Romance is in the air...

[ffutures]

It occurred to me today that all of Weinbaum's stories involve romance, but I've written very little into the adventures etc. Bearing in mind that Weinbaum's idea of meeting cute was for the couple to meet, trek a couple of hundred miles through swamps while arguing furiously and blowing away frequent monsters, then escape death by inches just before reaching safety, I really ought to have some in there somewhere.

So I'm trying to come up with a few ideas, probably to be included in a short chapter devoted to romantic plots and sub-plots, rather than the main adventures. So far I've got

Earth Girls Aren't Easy
When the owner of Titan's main gold mine is killed, his daughter ships out from Earth to take over the family business. Needless to say most of the single men on Titan (pop. 50) are VERY interested, but she has ideas of her own - and a lethally fast trigger finger.

The Best Little Whore-House on Deimos
Speaks for itself, but I suspect not quite the right type of romance (which isn't really the right word)...

The Princess Bribe
While visiting Mars / Venus / some other colony a Russian princess (or whatever) decides that she has had enough of the decadence of Earth and wishes to experience the adventurous life as a pioneer. Our intrepid heroes are hired to make life unpleasant for her, but harmlessly so, with the goal of persuading her to return to Earth and resume her royal duties. Of course things won't be that easy...

Any other suggestions?

Later Just realised that the perfect title for this section is, of course, Love and Rockets

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Have you got an idea for an "intrepid girl reporter" story? Maybe an interplanetary analog of Nelly Bly's "around the world in 80 days" tour?

How about a Nick and Nora Charles tribute?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Intrepid reporter is a very good one - I'll have to suggest it as a character stereotype.

The main characters of Parasite Planet and its sequels, Hamilton "Ham" Hammond and Patricia Burlingame (later Hammond) are pretty much Nick and Nora in an SF setting. The first one is the trek across Venus I described above, the second has them on the dark side of Venus investigating an alien race, and the third is set on Uranus, where they're looking at alien animals and trying to figure out the local ecology. Not so much of the social scene, but I suspect that's where the idea of the characters came from.

[johnreiher.livejournal.com]

Hmm, Mighty Joe Yurgguh: A young girl colonist befriends a small beast by buying it from a pair of Martian hunters. The beast ends up growing into a massively large beast that is gentle under the ministrations of the young woman. Players are hired to convince her to bring Joe back to the earth to star in a night club act. Hilarity ensues when Joe decides he wants to go back to Mars.

The Venusian Queen: In swamps of Venus, a missionary and his daughter are ministering to the heathen Venusian savages. But armed conflict has broken out between to larger tribes and their mission is in the middle of it. The players run a riverboat/swamp boat and take on the missionary's daughter and try to spirit her away from the conflict.

Ca'san'blanc'ka: An expatriate American runs a bar in a desert martian city. He encounters a lost love from Earth, but the local martian rulers are looking for her due to her unmartian beliefs. The goal is to get her off Mars before she is found and captured.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The second one sort of works - though the "love developing from hate" theme of the original African Queen is fairly close to what happens in Parasite Planet - the first and third don't quite work for Weinbaum's Mars, but might possibly be OK for one or another of the other worlds, I'll have to think about it. Thanks for the suggestions!

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

To elaborate, there is a whole late 19th century to late 20th century romance story cliche in which the heroine (who is of course virtuous, whatever "virtuous" means within the context of her day's sexual morals) is rescued from danger by one or more Hookers With a Heart of Gold. These prostitues will be classic "soiled doves," meaning basically-good women who simply had terrible bad luck somewhere in their backstories (it's not uncommon for the story's Big Bad to be directly or indirectly responsible for their ruin). The hero is reserved for the heroine, but sometimes the main Soiled Dove will wind up falling in love with the hero's raffish mentor/sidekick, and get her very own Happy Ending. In the earlier versions of such stories, the sympathetic prostitute suffers Redemption Equals Death (as happens to Nancy, an archetype of this sort of character, in Oliver Twist, where she rescues a Boy Hero for his True Family).

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Sorry, appended this to the wrong comment!

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Bearing in mind that Weinbaum's idea of meeting cute was for the couple to meet, trek a couple of hundred miles through swamps while arguing furiously and blowing away frequent monsters, then escape death by inches just before reaching safety, I really ought to have some in there somewhere.

You know, that works just fine for an adventure romance story, or an adventure romance RPG scenario.

The Best Little Whore-House on Deimos
Speaks for itself, but I suspect not quite the right type of romance (which isn't really the right word)...

More than a bit racy for Weinbaum, but the way one plays this sort of thing for a 30's pulp flavor is to have the Madam and her crew be Hookers With a Heart of Gold who shelter the (innocent) heroine from the real villains of the piece.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks - might work (but not on Deimos, I liked the title but the place lacks atmosphere - more likely Ganymede or Venus)