Maeve is back! she’s bring us a report from Comicpalooza. Please welcome her to the blog!

Sex In Space
by Maeve Alpin

At comicpalooza I participated in the panel, Sex in Space – this isn’t your brother’s Sci-fi, with Lynn Lorenz, Belinda McBride, Jacqueline Patrick and myself. I had a blast, discussing the fun subject of sex in space. As humans, both passion and love are two of the strongest, most important emotions we experience. It’s that way for all humans. Passion and love were vital emotions to humans in the past, they are just as important and thrilling in the present, and that will definitely be the case in humanity’s future as well. Passion and love are so fulfilling to us, we imagine if there is life on other planets, those creatures will hold those emotions in high esteem as well. So it’s only natural stories involving space or other planets include passion and love.

In our quest as writers to bring romance and happy endings to deep space, our panel spoke about space regencies, space operas, Steampunk and humanoid aliens with all the right parts. It’s important to use humanoids for aliens so the readers can create a connection with them. Readers have to see something of themselves in the main characters. In writing erotica romance our humanoids can have any attributes we choose to give them to enhance the story as well as the love scenes. I love human/alien sex scenes that are humorous and hot at the same time.

In Conquistadors in Outer Space both my hero and heroine are human. But one of the conquistadors was captured by the aliens in a raid and escaped. Before that, he’d fallen in love with an alien woman. So there is a scene where my hero, Ramon, and my heroine, Ana are together with the conquistador and his alien lover while they are intimate. My alien women are able to free anyone they touch of all their inhibitions. They can also cause those sexually excited to become numb, cold of desire. That’s the way the alien women protect themselves from the conquistadors’ unwanted advances.

We also spoke about Sci-fi covers and the scantily clad women on them used to draw men’s eyes to the books, while they gave women the message – this book is not for you. I always like to remind people when this subject comes up, the first sci-fi authors included women, Mary Shelly with Frankenstein and The Last Man, and Jane Web Loudin’s The Mummy, A Tale of the 22st Century. Women writers helped develop the genre from the start. We also mentioned that Sci-fi romance books are bringing more female readers into the sci-fi genre.

We discussed our pet peeves in sci-fi books. Lynn Lorenz’s is when authors use names for aliens and futuristic characters the readers can’t pronounce. My sci-fi pet peeve is when I’m reading and getting into the story and the characters and there’s a sudden information dump of science detail, about a space craft or a planet, that interrupts the story rather than adding to it.

Comicpalooza proved the perfect setting, for this provocative and intriguing panel, with plenty of costumed space creatures and space characters at the con, some are pictured here.

Maeve Alpin is the author of four Steampunk/Romances: To Love A London Ghost, Conquistadors In Outer Space, As Timeless As Stone, and As Timeless As Magic. Visit her at http://MaeveAlpin.com.

What’s your pet peve?