Tag Archive for: Beauty and the Beast

Galactic Dreams

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 by Bethany Maines

Welcome to a brave new age – the future!  When my co-writers and I agreed to collaborate on Galactic Dreams – a series of sci-fi fairy tale adaptations – we had no idea that the project would stretch into three volumes. Galactic Dreams (from Blue Zephyr Press) is a unique shared universe that I, along with my co-writers, J.M. Phillippe and Karen Harris Tully, developed and set the rules for, and then set our own stories within that universe.  In Volume 3, we’ve adapted some classic fairy tales: Beauty & the Beast, Hansel & Gretel, and Jack & the Beanstalk.  

As you can imagine, agreeing on rules, let alone deciding what they are can be quite challenging.  Particularly, since sci-fi is not a genre I generally write in.  I enjoy sci-fi. I read a good deal of it when I was a teenager. And don’t get me wrong I have plenty of weird ideas, but I’m more in the Flash Gordon style of sci-fi—toss in some jet packs and some fantastic costumes and I’m all set. My more fact-adherent co-writers seem to prefer that gravity not take a vacation without an explanation. (So picky!) However, I have to admit that their insistence on basing my science in… you know… science has been beneficial to my stories. 
In this volume, all of our stories are intertwined through a time traveling villain, which added a whole new level of headache to keeping our stories and science straight. We also decided to do a phased release plan—releasing the individual stories first and then the collection.  My book, The Beast of Arsu, is out now. And the next two installments will be released by September, with the digital collection following shortly thereafter.  As with any group project it’s been hard to keep track of all the details.  But despite the very literal headaches, I have enjoyed the challenge of writing in this genre, and I hope other sci-fi fans will enjoy these stories as well.
Galactic Dreams Vol. 3 contains three novels  and each tale is a chapter in a connected tale of villainy, time travel, and the consequences of hate. Journey through these sci-fi fairy tales today!


The Beast of Arsu (Beauty & the Beast) – Bethany Maines – When Bella Glass is thrown a 140 years into the future she finds a world she doesn’t recognize and love in Kai Craig, a man fighting against the effects of a bomb that turns him into a rage-filled beast. But someone else has traveled into the past and Bella must choose between preventing a devastating alteration of the timeline and a love she was never meant to have. 
Read Chapter 1 >>> https://bethanymaines.com/galactic-dreams/

A Trail of Stardust (Hansel & Gretel) – J.M. Phillippe – When the Hexx siblings, Rax and Lex, are forced to flee into
space by their malevolent step-mother, Hila, they have no idea what is waiting
for them and a damaged space craft throws them from the frying pan into the
oven. Captured by pirates, Lex and Rax are facing certain death and the only
way out is to rely on each other, but what will be waiting for them at home?

Break the Sky (Jack & the Beanstalk) – Karen Harris Tully – When Jakarta “Jak” Moon climbed up the giant elevator that leads to the low-orbiting space station above her irradiated planet, she has one goal—don’t die. But when she returns to the ground, she finds herself targeted by the winged-dictator known as the Godmother. Now Jak is on the hook to climb through the clouds and bring back the treasures the Godmother craves or she, and her planet, could face destruction.

Buy Beast of Arsu Now

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Bethany Updates:

Blue Christmas received a Maincrest Media Award! It was also a finalist in the Book Excellence Awards and an award winning screenplay.

The Second Shot Audio Book is now available! 

Buy Now: https://www.audible.com/pd/B093C8MWYH/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-253261&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_253261_rh_us


The Moonlight & Misadventure Anthology: 20 Tales of Mystery & Suspense, featuring my story Tammy Loves Derek is now available! 

Buy Now: https://books2read.com/Moonlight-Misadventure

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Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of the Carrie Mae Mysteries, San Juan Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo Crime Series, and numerous short stories. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her black belt in karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub.


