Fringe Fiction Unlimited discussion

This is the topic of the first book of the We Three trilogy, a sci-fi thriller about the life of Dr. Lyin Lawrence, whose New York apartment had been burnt in 2033 in an attempt to murder hom. (hOm, not hIm, as there are no males/females! ^^)

A mixture of thriller, romance and fantasy, in this first novel we will come to know how the world would have been if humankind had evolved in such a drastically different way.

Dr. Lawrence is the inventor of the GAIAA Protocol, the cure for the lethal Early Kileer Diseases epidemy that flooded in the world back in 2015. But now somebody is after Dr. Lawrence for still unknown reasons and hon must live hidden from everybody while writing hor memoir.

What happened in Dr. Lawrence's life that brought hom to hor discovery? Why are there people who still hate hom? Will they find whom is after hom?

A couple of points: Hom and hor are jarring, and I suspect a reader will have a long learning curve to get used to visualizing who goes with which pronoun.

Second, you open up a whole new world of seedy vice clubs where two of the three genders get together for non-procreative sex. An instant dark underbelly full of clues, false trails, and two-faced information brokers. Quite a concept.

I question whether, in this age of instant gratification, anyone will bother to learn the hom and hor world of three genders, though. You've set yourself quite a mountain to climb...

Hello jack and thank you for your comment!

What you say is true. It is hardly debatable that such a concept isn't for every reader out there. It will not end up in the bookshelf of the casual easy-vampire-romance-novel buyer, nor on the one of a hard fantasy addicted. I confess that I, myself had some doubts throughout the whole writing period.

As I wrote it down, however, it became clearer and clearer that it would have been a great concept if only the problem of the three genders had been set right. It took me a while to reach a decision about such a system (and my editor helped me, too). It became much easier to understand when I had this idea: "Why not taking the existing words and transform them accordingly?"
I made sort of a hard linguistic experiment and transformed man/woman into mawon/mawyn/mawun (O/Y/U as opposed to M/F). I can't say it is the easiest, of course, and it should not be since this is the result of an experiment, basically; but it is quite interesting to me to see that after a few pages it sort of sets into your mind (into mine, at least, and I am not saying it only because I am the author!!, other people told me such, too) and it starts to flow almost naturally.

About the part on the seedy vice clubs. You can't be more right. As a lover of Psychology (I hold a degree on that! ^^) my mind blew almost each night while I was writing as I thought about all the possible implications! It was indeed impossible to depict all them into the story - it was not the goal of the book, you know. There are soooo many aspects one could investigate about that, really.

It is a difficult task to handle such a concept. Comments like yours, however, prove me that there are people out there for whom it is worth to tell stories like this! :)

I worry that I may have read too much about evolutionary theory to accept the premise without a resonable explanation. Are all three required to breed? Are they interchangeable in some ways but not others? How would this be an evolutionary advantage?

Brilliant! I'm one of those people who easy suspends disbelief for a fresh premise. I'm sure people will learn fine as they go if they 're fans of similar fiction. If readers will accept "muggle", they'll go along with new pronouns.

Virginia wrote: "I worry that I may have read too much about evolutionary theory to accept the premise without a resonable explanation. Are all three required to breed? Are they interchangeable in some ways but not..."

All three are required to mate in order to procreate. They are interchangeable in any combination of the three (they being O, Y and U, it could end up by being OOY, OYY, YUU, etc... Situation with more than one from one gender have the same status as homosexuals, however. Being in a couple and not in a triplet is different, as it means the two have not yet found a third one.)
Talking about that: what I found hugely interesting in writing this was that in such a system there are TWO persons having to decide whether to date the third one or not. The whole novel is centered upon the fact that the protagonist has a child trauma ("hon" was abandoned by one of "hor" three parents when hon was six) and now hon does not trust completing hor couple for the fear of being abandoned again.
About the evolutionary advantage: well, if the whole living being had started immediately with a three chromosomes system, the advantages would have been more or less the same as this aspect would have been spread among all living creatures, plants included.

Tomorrow and the day after the novel will be available on Amazon for free for download! :) Feel free to get your copy and to give it a try! i'd love to hear your opinions!

Joseph wrote: "About the evolutionary advantage: well, if the whole living being had started immediately with a three chromosomes system, the advantages would have been more or less the same as this aspect would have been spread among all living creatures, plants included."

Not quite what I meant. We developed into two genders because the two roles they play in reproduction represent two different possible strategies. The devotion of great amounts of one's energy in the development of an egg and, in later generations, the care of progeny leaves little chance of having loads of kids but also less chance of having none. On the other hand, males were developed a kind of 'throw it at the wall and see what sticks' approach, sowing their wild oats. Keep in mind, we're talking about very small organisms here.

Your three genders don't seem to confer any similar advantage, and when you say "They are interchangeable in any combination[...]" you don't say whether it's just sexual or if they're capable of procreation.

It is difficult to focus the discussion using the evolutionary concept we have in our minds now for they had been deduced from our own biological system. In this respect, everything you said is correct.

I think that mirroring this way of thinking into the imaginary system in which my novel is based would be not that feasible for its premises no longer hold.

As in the novel, the genders have different social roles:
O -> supplies sustenance, in the human species by focusing on work and self-realization (more resembling the classical male)
Y -> the gender that procreates and cares for the family in the general sense rather than for the progeny itself (indeed in the story, the Y parent of the protagonist will abandon "hom", something that is really strange and represents the first moment of tension for the protagonist)
U -> they are more progeny-oriented even though they are not the ones giving birth; they are the one who actually grow and teach to the progeny how to live

Thus, speaking about evolution, a three genders system does not provide much more advantages with respect to what we are accustomed to. Maybe even less, actually, as having a system with an additional level of complexity sounds like more fragile. This is a good point indeed.

PS: by the way, "interchangeable" means only from a recreational sexual standpoint. In order to reproduce individuals of all three genders are needed in the process, as to speak.

Joseph wrote: "Thus, speaking about evolution, a three genders system does not provide much more advantages with respect to what we are accustomed to. Maybe even less, actually, as having a system with an additional level of complexity sounds like more fragile. This is a good point indeed."

Not only is it more fragile, but I don't see any way for it to have come into being. :-( That would be a big hurdle for me as a reader.

Joseph- I'm not an avid sci-fi reader so I can't speak to whether people have high expectations for accuracy or just accept plausibility. I doubt many studied genetics or evolution, though, and will appreciate the speculative aspects of including a third gender.

I think it's a fab premise and I hope you stand apart amongst other books for it :)

There is no best answer to these questions. But I like a lot the fact that they were made! It proves me that there are indeed people who are moved by such a hypothesis, even the better by criticizing it!! :)

I will definitely take this aspect into consideration. By my part, it is still not big deal thinking of such a three-genders system!

I will be interested to read how you handle it.

Hello again! :)

For all of you who are interested, the novel will be free for download on Sunday, 1st and Sunday 8th! Save the date and be sure to get your copy here: http://bit.ly/wtnovel

A review after you have read it would be much appreciated! ^^

ave a nice weekend and reading time!
JNT

I'll download, but I won't be able to read and review till I've put 50,000 words down for JuNoWriMo. :-(

Eep! Almost forgot! Got it now. :-)

Great! =) Thank you! Hope you'll enjoy it!!
Ps: I already caught a typo, somewhere in the beginning: a "she" where it should not be present and which will be corrected in a few days! ^^

Lol. That kind of thing happens to everyone. :-)