Alien Peacelords: Release Post!

Oh right I wanted to do a release post for Alien Peacelords yesterday. Oops. Here it is!


Alien Peacelords: The Coriolis Effect

Why have a midlife crisis on Earth when you can have one among the stars?

After her third post-release layoff from a major gaming studio, Coriolis Washington is ready to try something new. Like, going-to-another-world new. And whatever her friend's lurid romance novels might say, Cori knows perfectly well that the alien world Fali-tan needs programmers to write code – not sexy women to fill out harems.

Despite being far more technologically advanced than Earth in most respects, Fali-tan's computers were no better than punch-card-driven mainframes, and had not improved in generations until the discovery of their long-lost cousins on Earth. Now, Fali-tan's population is eager to achieve their own Information Age, and technology companies bend over backwards to hire skilled Earth developers. Even some of Fali-tan's peacelords, leaders of their nations, will go to great lengths to attract people like Coriolis to their country.

… and the shocking, overwhelming physical attractiveness of humans is the least of Coriolis's charms to rival peacelords and ex-lovers Dhavoran and Tyvalon.

Author Commentary

There’s a subgenre of romance called “alien warlord”: science fiction romance novels, usually featuring a single human woman protagonist and one or more male aliens: generally very human-like aliens with a few nonhuman features, like blue skin. The first several times I found books in this genre, I hurried to look at them. “I love romances!” I’d think. “I love science fiction, and aliens, and multiple relationships, and…oh…wait. I don’t love warlords.” The male protagonists in alien warlord books are generally, as the name suggests, warlike alpha males who hold positions of authority in their societies via force and personal strength. This is a perfectly fine trope, but it’s not one of my personal faves. So I kept thinking “wouldn’t it be fun to do a version of this trope without the ‘warlords’ part?”

And thus: Alien Peacelords.

December 29: Frozen Custard and Outlines

 At about 10:30 AM this morning, Lut nudged me. "Okay, it's time to get dressed so we can play Kill Team."

"It's not Saturday," I said. We usually play Kill Team at the gaming store on Saturday.

"It's not Saturday?" Lut checked his computer clock. "It's not Saturday."

"Also, we weren't going to the gaming store on Saturday this week anyway." There's been a spike in COVID and flu cases over the holidays. Especially since Lut is immuno-compromised, we've decided to stay home for a few weeks to minimize exposure. I'd probably stay home anyway, left to my own devices. I like my home and other places aren't that exciting to me. 

"Well, yes. But we always get dressed to play Kill Team."

"Ha ha. No." We'll play Kill Team tomorrow anyway, just at home. We might play Kill Team today, if I'm in the mood and Lut's up for it.

Coffee Quills is taking time off from streaming around the holidays, from today until Jan 3 (in my time zone; Jan 4 in theirs). I've gotten in the habit of turning on their stream every evening, even if I end up mostly ignoring it and playing Race for the Galaxy or Time Princess instead of writing or editing or drawing or something else productive. 

I'm at Pretend Coffee Shop now and had been thinking about drawing Apothecaria, but I've been chatting with my Time Princess society about the game instead. And doing administrivia connected to the game. I would probably be doing more administrivia now, but my phone's running low on power so I plugged it in instead.

Lut asked me to pick up fast food and frozen custard for lunch, so I did that around noon. I got a frozen custard for myself but not any fast food. I don't particularly like fast food. Most days, I'd rather have something simple I make at home. So even if I go out anyway, I still don't get anything for myself. I like the frozen custard place, though. They make a triple-chocolate concrete -- cookie dough and chocolate flakes in chocolate frozen custard -- that's particularly good. I bought an ice-cream maker a few months ago and I've tried making the same thing at home twice. The homemade version is good but it's a lot of work and it's arguably not as good as the stuff from the frozen custard place. And so much work. o_o

We cuddled and chatted for a bit just now, until I was like "well I can get up and try to get some stuff done or I can take a nap." As tempting as naps are, I decided to get up instead. 

The thing I should really work on is "book outline", since that's the last incomplete item on my annual goal list, but meh. Maybe I'll poke at some of my old outlines and see if I can get one into workable form. Might be easier than writing one from scratch. I have two different mostly-finished outlines that I decided not to write in their current forms. I'll give that a try.