#Interstellar Ice Cream Sundae

[epicstoriestime]

Galactic Gastronomy: A Cosmic Culinary Journey

🌌✨ Embark on a cosmic culinary journey with the alien voyager as they craft epic dishes inspired by their intergalactic travels. From Nebula Noodles to Interstellar Ice Cream Sundaes, these delicacies blend earthly ingredients with celestial inspirations, taking your taste buds on an unforgettable adventure. 🚀🍽️ #GalacticGastronomy #CosmicCulinaryJourney #EpicFlavors #TasteTheCosmos #InterstellarDelights

What foods would you like to make?   As the an alien voyager, my cosmic journey has granted me the opportunity to explore various planets and experience a myriad of cuisines from different civilizations. However, there are still some earthly delights I would love to create in my intergalactic kitchen. Join me as I share the epic fusion of flavors that I would like to bring to life:   1.…

[myqueeryear]

I tend to see certain genres and certain foods as being similar. Don't order an ice cream sundae if you don't want marshmallow sauce and whipped cream on your ice cream*, and don't read a romance novel if you don't want big feelings, confessions of love, and a scene where there is only one bed.

This book delivered some really satisfying emotional hits, which is another way of saying it deliberately pressed my buttons and I loved it. I was really pleased that, unlike many authors who come from a certain background, this author sold me on the characters immediately. The side characters were also stronger and more memorable than in a lot of romances – in fact, if the author wanted to turn this into a series and do a romance featuring any of the female characters (or even Agent Rakal? Think about it, Maxwell!) I would be delighted. I liked the fact that we had protagonists who are somewhere in their mid to late 20s (I presume), as well as the fact that the author established there was a mutual physical connection before teasing us for most of the rest of the book with the get-together. The last romance novel I read spent so much time assuring the reader they deeply mutually respected each other I started to wonder whether they were actually into each other, but I digress. But I was for sure in the mood to sigh in sympathy and gasp in shock, which it delivered.

You notice I refer to this as a romance novel, because the "space politics" part of the plot is extremely weak. In general Winter's Orbit is best when it focuses on personal feelings and things the characters directly experience, and less good when it focuses on the interstellar stuff and revelations via received information. The interplanetary/intercultural stuff worked well, but the galactic stakes never felt real, possibly because they weren't well integrated into the personal-stakes plot. At one point I found myself thinking "This is no CJ Cherryh" – but then again, what is.

Everina Maxwell has another book coming out later this year and I'll be excited to see how she evolves as a writer.

On a side note, I know this novel has caught some heat for the way it handled gender expression. Personally I didn't think it was trying to imply this was a superior way of handling things, especially since we hear about the different ways of expressing gender through characters feeling frustrated with the way another culture does it. I also wondered if it might be an attempt at addressing the criticisms of another, much more popular recent space opera, which IMO made several mistakes beginning by implying characters can tell multiple genders, uncoupled from assigned sex, apart but not telling us how.

*if you prefer chocolate sauce I don't want to hear about it

[lord-valery-mimes]

18 and 19, please.

18) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

I do have a few WIPs still sitting in my Google docs that will probably remain there forever. One I started writing while bored out of my skull on vacation and it had something to do with an interstellar ice cream van. I still am not entirely sure what I was going for when I churned out that page of fic. Possibly Lister & Rimmer making ice cream sundaes and eating them off of each other?

I’ve got another that I quickly realized was highly problematic as it deals with the more unsavory side of Rimmer’s personality. I got a ways through it and then just kind of went, “Ugh, why did I even start writing this?” I stole the best joke from that fic and re-used it in another better, less problematic fic, so this one will probably always remain abandoned.

19) Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to? 

I’d love to do a sequel to Do Holograms Dream of Aquatic Sheep? just because I really loved the dynamic that Lister/Rimmer/Todhunter shared in this one. I’d just have to come up with some kind of reasonable plot line or at least setting for it, so it’s not just more pointless gratuitous sex. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, I just feel like it would just be repeating myself if I did that, since the original fic is also just gratuitous sex. ;-)

I think I may have to write a sequel to Springtime for Hitler too, eventually. Dolphy and his unrequited crush on Lister is just too fun to write to not revisit it again. :-)