From the beginning, the IDA
universe was meant to be big, adventurous, romantic fun—for the readers and
for the authors. Strangely, science fiction romance hasn’t really had its
breakout moment. Because it’s a sub-genre of romance not yet as familiar to a
wide audience as some other sub-genres, the first season of IDA authors landed
on “alien mail order brides” as our core concept. Mail order brides is a favorite
trope for many romance readers, and we thought it would be an easy crossover
from lonely men looking for convenient companionship to lonely aliens seeking
same!
Tropes sometimes get a bad
rap in genre fiction when tropes are confused with clichés. Tropes are commonly
repeated and readily identifiable story ideas—including characterization, plot
points, themes, and more—that have proven their appeal over time. Clichés are
badly done tropes! Done right, a trope signals to readers who enjoy that
particular story idea that a new story might appeal to them as well.
One fun game as a writer is
grabbing a trope with both hands…and then running wildly amok. J That’s what I’ve done with each of my trilogies
within the Intergalactic Dating Agency universe. On top of my original Big Sky
Alien Mail Order Brides trilogy, I sprinkled historical romance Regency tropes—Dukes!
Rakes! Lords!—into my second Black Hole Brides trilogy.
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| BLACK HOLE BRIDES TRILOGY |
With the last complete
trilogy (which is actually four books!) I roped in Western tropes for the
Cyborg Cowboys of Carbon County. My most recent trilogy which launched earlier
this month includes drops of Atlantis tropes—and thus was launched the Mermaids
of Montana!
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| CYBORG COWBOYS OF CARBON COUNTY |
Cowboys (at least the romance
version) are strong, sturdy, silent types with gentle hands and big, um, belt
buckles. And they take good care of their land and the creatures on it. Cyborg
supersoldiers are also strong, sturdy, and silent. Okay, maybe their hands are
more murder-y than gentle, but see how those tropes fit together sorta? And my
alien cyborg warriors didn’t crash with horses on their spaceship, but they do
have an alien beast they rode into battle. Almost the same, right? And since
they’d escaped a bad situation in space, they are even more protective of their
adopted home, Earth. How lucky they have the muscles for all that protecting. J
Splicing common romance
tropes into science fiction is like when you were a kid crashing your Star Wars TIE fighter into the Barbie Dream House…and then Barbie and Ken fall in love
and have a Jawa baby! Er, wait… Maybe that was just me? J Anyway! I use romance tropes in my science fiction
romance stories to make the strange science-y, space-y parts more accessible.
And now with my Mermaids of
Montana, I’m diving into all sorts of undersea tropes. (Confession: Mostly I’m
thinking of Jason Momoa’s Aquaman…) All the mystery and beauty of the Earth’s
oceans might seem like an odd overlay for the middle of Montana, but
prehistoric Montana was once covered by the Sundance Sea, a series of invasions
by the Earth’s waters over what we now think of as a place far from oceans. So
making Montana a home for mermaids isn’t too out of this world.
Morphing the long-time beloved
into something unfamiliar but hopefully beguiling sounds like an alien
shapeshifter’s tricks. J But playing with tropes is definitely an author trick too. Unless
authors are actually aliens… Maybe that would explain why our heads are always
in the clouds!
If you are new to science
fiction romance, the first book of the
Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides series, ALPHA STAR, is available free at http://www.elsajade.com/book/alpha-star/
Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides series, ALPHA STAR, is available free at http://www.elsajade.com/book/alpha-star/
***
Bio: Elsa Jade is the
paranormal romance and science fiction romance pen name for Jessa Slade. In
addition to the Intergalactic Dating Agency, Elsa Jade has written the Wolves
of Angels Rest paranormal shifter romance series and the Obsidian Rim space
opera romance trilogy, the third book of which just released on October 15. The
next two books of the Mermaids of Montana trilogy come out in October and
November.