Hurray for Netflix—From the Woman Who Doesn’t Watch TV

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By Linda Rodriguez


As some of you readers of this blog know, I’ve been through
a real run of bad luck lately, battling cancer and complications and then, once
free of that, breaking two bones in my right wrist. In recent months, I’ve felt
more than a little like Joe Mphstlspk of L’il Abner cartoon strip fame, who
traveled everywhere under a black cloud.

One of the problems these two health situations have had in
common is trouble with sleep, due to pain and side effects of medication. I’ve
spent all too many nights sitting up in the living room in the middle of the
night in the past year or so. Normally, in such circumstances, I would read or
knit or spin yarn to use in knitting or weaving.  Unfortunately, the surgeries for cancer and the
lymphedema that accompanied them—and later the broken wrist—all affected the
right arm/hand, and holding a book and turning pages was not an option. Neither
was holding knitting needles or a spindle.

Decades ago, I gave up watching television. This was not
some intellectual I-refuse-to-watch-that-trash kind of thing. Rather it was
simply an I-have-to-give-up-something-to-find-time-to-write thing.  During this time I have battled these health
issues, my youngest son was living at home with his big-screen TV and Netflix
subscription, something I paid little attention to until I ran into these problems.
Suddenly, TV has become my friend once again.

As I’ve struggled through these sleepless nights, I’ve
watched all the great Inspector Morse,
Inspector Lewis, and Endeavor (Morse as a young man)
television series I’d missed. I’ve also taken myself out of myself with the
flawless Foyle’s War, the British and
the Swedish Wallander series, all the
Poirots and all the Miss Marples. I’ve watched all the trite
romantic comedies I never saw and all the treacly, weepy death dramas.
(Remember, this period in my life has lasted for almost a year.) Finally, I sank
to the lowest point and aimed the remote at a 1980s television series I’d never
even heard of, Beauty and the Beast.
Linda Hamilton of Terminator. Ron
Perlman before his Hellboy fame. “Beautiful
NYC DA falls in love with subterranean-dwelling lion-man,” the blurb said. I
wrinkled my nose and asked myself, “Can it really be worse than something
called Scrotal Recall (an actual TV
series on Netflix)?”

Folks, Beauty and the
Beast is a writer’s TV show, a show about books and reading and ideas and
people trying to take care of each other in the face of a greedy world.
Produced and often written by George R.R. Martin back before he was really
famous for Game of Thrones, it’s the
only network television series I’ve ever seen where a major feature of each
episode is the reading aloud of a passage from some great book. It’s basically
a romance—and I’m not a big romance fan. But this series had so much more. And
it didn’t hurt that it had this hunky lion-man who recited poetry to the woman
he loved.

Unfortunately, it would seem that Ron Perlman was much
sexier in his pounds of makeup and lionesque prosthetics than he ever was in
real life. If the man had just kept his lion mask on and stayed in costume, he
could have been on one of those People
“Sexiest Man in the World” covers.

My son has finally moved into his own place and, after
months of promising to move his stuff out of our house, has finally taken the
big-screen TV and his PlayStation which ran Netflix. (Though our garage is
still full of plastic bins and boxes of his stuff. *sigh*) I finally have the
cast off my right wrist, although I still don’t have much use of it, and
sleeping through the night is becoming more possible. But I will remember my year-long
venture into television-land and, with special fondness, that there once was a
major television series that celebrated writers, books, and reading.
REPLIES TO COMMENTS (because Blogger. *sigh*)

Sparkle Abbey,

Thanks so much for good wishes. May it be so!

Bethany,

Foyle’s War is amazing! Perfect writing, directing, acting. It’s a treasure.

Mary,

Who knew the 1980s had such a cool TV series, full of Shakespeare, Dickens, Dylan Thomas, etc.? One where the hunky male lead was willing to risk everything to meet his favorite writer who had, he said, “shone light on some dark places in life for me.” Ah, if Perlman had only stayed in costume and kept reciting all that great writing, he could have been the biggest star around. 😉