Wouldn’t you know?

Orbitz

 

Orbitz was a drink introduced in 1996.  It didn’t take and disappeared from the shelves soon thereafter.  I swear I’ve never seen one in real life.  Now take a good look at the bottle on the left, then read the below snippet from my unfinished SF romance masterpiece:

On the further side of the terrace, a table had been set up for him, under a gazebo tent, with flowers and plates of canapes that were more structurally complex than most sentient creatures. He filled two glasses from a pitcher of spright-of-day, a clear libation with suspended, pearl-sized bubbles of sunfruit juice. He took one glass in hand and drank out of it. The other one he left on the white tablecloth.

She was paralyzed, her dolce-dimmed mind failing to interpret his intentions.

He glanced at her. He seemed amused. “Would you prefer something stronger? I have wine and”—he picked up the placard next to a carafe of purple-black tipple and read—“ ‘Guaranteed Good Time. Our version of this classic party favorite is made with premium black vodka, triple distilled sweetwater brandy, lilyplum tonic, and pompear fizz.’”

She approached the table and drank from the glass of spright-of-day. A bubble of golden sunfruit juice burst on her tongue, sharp and bright.

Wouldn’t you know?  They are drinking Orbitz!  The future has truly already come and gone.  🙂

In other news, PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS is out on audio.  You can find it on CDs and cassettes here, and as a download here.  And isn’t the cover just absolutely gorgeous?  Sigh.

private_arrangements_audio

13 thoughts on “Wouldn’t you know?”

  1. Your excerpt makes Orbitz sound so much more delicious than they actually were! The balls were really like little pustules of slime that sort of clung to the sides of one’s teeth before finally disintegrating.

    I remember them well…

  2. How did I never see this drink? It looks fantastic.

    Am also dying to get my hands on your SF romance. Finish it, finish it! I’ve been on an SF glom recently, and there’s just not enough of it out there to satisfy me.

  3. Hee on the structurally complex canapes. I avoid that kind – afraid I’ll embarass myself by eating them wrong.

    And: apologies in case talking about another author in a forum like this this is bad manners, but – people who like SF sometimes also like dark fantasy, and in case they do – please, please do yourself a favor and run as fast as you can to a bookstore for ‘Darkborn’ by Alison Sinclair. It just released, and is absolutely fantastic.

    Orbitz sounds a bit like Bubble Tea. They have it all over the place here now (Toronto), mostly at East Asian owned cafes and such, with all sorts of flavours of tea that have ‘bubbles’ of some bland, semi-solid material that you suck through a triple-wide straw. I’ve not developmed a taste for it personally, but they they by the thousands here.

  4. I know that book! I remember oohing and aahing over the cover a little while back, before it was published. Thanks for the rec — now I have an excuse to own it. 🙂

  5. Tamara,

    LOL. Those little bubbles do look somewhat suspicious. I didn’t expect them to taste too good, since the blog where I learned about them compared the taste to–forgive me if this ruins anyone’s dinner–“sugary asparagus piss.”

    I’m not even sure what that is!

    Meredith,

    I’m sure Janine had you read Sharon Shinn’s Angels of Samaria series right? Archangel is hands down the best SF romance I’ve ever read.

    Maya M.,

    I love bubble tea. Those are tapioca balls. And I’d have bubble tea a lot more often if the stores ever put them in a regular mug–don’t like tossing away plastic cups.

    And thanks for the rec. I am not a huge consumer of fantasy. The size of those books daunt me and at the library I can never seem to come across the first volume of any saga. But I’ll read just about anything that’s fabulous, so I’ll keep Darkborn in mind.

  6. I believe I even read the opening of the SF romance and I managed to forget all about the Orbitz! I remember the pompears though. There was pompear soup, or stew, wasn’t there? In a really good scene. The food descriptions in your manuscripts always make me hungry. I remember having to go out for Chinese food twice while reading the manuscript of Heart of Blade!

    I think Meredith had read Archangel before I had a chance to recommend it to her. She probably reads more SF romances than I do. I have a hard time choosing a favorite among Shinn’s books, several of which I adore, but I also love Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight, which was an influence on Archangel. Shinn said she read it “about four thousand times,” and I must have too, starting when I was a teenager. It reads a bit dated now, but the heroine is still one of my favorite romantic heroines ever.

    • Janine,

      That’s because you read a different SF romance masterpiece by yours truly. I have not one, not two, but three SF romance partials at home. Truly a sign of my commitment to the genre. 🙂

  7. I’m not even sure I know what a SF is. My thoughts immediately go to Star Trek and all I can think of is clingons. But your snippet above says I’m not even close. But if you wrote it, I’d certainly give it a try.

    Bev

    • Bev,

      LOL, no, no Klingons here. For me a SF romance is just one that cannot take place in either current or historical earth settings. I suppose I could have made them fantasy too, but I’ve got no particular feel for fantasy worldbuilding. I prefer SF since I read tons of it growing up.

  8. I’m sure Janine had you read Sharon Shinn’s Angels of Samaria series right? Archangel is hands down the best SF romance I’ve ever read.

    Yes!! I do love me some Sharon Shinn. Archangel was magnificent.

  9. Orbitz was a great idea, but were terrible. I tried pretty much every flavor. The little floating spheres were good, just like the tapioca in bubble tea, but the liquid was just horrible. It was a little thicker than your average beverage, kind of syrupy thickness. And it had the most horrible taste ever, every flavor was bad.

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