Early this year (2019), Jessa Slade (w/a Elsa Jade
http://www.elsajade.com/) contacted me
about a project she and Maggie Lynch (
https://maggielynch.com/)
were helming. Like
Thieves’ World and
Heroes in Hell, they envisioned a shared
world concept set in the far future, after the devastating effects of war had
destroyed nearly all of the “Salty Way” galaxy except for the outer rim. How
would humanity have endured after achieving great heights of civilization and
technology only to be forced back into hardscrabble survival on a limited
number of M-class planets?
Obviously, humanity would have endured in part in the
traditional way—via romances and making some babies! Thus the authors in the
shared world would be writing adventurous romances (Not generally with babies,
though, because adventure. And guns.) about the explorations, the danger, and the
joys to be had by the humans inhabiting the
Obsidian Rim .
So far we have launched eleven books in the series, from
revolts on mining plants to intergalactic shenanigans with princes and mob
bosses to the discovery of sentient beings whose intelligence rivaled or
possibly surpassed our own.
 |
CATS ARE SENTIENT BEINGS
ON THE OBSIDIAN RIM |
I’m talking about CATS, of course, in the Cat Ship Trilogy
that is my contribution to the Obsidian Rim’s offerings. Though Jessa and
Maggie were very firm about certain aspects of worldbuilding (stories would
take place in the Rim itself, no alien intelligence, no messin’ up other
people’s ideas), cats did not count as alien intelligence because they’re
already among us, bossing us around.
Thanks to the premise of Maggie’s books,
wherein the q-bombs that destroyed the universe also enhanced a few humans with
limited but useful abilities related to stellarship navigation, I decided that
same effect could be extended to cats, who finally learned to communicate their
superior intellect to their waitstaff, aka two-leggers.
I also decided that humanity in any civilization is going to
need somewhere to take the trash, and thus Trash Planet was born.
 |
| CATALYST |
Cats and trash. What more could you want out of an adventure
romance series? Find out more about
Catalyst at
http://jodywallace.com/books/catalyst/
and encourage me to keep editing
Catapult, which is the second in the series
due to come out in a month or two.
So a little more about the various offerings. Maggie Lynch’s
Cryoborn Gifts series and the first book,
Gravity, instigates the whole world with a pirate heroine crashing on a mining planetoid
and getting accidentally involved with an escaped miner who just wants to save
his children. The next book (and series) belongs to Elsa Jade with
Rock Rift and the
Edge of Sunrise series, wherein the miners who got crashed into in the
first book plan and execute a revolt from their masters—that is, if the sexy
secret agent from a doomsday type cult doesn’t spoil it for them. Third in the
release list is
Traitor’s Code by Jane Killick (the
Freelance series) where a sort-of innocent freelance
stellarship captain gets involved with the prince of an agricultural planet in
a deep conspiracy that may involve his entire family.
The fourth series we get to taste,
Pipettes and Plows, is
the science adventure from Shree C Aier,
Coexistence which relates, like
Traitor’s Code, to the food issues that the inhabitants of
the entire Rim have in the absence of places to raise plants and animals when a
sheltered scientist and a farmer are sent to the edge of the galaxy for research.
Next we delve into the world of mercenaries for hire, nanobot tech, and space
royalty with
Mercenary Royal and the
Dead Suns series by Shona Husk when a pampered princess must learn to become a dangerous
mercenary if she’s to survive a plot by her family’s rivals.
Sela Carsen’s
Fate’s Favor series begins with
Ace’s Odds,
set on the glitzy Gizem space station where the mob boss’s daughter and a
desperate smuggler team up to keep her family safe—or tear it down from the
inside. My own
Cat Ship series involves a garbage picker on Trash Planet who
finds a man in the garbage—and a talking cat. Last but not least in the series
countdown we have the
Ghost Planet series by CJ Cade and her book
Hunter Green
where a down on her luck waitress tries to hide on the strange planet of
Vorona, but the leader of the only settlement there doesn’t want her bringing
her bad luck to his attempt at a new life.
The Obsidian Rim adventures strike a rich balance between
romance and science fiction, more Romancing the Stone than 9 ½ Weeks in space.
As readers we love to read all across the romance genre, and as authors we are adoring
the experiment of the shared world and larger-than-life intergalactic quests.
Books from different authors have links to each other, sly little mentions and
connections, but the Obsidian Rim novels do not have to be read in order to
make sense. I hope you’ll pick up a book and visit some day soon!
Author, Editor, Cat Person, Amigurumist of the
Apocalypse
Jody Wallace grew up in the South in a very rural area. She went to school a long time and ended up with a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing. Her resume includes college English instructor, technical documents editor, market analyst, web designer, and general, all around pain in the butt. Ms. Wallace writes sf/f romance with occasional forays into contemporary romance. She resides in Tennessee with one husband, two children, four cats, one bearded dragon, and a lot of junk. When not writing, she crochets things she shouldn’t and drinks too much coffee. At all times she is ruled by the eternal Meankitty of the Soul.
