborn healer that sex between a man and a woman is more than just an act for procreation proves to be a challenge he refuses to fail.
Jahara doesn’t want to enjoy the sinful rapture only Brenimyn brings to her body. Brenimyn has no intention of dousing the flames of desire licking at them until Jahara is completely his—body, mind, and heart. But when the government finds their loving relationship a threat to the natural order, there may be more than their stubborn wills at stake.
Please enjoy this short excerpt from Chapter One:
May 2267
Jahara Hriznek’s life was over. The evidence weighed heavy in her hands. In the time it had taken to do the retinal scan, her future had been stolen from her.
As she stood at the tall bank of windows, staring at the distant mountains, Jahara knew nothing could change this new course of her life. She felt the hollow reality as obviously as the barren expanse of desert stretching between her and the horizon. There was nothing to break up the monotony of the landscape. Nothing to take her mind off the inevitability of the days to come. Nothing to bring back the future she’d thought lay before her when she woke this morning.
No helo-vehicles were out this time of day. It was still much too hot for people to leave the climate-controlled confines of the buildings in the city on the other side of the mountains. It would be a few more hours still before the sun sat low enough to make the commute across the blistering sands a safe one. Then the nearly empty roadway, three stories below, would bustle with solar powered helo-vehicles and buses.
She wouldn’t be among the commuters winding their way from the Eastern Territory’s capital city of Lexington into her little village. Jahara had taken a much-needed day of rest from the healing facility.
The city’s new government expansion had brought with it careless male workers whose stupidity forced them to the hospital in droves for emergency services. Those healers not completely repulsed by the men’s presence were forced to work overtime to treat the injuries. Jahara had been fielding complaints and filling in for overworked healers for weeks.
For one day she’d wanted to think about nothing more taxing than what music selection she would pull from her computer files. She’d planned on using some of her monthly water allotment and soaking in a hot bath rather than her daily chemical wash. Jahara had even considered calling Merenith and convincing her to take the day off from the animal clinic and lounge around with her. She had no doubt her current lover and she could find ways to entertain each other.
But none of that had happened.
The messenger service had shown up at her door early this morning, delivering the wretched news. Had she known they were making their way to her, Jahara definitely would have worked at the hospital today and long hours into the night. Using her hands to heal males was preferable to holding this retched projection disk.
Now, as Jahara glared at the palm-sized disk, fear burned the back of her throat and trembled along her chin. Hot tears of anger welled in her eyes. She shouldn’t be so upset. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known this was coming. Her twenty-eighth birthday was next month. It was law. Her birth-mother, the Dame of her family, had held off the inevitable as long as possible. Jahara’s position as medical director had, up until this day, kept her from fulfilling the horrid obligation. But no woman, no matter how prestigious her position, ever ran from it. The thought soured in her stomach.
She’d known what the packet contained the moment she’d opened the door to find the government currier standing in the hall. Jahara had wanted to flee, to shut the door and hide from the responsibility, but instead she calmly leaned forward and let the android do the eye scan that proved the disk had found its way into her hands. She stared down at the official government seal over her Dame’s image on the disk. Even offspring of the chief administrator of the Eastern Territory weren’t exempt from this law enacted by Congress nearly a century and a half earlier.
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Nina's Bio
Since she was a little girl, award winning author Nina Pierce, has used her imagination to conjure up characters and places far away. It wasn't until the decline of her health from MS and her eventual retirement from teaching science in 2005 that she found her way to the world of writing. Now those stories come to life on the page as she lives vicariously through her characters. With the logic of a scientist and the heart of a romantic, Nina pens sexy tales of romantic suspense in both novella and novel length fiction
Nina lives in northern Maine with her real-life hero and high school sweetheart of thirty-four years, her three grown children and a menagerie of pets.
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I really enjoy exploring the possibilities of all that’s out there. The story I’m currently working on takes place in deep space and is proving to be another challenge of world building where weapons feed on negative emotions and medical advances create havoc in humans. I’m hoping to have this one out summer of 2010.
I want to thank Star-Crossed romance for having me here today. I’d love to hear what attracts you to the science fiction genre and more specifically whether you enjoy reading about the future. What is the pull for you? Oh, and because my prize closet seems to be overflowing with goodies, I’ll choose one of this week's commenters to receive a goodie packet. All you have to do is leave a comment AND send your email address to me at nina@ninapierce.com
Nina
Here’s where I hang out on the web …
website: http://www.ninapierce.com
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ninapierce
twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ninapierce
book trailers: http://www.youtube.com/romanceauthor62
blog Nina Pierce
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-- Lynda Again
This week's member word is INEXORABLE \in-EK-sur-uh-bul; in-EKS-ruh-bul\ , adjective;
1. Not to be persuaded or moved by entreaty or prayer; firm; determined; unyielding; unchangeable; inflexible; relentless.
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Members of my newsgroup will know what to do with today's word. You can know too by joining us. But don't worry, there isn't any chatter. You'll only get notices from me so it won't fill your mailbox. My fluffy cat, Wookie Baby, will help me select the lucky person whose name is drawn and I'll announce it here on Friday. (She'd do it herself but her English vocabulary is limited to NO-when she's going to the vet and WOE-when she's getting a bath, lol) This week's prize is Wild Blue Under by Judi Fennell.
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