Welcome to the main headline grabbers in the world of Science Fiction Romance (SFR) for the month of December, 2008. And so without further ado, grab some egg nog and let’s get right to it.

Jess Granger is a debut author whose Beyond The Rain (Berkley, August 2009) drops you in the middle of an Aliens-esque battle and involves a creepy-cool scene involving nano-robots. You can spy an excerpt of the first chapter here.

And yes, the cover suggests futurisitic, but the gritty action & adventure in those first few pages completely belie this.

Sample it yourself. You’ll see.

Also making news, the Romantic Times BOOKreviews Reviewer’s Choice nominations are out. Here’s a list of the science fiction/futuristic romances that made the cut.

[List and more SF Romance news below the fold.]

Westerns and Science Fiction: Two cinematic genres that beautifully blend together despite their surface disparities. Both have a long history of adventures in wild frontiers; heroes vs. villains; noble, yet formidable goals; and blinding spurts of naked violence.

The two complement each other superbly. And as any Star Wars fan worth her tauntaun will tell you, George Lucas realized this, too. The Bearded One drew heavily from John Ford, along with Akira Kurosawa (also a Ford devotee).

Other SF epics by way of a Lash LaRue approved trail include: Star Trek, the “Wagon Train To The Stars”; 1981’s Outland, which is essentially High Noon transplanted to Io; and don’t forget the eloquent reinvention of The Magnificent Seven that was Battle Beyond the Stars. Recently, Josh Whedon also took up the mantle with Firefly and Serenity.

But there’s one more comparison you may not have considered—and its influence is as wide as the Montana sky. It involves two geniuses—one Italian and one Japanese.

Think you can guess the outcome…?

[Meet me out front with your irons on for the answer!]

Big fan of Hanna-Barbera here: I especially love the old skool fare featuring ensemble casts such as Josie and the Pussycats; The Herculoids; Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?; The Banana Splits Adventure Hour; and, of course, Super Friends.

Ah, Super Friends. So much to adore in that show...!

One of its more charming highlights includes close-ups of characters staring ahead vacuously (perhaps dreaming of future, higher-budget productions) while poor Wonder Woman usually finds herself cross-eyed. (Note to self: Never visit an optometrist on Paradise Island.) And don’t get me started on why they continually endanger two ditsy teenagers and their dog, or how on earth a blue monkey continually saves the likes of Superman and the Batman.

Like I said, Super Friends is a Kryptonian gold mine of entertainment.

All jesting aside, the show did imprint the importance of teamwork and camaraderie upon me at an impressionable young age, and that’s a good thing. So it’s no wonder that since the inception of my science fiction romance blog, I took notice when certain visitors made repeat appearances, effectively transforming The Galaxy Express into an ersatz Hall of Justice headquarters.

Only this time, the members heeding the call to arms were superheroines of a different sort altogether…. See what I mean after the jump.

[“Created from the cosmic legends of the universe!”]

Like most children, growing up I inhaled all the usual suspects when it came to fairy tales. Of course, we’re talking about stories that had been Disney-fied to one saccharine extreme or another.

The upside is that I had fun discovering adventures in books and films that left me with a syrupy sweet outlook on life—like following every meal with a dish of rocky road ice cream. I sailed through childhood and even young adulthood blissfully unaware of the deeper themes or symbolism lurking in these stories.

The down side is that I was missing out on the really heady stuff—The Dark Side of fairy tales, as it were. All that changed, however, when I read a fairy tale collection that presented uncensored versions of the classics.

That’s when I truly lost my fairy tale virginity.

[Follow the *pop*...!]

Confession time: I have a fetish thing for eyepatches.

I don’t want to wear one; I just love this bold accessory on characters. My latest preoccupation was sparked by a few events: The singular sight of Tom Cruise sporting one in his new film Valkryie; my recent post about villains; Entertainment Weekly’s November 7 issue with its “The Eye Patch Index”; and author Nathalie Gray sharing her love of space pirate Captain Harlock in my interview with her.

[Here there be more about eyepatches…arrgh!]

All science fiction romance couples have their ups and downs, their disagreements, their Big Misunderstandings—superhero couples included. After all, they aren’t immune to heartbreak, just because they can shoot destructive beams from their eyes or split a planet in half.

Underneath the capes and spandex, superheroes have feelings just like the rest of us. They pine. They carry torches. They cry over certain songs.

They also have the rather odd tendency to fall (and fall hard!) for those who want to rip their lungs out.

So, without any further ado, here’s the top ten of comic’s pugilistic paramours:

[Click hither to see who bashes whom…]

Admiral Branden Kel-Paten was the breakout character from Games of Command by science fiction romance author Linnea Sinclair. In the author’s words, the angst-ridden Admiral is “a bio-cybe, a man/machine construct, his human familiarity now blurred by the knowledge of his cybernetic augmentations.”

Here’s the story summary from the author’s Web site:

The universe isn’t what it used to be. With the new alliance between the Triad and the United Coalition, Captain Tasha “Sass” Sebastian finds herself serving under her former nemesis, bio-cybe Admiral Branden Kel-Paten—and doing her best to hide a deadly past. But when an injured mercenary falls into their ship’s hands, her efforts may be wasted …

Wanted rebel Jace Serafino has information that could expose all of Sass’ secrets, tear the fragile Alliance apart—and end Sass’s career if Kel-Paten discovers them. But the bio-cybe has something to hide as well, something once thought impossible for his kind to possess: feelings...for Sass. Soon it’s clear that their prisoner could bring down everything they once believed was worth dying for—and everything they now have to live for…

I know: Kel-Paten is technically a bio-cybe, and he probably didn’t cost six billion dollars (along with two box tops and postage & handling), but who’s counting? Frankly, he’s one of the most underappreciated romance heroes of all time. Oh, what the heck, I’ll go for broke: He’s also one of the most underappreciated science fiction heroes of all time (and then some).

How does his excellence add up, you wonder?

[Spike in here to find out...]

A recent article at SciFi Scanner states that “marketing drones” have perpetuated the myth that science fiction and horror are different and mutually exclusive (and we might as well add romance to that list).

Well, thank goodness nobody told Charles Burns, whose brilliantly dark Black Hole is one of the best graphic novels of the past few years. It deftly mixes sex, adolescent angst, and a healthy dollop of Lovecraftian strangeness—delivering a unique mélange of horror, surreal science fiction, and romance.

In the spirit of the season, see why ripping off all of your skin and mutant coitus are such perfect complements.

[More on freaky sex with sexy freaks…]

Change: It’s a scary concept no matter what age you are.

We all have our habits and comfort zones. Anything outside of our personal circle of serenity leads to an unremitting circle of darkness—the unknown. And nowhere is this issue so thoroughly examined—with amazing simplicity—than in Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham.

What does this have to do with science fiction? Plenty.

[Could you, would you, make the jump over this HTML bump....]