Author day with Anne Tenino

Turning Tricks in a Futuristic Gay Romance World

Science Fiction Romance is supposedly one of the harder subgenres to sell to Joelle Q. Consumer (the “Q” stands for quality, by the way) apparently. That may be true, but the fans of science fiction romance seem to me to be some of the more hardcore in Romancelandia. Maybe it’s because we feel like an oppressed, picked-on minority (with a group persecution complex), or possibly it’s because sci-fi romance fans like to play with alternate worlds.

My Task Force Iota series is in just such a world, set in the United States about 100 years in the future.

The second book in the TFI series—Turning Tricks—was released by Dreamspinner Press on May 30^th. TT is a gay romance, with some pretty erotic elements (ahem), and features the same main characters as the first book in the series—18% Gray, also from Dreamspinner—James and Matt. (One Queer Iota is the next book in the series, and it will feature Laslo and Logan. I promise this time, really. You can trust me.)

In the Iota world, the United States has split into the Red and the Blue, and within the Blue, LGBT citizens are like any others, with all the same rights. In the Red, LGBT citizens are imprisoned and “reeducated.”

I’m sure you can imagine what inspired me to write a book set in the near future where our country has been divided. Let me stress, the subject of gay rights is only one of many issues the Iota world is facing, but it’s the one I deal with most extensively in the series. And yes, it was completely a product of me driving along in my car screaming “Are you NUTS? Don’t you know what that will mean if you pass that law?” one too many times to the radio news.

In other words, the whole Iota world began when I asked myself, “What if, in the future, the people who seem to think being LGBT is so horrible actually succeed in making it illegal? What if I were a gay person in that world?”

Well, the first thing you’d need in a world like that is some hope. In Task Force Iota, that means splitting up the United States into safe areas, and areas where it’s illegal to be LGBT. Then I made a list of things that would probably be “illegal” in the unsafe (Red) areas of the country, most of which are legal in the safe (Blue) areas.

(I’m sure you’ve figured out where I got the idea for the Red and Blue monikers.)

No world is absolute, so the Red and the Blue have gradations of safety and danger. There are also Purple states, which remain somewhat neutral in some things. But mostly this series is about the LGBT citizens in all areas, and how they make it to the relative safety of the Blue.

Enter the men and women of the paramilitary contractor QESA (Queer Extraction Services Association). They work closely with the Blue military, but focus on “extracting” or liberating captured Blue soldiers or LGBT Red citizens. James is a former Blue soldier captured by the Red and Matt was his extractor (this story is told in 18% Gray).

Because I am a cruel authoress, and simply being gay in a world where it’s not safe to be so just didn’t seem like enough crap to pile on him, I gave James an extra burden: he’s been made empathic and mildly psychic by a biocybernetic chip implanted in his head by the Blue (see? the Blue isn’t all good). The implanted chip is out of control and affecting his brain in ways no one can predict.

Turning Tricks deals with James’s chip a lot. It wasn’t stabilized by the end of 18%, and that has to be done. The angst begins (this is a quasi-humorous book, but yeah, there’s angst) when a second foreign object is found in James’s brain, snuggling up against the chip—the Trick (dun dun duuuuuun). Dealing with the chip leads to the more humanist, relationship-oriented plot elements. The bigger, external plot is all shaped by the politics of the Red and the Blue.

It’s been a fascinating world to play in. I’ve made up religions, government institutions, boundary lines, reshaped economics, planned out the effects of global warming, but ultimately what I try to give readers is a sense of that world and those things without letting it intrude on the story. Because at its heart, Turning Tricks is the continuation of a love story that began in 18% Gray. The sci-fi elements in this story are something I worked hard on, but without the romance I wouldn’t have ever been motivated to write it. For me, the romance is the key.

Blurb:

James Ayala thought life would be smooth sailing once he escaped from a Red Idaho reeducation camp and returned to Blue Oregon. He was supposed to get answers about the biocybernetic chip that made him empathic, face the man who implanted it, and then ride off into the sunset with his new boyfriend, Matt Tennimore. Life, however, has other plans: the bad guy dies without giving them any answers, they left their horse in Idaho, and Gramma Anais finds a parasite on James's implant—one that forces James into isolation.

Matt just got James back to Oregon where he wanted him, and extraneous brain hardware or not, he has no intention of letting him go. But James hesitates to move in with him. Despite his hurt, Matt has to man up and do his job, leaving James behind, while the rest of the team struggles to find the real mastermind behind the implant and the parasitic "Trick"—before it takes over James's brain. But will it be too little, too late to save him?

Excerpt:

This excerpt is from when the Trick is first found. Anais—Matt’s grandmother and one of the owners of the Queer Extraction Services Association—is imaging James’s head with a medical robot assistant. She’s also taking some delight in torturing James. She’s like that. Readers of 18% Gray will recognize their names, but Carmela and Pearl are undercover Blue agents escaping the Red. Pearl is a real nun, but Carmela is just faking her vows.

“It’s looking more and more like those nuns are never going to make it out of Idaho,” Anais told James conversationally.

James didn’t respond. Partly because he couldn’t and partly because he knew she just wanted to annoy him by talking to him when he couldn’t fucking move. He didn’t normally think in italics. Another sign of just how stressful he found not fucking moving unless Anais or the med-bot told him to.

James’s stress level wasn’t helped by Anais’s delight in torturing him. She knew damn well he could read her emotions. She liked torturing him and knew he knew she enjoyed his frustration. Which added to her enjoyment. It was like some mental funhouse mirror effect.

“Doesn’t help they’re nuns who’re wanted by the Red Idaho Authority,” Anais went on. “Okay, James, tilt your head a little to the left, and open your mouth more.”

Ah, fuck. Anais just insisted that she had to have an accurate and thorough 3-D model of the inside of James’s head, especially the chip implant and modification in his brain. Who would guess that a day of holding strange poses for a really long time while some med-bot did strange things on and about your head (and in your damn mouth and up your nose) could be so tiring?

It nearly made him dislike her. Another thing she knew and found entertaining. James took his revenge by being very, very polite to her. When he could fucking move. She hated that, especially from people like him, who knew her better than the normal idiots who were very, very polite to her no matter how abusive she got. The woman had a reputation for being merciless and was justifiably well known for her time as the commander and head researcher for SpecForce’s Research and Development Division.

Anais had been with Research and Development for close to twenty years. After spending ten in the field as a corpsman with a Delta-6 unit. After going to medical school as a civilian.

“Hard for two ladies in their late sixties traveling alone to escape a Red State like Idaho. Far as I know, there’s not a single one of the Confederated Red States that’s okay with women traveling on their own. Unless they’re whores, of course.” Anais laughed at her comment. Which was good, since James wouldn’t have if he could have.

Except it would be polite, so he probably would have.

“You know what Carmela said the last time they reached a pay phone in Lance’s network? It’s funny, James. You’ll have to work not to laugh.” Oh, Anais was so enjoying this. James sighed to himself internally and wished the med-bot would finish taking the fucking pictures of his head.

“She said— oh, hello. Now what’s this?”

James wasn’t dying to know what Carmela said, but he would rather have heard that than the note of surprised, clinical curiosity in Anais’s voice. He wasn’t a fan of having a chip implanted in his brain without proper testing, or that it was actually growing into him. But to now have Anais suddenly sounding like she’d found some new, exciting, unknown part of the implant? He would have rather heard what Carmela the fake nun had to say.

Buy Link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=2959