Electra Rex

 

Full disclosure, this is my book, and thus not a review, but just me talking about my latest project.

Fun story about this book: I sold it twice and very quickly both times. Another fun fact: it started out as a NaNoWriMo book!

I sold this book the first time to Less Than 3 Press--a small, indie press in North Carolina that boasted lesbian/sapphic books and stories with only happy endings. It took three weeks to get the thumbs up from them, which was by far the fastest I've sold a book. It went through edits, proofs, and even got a cover mockup before Less Than 3 folded after a decade in business. Woops. I got the rights back a couple months later, tried to cope with my disappointment, and then submitted it again to Pride Publishing, part of the Totally Entwined Group, and this time the book sold in less than a week. I have to give a lot of credit to the editor I worked with at Less Than 3 for making the book much, much better--you rock, James! I have no doubt going through the publishing process once made it imminently more purchasable the second time around. Round two and it's finally on bookshelves!

The Less Than Three cover using a pen name to protect my ex-wife's career

I can't even remember which NaNoWriMo I wrote this for, however, I do remember it's the only time I've ever finished the challenge. That's gotta mean something, right? Regardless, I may have written the bulk of it in a month, but this wasn't a viable novel for another year and it wasn't to the state it is now for several more. Humble beginnings with hopefully successful endings! Keep that in mind this coming November if you're thinking of giving NaNo a try: yes, it's possible to get a published novel, but, no, you won't have one after a month.

I made this to keep me motivated for NaNoWriMo, not bad for an amateur graphic designer, right?

Let's talk about other firsts for me with this book: it's the first time I've written a book with a trans character (protagonist even!), it's the first book I've written that didn't include at least one lesbian, and it's the first book I've put my own name on. I've ghost written several books and published several others under a pen name, but this one has my honest to goodness name on it.

I wrote Electra as a transgender pansexual protagonist, my very first, because I thought there needed to be more representation in media of trans people who aren't going through transition, coming out, or their first loves. Trans people are people and have whole lives outside being trans: shouldn't media reflect that reality? Also, Electra is pansexual in a way that current understandings can't cover because she spends much of her adult life as the last known human. If Captain Kirk and Commander Shepard can seduce aliens, why not Electra Rex? Why did I choose the level of transition I did for her? Because all levels are valid and nobody has to go as far as anyone else to call it a successful transition. Electra chose the level she wanted and everyone else should too/everyone else should respect the levels of transition needed.

I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite romance on the Citadel!

Why isn't Treasure white like every other love interest in science fiction? First off, as Mean Girls says, you can't just ask why someone is or isn't white, but the reason behind having a woman of color as the love interest in the novel is simple: there aren't enough positive, happy representations of black women in literature especially if that literature is LGBTQ and/or Science Fiction. The world of white supremacy and racism Treasure knew stops existing the second she wakes up on Electra's ship. How would you behave, what would be different in your life, what kind of person would you be if the oppression you lived under since your first breath suddenly vanished across every known reality? I tried to answer that question for Treasure, but I imagine I fell short and only showed one possible response among billions.

Electra Rex was written to be fun, light, sexy, and nerdy with the bare minimum of violence.

Excerpt:

“I am the last of my kind, and I suck,” Electra mumbled to herself, throwing back another drink. On the first night of a planetary holiday, Electra Rex was drunk, scorned, and looking to buy a gun. Electra couldn't recall exactly which holiday since there were so many. The planet took time off constantly to celebrate a googolplex of different accomplishments, important figures, and momentous occasions across hundreds of alien species; it was a wonder anyone did anything but observe holidays. She sat in a window booth, watching ships both large and small land at the valet pad while she waited.

Little of her Embarker pedigree remained after years away from the flotilla. Endless toil and nomadic life marked her people’s existence even if it didn’t describe her life. She'd lived in an apartment on Authrillia's largest northern city for more than a year, which should have made her itchy to get back to spacefaring, but she wasn’t. In fact, she wasn’t much of anything. Apathy had settled heavily over her and it had made her careless—at least, more careless than she already knew herself to be. To pay the bills, she engaged in the least Embarker type of work she could find: a professional party guest. Come see the last known human woman, drink with her, maybe even…but that was over. She'd frittered away too much money on fleeting things, another Embarker no-no. A job meant to replenish her account at the last moment and save her apartment, her precious creature comforts, and allow her reckless lifestyle to continue for another month, hadn't paid out. Now she had only the clothes on her back and the cash in her pocket. Enough to buy a gun, she hoped.

She'd given the DJ of the club a copy of Margaritaville, promising a transcendent experience. Jimmy Buffet sang while a dozen different species of aliens attempted to dance on the multi-tiered dance floor to the ancient Earthling music. Electra's dad had loved Jimmy Buffet. The finest music in the galaxy, he'd said. Even with great effort and a good deal of booze in her system, she couldn't hear what he heard. She must not have inherited his ear for classical music. The hell was a flip-flop anyway?

