A warm welcome to author Cari Z joining us today to talk about her new release “Changing Worlds”.

It’s the last day of the blog tour for Changing Worlds, and for those of you who still aren’t sold on a science fiction romance taking place in a galaxy far, far away, well…why not? 😉

Science fiction and romance aren’t always the easiest combination. Inevitably, some readers will want more romance and less fixation on the world building. Other readers will be looking for more hard science, not just a few throwaway lines about adapting to living on a distant world. I tried really hard to strike that balance in this book, and to date (and through almost a half a million words of sci fi written on my blog) it’s still my personal favorite science fiction novel.

Romance…science…here, have an excerpt and see what you think.

***

Giselle’s personal physician, Dori Anders, taught anatomy and biology. Dori was so ancient that he actually looked old, despite Regen treatments. He had storm-cloud gray hair and eyes to match it, he hunched awkwardly through the shoulders and neck, and he was possibly the friendliest person on the ship. He spoke with a broad accent Jason knew came from somewhere on the Fringe, and his smiling face was creased with so many lines it looked like a topographical map.

“Anatomically, in many ways, they’re the same as us, but structurally, there are a few notable differences.” Every vowel sounded like he was adding an h to the beginning of it, making him seem slightly out of breath.

Jason tried to refocus his thoughts on what Dori was saying and not how he was saying it. “The quills.”

“The quills are one,” Dori agreed. “Originally probably defensive, they grew into more of a decorative role over time. Nowadays their original use is almost lost, although with the right hormone combination flowing through a Perel’s system, quills can be temporarily hardened into stiff shafts. They function like flexible knives in that state, and can be broken off to use offensively.”

“What kind of combination does that?”

“Oh, variations on anger or fear. Lust, under some circumstances, but I doubt you’re in trouble on any of those accounts, boy. I’ve followed the paths of generations of Perel youths letting themselves go abroad, and only two of their bed partners ever experienced wounds, according to reports. By all accounts, they deserved everything they got too.”

Jason nodded once. “Good. What else?”

Dori pulled up an image of a Perel’s head, each new layer of tissue meticulously separated and labeled. “They used to be strictly nocturnal— didn’t start changing that until recently, and you’re still going to have to adapt to a life lived primarily during the dark hours. The skin over their eyes is the thinnest anywhere on their body. Everywhere else, it’s substantially thicker: two to three times the density of yours and mine. If they were living in caves or forests like they used to, their skin would be so rough to the touch that it would rub you raw in places. You see it more with the matriarchs than the males, probably due to the stress of childbearing.”

“What else?”

“Medically speaking, everything we know about Perels would fit in the palm of my hand.” Dori sighed. “Very closed-off people, very tetchy about their medical issues. I’ve been offering for over a dozen years to take a look into the whole fertility issue, but apparently, allowing anyone foreign to run tests on them is so forbidden I was almost locked up for even suggesting it. It took some fast talking by Giselle to keep me from spending time in a penitent’s cage.”

“A penitent’s cage?” Jason repeated, his brow furrowing just a little bit. “What’s that?”

“The nicer type of punishment available to a Perel,” Dori said. “Kind of like the stocks in some of the central Federation planets. A method of public shaming that’s uncomfortable but not dangerous.”

Not dangerous as long as the people around you left you alone and didn’t take advantage of your vulnerability. In Jason’s experience, that didn’t usually happen. He pushed the memories away and refocused on the conversation.

“And the other type of punishment?” “Getting dropped in the middle of the jungle and told to find their way back.” Dori snorted and shook his head. “But you have to have done something pretty awful to warrant that. Some of them make it back to the city. Most die. There’s evidence that a few started their own little colony out in the wilderness, but no one really pays much attention to that.”

Abandoning someone in the middle of a jungle seemed like a pretty harsh sentence to Jason, especially if you basically expected the trip back to kill them. He didn’t want to get into his views on crime and punishment with Dori, who was looking at him expectantly, so in the end, the only thing Jason said was, “Interesting.”

“Quite. Now, let me tell you about their muscular development.”

The lecture that followed wasn’t nearly so interesting.

Penelope acted as Giselle’s second-in-command. She took one of them, generally Jason, when Giselle wanted them to get different lectures on the same subject. She didn’t seem to outwardly emote much at all, not even when she was dealing with Giselle. Maybe it was because she expected to deal with empaths all day, and letting her emotions show would compromise her status. Maybe it was the result of a trauma, or just the standard wherever she had been born and raised. Jason wondered about it, but he had no intention of asking. People deserved their privacy, and he wouldn’t have felt comfortable bringing it up.

That didn’t stop him from broaching the subject with Ferran while they lay together in their bed. It had been a long, especially exhausting day, and it felt good just to hold each other without the looming specter of being broken apart for classes. “What do you get from Penelope?” Jason murmured into Ferran’s ear, stroking one hand along his lover’s arm.

“Not much,” Ferran confessed. “It’s very strange. It’s as though there’s only the memory of emotion inside of her, not the emotion itself. She lives and walks and breathes and thinks, but she doesn’t feel things. The nearest sense of anything I get from her is a sort of wistfulness.”

“Wistfulness? What about?”

“I can’t be that specific,” Ferran said. He looked sad, a little distant. “I wish I could, but honestly, I don’t like to feel too deeply toward her. It makes me sad.”

“Don’t be sad,” Jason whispered, and then pressed small kisses to Ferran’s cheek, down to the point of his chin. Ferran dipped his head to lean into Jason’s next kiss, framing Jason’s face in his hands. Hands that were three times stronger than a human’s hands, attached to arms that would make the most seasoned human climber positively explosive with jealousy. He had never overtly displayed any of this strength to Jason, never manhandling him, never forcing him, and certainly never even coming close to hurting him during sex. Considering that Ferran was not only stronger, he was also capable of slicing Jason to ribbons if the wrong hormonal cocktail got into his blood, Jason felt pleased that he could still touch Ferran without hesitation.

Blurb:

2nd Edition

Their love will either inspire change in the world or tear it apart.

Former starship captain Jason Kim and his lover, Ferran, are starting a life together on Ferran’s native planet. The Perel matriarchs reluctantly allowed their marriage in the hopes of securing better diplomatic relations with humanity, even though the decision ignites anger from traditionalists. Ferran’s family accepts Jason and the love the two men have found, but other influential families are less accommodating and much less willing to welcome an outsider to their isolated, subterranean world. Some of their enemies are willing to go as far as eliminating Jason permanently. Tensions are quickly building toward a breaking point that might push Perelan into a bloody civil war.

If Jason and Ferran have any hope of surviving the coming conflict, they’ll have to rely on their devotion to each other more than ever before. But that won’t be easy when a figure from Jason’s past reappears to make them question everything.

First Edition of Opening Worlds published by Storm Moon Press, 2011.
First Edition of Changing Worlds published by Storm Moon Press, 2012.