The great vintage science fiction romance hunt begins

2010 May 24

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I have to say it’s limping along badly.

Did anyone else know that Dorchester Publishing has only been around since 1971?

I was like, huh. That’s almost scary to me for some reason. We’re talking the purveyors of the Leisure Books and Love Spell. Powerhouse lines in romances and yet also one of the most often mocked both for content and covers. It’s probably a toss-up between them and Avon for the “outrageous” prize and this is said by someone who has oodles and oodles of books by both publishers so don’t think I’m looking down my nose or anything.

Okay, why this sudden curiousity about Dorchester? Well, it started with A Brief History of Science Fiction Romance over on The Galaxy Express and a question about whether there were any science fiction romances - meaning labeled romances with SF elements and not science fiction with romantic elements – prior to 1980. Which in turn got me to wondering what publisher would’ve been the most receptive to actually publishing those elements in a romance during that period. And that led me to thinking about Leisure Books and Love Spell, naturally, since they were the ones who gave us our beloved futuristic romances in the first place.

May we ever be thankful. (only one-third of that was sarcasm – okay, half)

See, what I was actually wanting to do was find a “most likely” publisher’s name to go to BookScans and browse through some of their later covers. But BookScans only goes to 1959, more or less, which left me wondering where the heck was Dorchester. Not starting until 1971, apparently.

You know the really odd thing – or not – is that Dorchester doesn’t even list a SF category on its page. They do horror, westerns, thrillers, romance but no science fiction?

Oh, except for those futuristics… oye.

Well, back to the search. It seems Dorchester could have some books that might fit before 1980 but how to find them. Or maybe I’ll just try Avon. Yeah, vintage Avon and science fiction romance. That sounds right. o.O

You know what would really be helpful? If Fantastic Fiction was searchable by publisher and/or year. If any database was that to be honest.

Another one? UPDATE: some description

2009 Dec 16

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(Skip to bottom for update)

Twice in almost as many days and I’ve run across another game based on a romance novel? Somehow this doesn’t seem like a coincidence. And yet there’s or rather here’s another one:

New gaming company, PassionFruit Games, launches with romance casual game based on bestselling author Marjorie M. Liu’s Tiger Eye novel.

PassionFruit Games today announced the creation of a new romance-themed casual game, Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box, based on the novel Tiger Eye (A Dorchester Love Spell paperback) by New York Times bestselling author Marjorie M. Liu.

Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box also officially marks the launch of PassionFruit Games and represents a unique moment in the history of gaming. Although a market for romance-themed video games has existed abroad for years, these games are essentially unknown in the U.S.

Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box will be one of the first romance casual games to hit the U.S. market when it goes on-sale in April 2010.

via Liu’s TIGER EYE computer game « Romantic Reads.

Odd, though, that I can’t seem to find a description of what type of game it is, other than casual. Hmmm.

UPDATED: Just found another article that included a short, and I do mean short, description of what might be in the game:

According to the group’s press release, there will be puzzle-solving and mini-games for the PC/Mac game, as well as a storyline that grows as the characters become closer. What’s interesting to me is the fact that Liu — already a New York Times bestselling author (and smart as heck to boot) — will be joining writers such as Eric Trautmann and Brian Reed, who also have ties in the video game world.

via Blog@Newsarama » Blog Archive » Marjorie Liu gets her own game.