Normally leering over spacecraft cheered her up, which was why she'd selected a window booth near the landing pad. She wasn't into the functional caravan freighters that comprised Embarker fleets—she liked the chic, silky, beautiful spaceships that focused on form over function. The bleak, unrepentantly crappy mood that clung to her throughout the day lightened an iota at the arrival of her dream ship in the valet slip directly below her window. An oval saucer body, three hundred feet long, sleek and stylish, with three classic fins off the back, it was, it had to be, a Cadillux 1959 Dorado edition. And it was pink, the brightest, most beautiful pearlescent pink trimmed in the shiniest of chrome. Electra stood on her knees on the booth's bench and pressed her face drunkenly against the glass. She wanted to lick it. She didn't care that the thought was absurd. That ship was so gorgeous it deserved to be licked.

The transparent arrival tube extended to the ventral port while a valet-bot lowered onto the dorsal spine above the cockpit that sat directly in the middle of the oval. Electra wanted to see what wondrous creature possessed such a magnificent spaceship. After several, agonizing moments the owner of the ship passed from beneath the edge within the arrival tube and Electra's elation turned to fury: Weisella. Fucking Weisella. Her need to buy a gun redoubled, not to begin a life of mercenary work, which was the Embarker way after going bust, but for murder, satisfying revenge on the woman who had thoroughly screwed her. The fact that such a heinous, underhanded creature could own such a glorious ship was a crime on par with regicide in Electra's inebriated mind.

Weisella was a Panaeus, a vaguely humanoid alien species with advanced telekinetic and telepathic powers. She was only a little taller than Electra's five and a half feet. Her heart-shaped face had two enormous, black almond eyes, no nose or mouth. Frilled spines replaced what could be called hair. A luster of five ephemeral tentacles stood in the place of an arm on each side and instead of legs, she had what looked like a jumbo, curved shrimp tail. Indeed, the only attractive features Electra saw in Weisella were her money and her strangely perfect breasts—three of them across the center of her chest, prominently displayed since Panaeus didn't wear clothes. Weisella liked jewelry though, and she was sporting a shiny new metal ring on her tail that was probably just brimming with expensive tech. Electra's memory of the night before was fragmented at best. She'd been hired to attend Weisella's gala for the Panaeus New Year, partially as the spectacle of having a human in attendance and partially as Weisella's date. Electra didn't mind the escort portion of the work. Weisella was rich, enchanting, well-traveled, and she'd paid extra for the pleasure. Except she hadn't actually paid. The transfer bounced back in the morning when Electra tried to use the money to get the foreclosure lock off her apartment door. The timer on her lien expired and everything in her apartment was incinerated while she watched through the little glass window on the door. Everything her parents had ever given her, every keepsake from Transition Island, every souvenir she'd collected in her travels was gone in a flash of white fire and a quickly ventilated puff of smoke, all because Weisella ripped her off.

Electra had done her part. She'd danced, charmed, and been better than presentable in her skin-tight Utopalex pants, knee high go-go boots, and a black corset that made the most of what she had. The Panaeus guests loved her. Weisella had loved her. By every measurement, Electra had performed perfectly. They retired to Weisella's bedroom at the end of the night to continue the festivities. Things didn't go as smoothly behind closed doors. Electra was intoxicated from drinks, a few drugs she wasn't familiar with, and the high oxygen environment created in the penthouse, plus she'd never slept with a Panaeus before. The swell of Weisella's backside, what looked like a delightfully curvaceous butt, nope, that was a nose and please stop fondling it. Okay, the breasts were breasts, right? Close enough, fondle those, lick them, and fall asleep face first in them. Was that why Weisella bounced the payment back? Failure to consummate? It was explicitly stated in Electra's contract that sex was not a guaranteed part of any escort arrangement. It was her prerogative. Besides, she'd tried—there simply weren't obvious sex organs on Panaeus, at least none Electra could find in her sloppy groping.

The valet-bot guided the Cadillux away after Weisella entered the club a couple floors beneath Electra's booth. The little bot was flying the beautiful ship toward the stacks. Not the stacks! That was where someone parked a junker that nobody would want to steal. The stacks were for heaps with so many scratches and dents that a few more might go completely unnoticed. The Cadillux could be scraped, dinged, stolen, or breathed on wrong in the stacks. Only the worst kind of philistine would park such a beautiful vessel in the holding pen for pig ships!

"That tight little butt could only belong to the Electra Rex," a gravely voice sounded behind her.

Electra sat back down and glared at Fizan. Her underworld contact was a Gromphra, essentially an eight foot tall cockroach in every despicable sense. Fizan was too large and inflexible to actually sit in the booth so she stood at the end of the table, inspecting Electra with her dead bug eyes. It wasn't that Fizan was a particularly vile example of the species—all Gromphra were lecherous and blunt—it was considered a badge of honor to gross out other species, at least, that's what Fizan claimed.

The purportedly transparent shell on the front of Fizan's torso opened up like a flasher's raincoat. It was clothing and body armor mixed and wasn't actually transparent. Within the shell, guns, knives, and a dozen other nefarious items were concealed behind the projected image of her chitinous torso.

"See anything you like?" Fizan asked.

Electra had enough cash on hand to afford a decent gun. A carbine was best for mercenary work, although a small pistol was ideal to assassinate Weisella on a crowded dance floor. Shooting anyone or anything wasn't really her style and the reality of what she was doing rolled over her in an unpleasant manner accompanied by a wave of nausea. Electra scrunched her nose while she considered the weapons until she spied something entirely different.

"How much for the ID-clone?"