Something Real

by Julia Alaric

Evan loves his work on International Space Colony 2, but he misses the colors of his life on Earth. Drawing the flowers he remembers from his mother's greenhouse provides a pale substitute for authentic living color, but it's the best he can find.

Sean spends his days lost in his software while listening to the same songs on the same radio stations day after day. He would give almost anything to hear the mistakes of a live performance, but a space colony is hardly an ideal place to find an amateur musician.

A chance meeting shows Evan a glimpse of real color and Sean a taste of real music, but neither expects to see the other again. Then Evan's greatest accomplishment fails, endangering the entire colony, and Sean becomes his last chance at fixing it.  

Genres: Science Fiction, M M Romance, Romance, Short Stories, LGBT, Fiction, Gay

49 pages, ebook

First published July 23, 2013

About the author

The discovery at age five of her mother’s typewriter lurking the bowels of her basement inspired Julia’s first story, a moving, multi-chaptered, twelve-sentence masterpiece about a blood-thirsty blob. Since then, she’s gone on to write many vastly better spelled stories with much happier endings.

Julia finds absolutely everything completely fascinating, which is why she spends most of her time in a classroom. Her greatest loves, apart from her husband, are language, music, and history, and she makes her living via a slightly ridiculous passel of jobs centered around the three. There are rumors that, in a prior life, she even dabbled in teaching high school math and chemistry amidst her Latin, Greek, and music history classes. Her students joke that she would like to achieve a doctorate in Everything, and they’re not far wrong.

More of her writing can be found at her livejournal (username magistra17sum). She loves to hear from her readers, so please feel free leave a comment or question!

Reviews

[annob [on hiatus] · Rating 3 out of 5]

New author to me, so this collection of a novelette and three short stories all set in a sci-fi off world setting made a good sample of the author's writing.

'Something Real' was a sweet romance, the three shorts more erotic in nature. I liked the writing style in all four stories, very much enjoyed all characters both main and sides. I liked the inventive playfulness of the mixed alien species in the shorts. On the con side were minor niggles related to some sci-fi details such as use of laundry perfume in (what I assume was) a closed water circulating system on a space station, or the mention of an inhabited planet with no star— merely described as dark when the -270°C close to Absolute Zero temperature would be challenging if not unsustainable for any life forms. These unscientific details were very small niggles but I wish they hadn't been there at all.

All in all I enjoyed this book and will happily read more by the author.

[Ro · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Evan and Sean are both workers on Space Colony 2, on a planet far from Earth. Evan is an engineer and Sean is in IT. Their paths had never crossed but they shared a longing for things from Earth. Evan missed colors – everything in the Dome was gray, white, black, brown, all dull and lifeless appearing. The clothing was drab, the food rehydrated drab, all of it, drab. Evan spent time drawing vivid flowers from memory in an effort to bring some color to his life. For his part, Sean missed the spontaneity and mistakes that go with real music. Live music is so different from the canned perfection he would hear all day. He wanted mistakes, errors, imperfections.

When the sounds of a horribly-played violin reach Sean, he single-mindedly tracks down the musician, Evan. When Evan sees Sean, peach, red, green, he sees color. It just happens that an equipment failure brings them together again and maybe they can see if color and music can combine.

I especially loved the description of Sean, the computer nerd who took minutes to realize a question was being asked and even longer to realize he was supposed to answer. The blunt, brash one who had good intentions with poor execution. The story isn’t long, just light and sweet, no angst.

[Furio · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice, short, little romance in a SF settings.
The two characters are the dictionary picture of the geek but the author manages to make them likeable and cute, their dialogues sparkling and funny.
She also manages to create an incredibly realistic SF background for her story; I am not sure whether it was intentional or not, but this same background, if looked at closely enough, is kind of bleak, just like I would expect that of the first future missions in outer space to be.
Grammar is sometimes an issue, especially the often recurring turn of phrase "something to be doing" which, as far as I know, does not exist in correct English.

[Tailtiu · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5* Short, cute and free at ARe http://www.allromanceebooks.com/produ...

[Heather K (dentist in my spare time)]

Amazon Freebie 9/16/13!

[Sandra]

FREE on Amazon!

[Pépin Pomme · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was awesome! I am not a big fan of science fiction, but I really loved this cute story. The humor is so great, and the plot was smart, it was a great read

[Corinne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freebie Novella. This was more science fiction than romance, but that wasn't an issue because the science fiction was interesting. Sean and Evan are workers at Earth's first space colony. It's never mentioned what planet it's on, how they got there or what year it is. It's all left to speculation, but the colony world building was well done for a short novella. Evan is an architectural engineer and Sean is a software engineer. Evan misses the colors of Earth in the drab environment of the colony while Sean misses real music and real human creativity. When a problem with the light-shields develops, Sean and Evan must work together to find a solution or the colony could be lost. I liked Sean's socially awkward yet brash character juxtaposed to Evan's more reserved, quiet nature.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Something Real is a lovely novel, though I expected a little bit more to happen between Evan and Sean than just a kiss and arrangement of a date. But still it was nice, sweet (especially I like when Sean finds the drawings of himself) and interesting (in the parts of life on Mars). And of course it’s also nice that it’s free :D But really it’d be nice to have more of life there and more action between those two.

[Sierra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a simple story about two people who meet unexpected (non-sexual) needs for each each other and realize that they could be something more to each other. It's a bit of a mystery story as well as a tiny character study. This is not a story of steamy scenes or heavy angst. The cover picture implies a certain gravitas but it's really just a nice little story of potentials. It's light without being humorous, just kind and hopeful.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story. Really great. The writing was excellent. The setting was excellent. The plot was interesting and perfectly timed to the length. There were a few moments of terrific humor, and I LOVED the characters - not just the two MCs, all of them. The underlying theme - the lack of color and music on a colony planet - was creative and deft.

This is an author to watch!

[Nancy Carbajal · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really sweet read. Sean and Evan work to get solar shields back to working on an off world colony and in the process get to know each other slowly. Short read, no sexual interactions, just a kiss. I was a little scared there for awhile....too many scary si-fy movies LOL!!

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written story that has its funny moments and is well worth reading. Its gone into my re-read pile.

[Sadie Forsythe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little rushed toward the end, but cute. Two awkward geek boys (one maybe a little asperger'sy) meet and find love on an international space station.

[Alishea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I truly enjoyed this short. The MC's were very cute, and I would love to see a followup after they've dated for a bit.

[Rachel]

*downloaded free on ARE

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very sweet. No sex. More science fictiony than romancy. Written well. Free.

[JP · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. I haven't read a gay story in space yet and it was funny and thoughtful too. I hope to read more from this author soon!

[Ivonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

short and sweet, I would have like to see what the outcome would have been

[H.V. Corbin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really cute and touching short story. The characters are adorable, the story sweet and light.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars--Cute story. Author has a lot of potential. I'll have to look for some more recent works.