Sime~Gen: The Unity Trilogy [Hardcover]

Jacqueline Lichtenberg (Author), Jean Lorrah (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 10, 2004

The saga of humanity's destiny... Following a cataclysm, humanity has been divided into two mutant forms: the Simes and the Gens. Gens consider themselves to be the true humans, with little outward change, but their bodies produce selyn, an energy that Simes can't live without. The stronger and faster Simes develop the means to extract selyn from the Gens, a method that kills the Gen in the process. Gen communities are raided by Simes, the Gens rounded up and held in pens for Simes to use when needed. This is the saga of how these two disparate peoples learn to live as one. Sime~Gen: The Unity Trilogy presents three classic novels of the future struggle of humanity: In House of Zeor by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Hugh Valleroy, a Gen, must rescue the woman he loves from Sime raiders. To do so, he must learn to cooperate with and trust a renegade Sime, leader of the infamous House of Zeor. In Ambrov Keon by Jean Lorrah, Risa Tigue, having just witnessed her father's death in a hurricane, stumbles upon a Gen man who saves her life and discovers that she is much more than what she seems. Can she admit the truth of this discovery? In Zelerod's Doom by Lichtenberg and Lorrah, Gen numbers are dwindling, which spells the end of Simes as well. As Gens rise up to fight back against the tyranny of the Simes, the two must find a way to live together or both will be destroyed. Sime~Gen: The Unity Trilogy kicks off a massive six-book series, featuring the reprints of all eight classic Sime~Gen novels as well as brand new novels and short stories. The Unity Trilogy will be followed in July of 2004 with the first new Sime~Gen novel in over 20 years, To Kiss or to Kill by Jean Lorrah! The Unity Trilogy will be available in both hard cover and soft cover. The hard covers will be shipped with a beautiful bookplate designed by Sime~Gen art director Patric Michael and autographed by Jean and Jacqueline!

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

"We consider ourselves a unique collaborating team since we work very differently from each other, yet easily rewrite each others prose to seamless effect. Though we disagree, often emphatically, we argue heatedly but never fight. How did this team amalgamate?

"Jacqueline Lichtenberg created the Sime~Gen premise while in high school, but refined that premise for over 10 years before selling the stories in her twenties. But under the impact of Jean Lorrah's creativity the premise matured.

"Jean Lorrah first learned of Jacqueline's Sime~Gen novel House of Zeor when a fan of Jean's Star Trek fan novel, The Night of the Twin Moons (NTM) sent Jean a copy of House of Zeor. Jean was so enthralled that she read it twice through in one weekend, and then wrote a review for a popular Star Trek fanzine.

"Jacqueline asked for it to be reprinted in the first of the Sime~Gen fanzines. Whereupon Jean bombarded Jacqueline with more critiques and questions. In response, Jacqueline sent Jean the working manuscript of Unto Zeor, Forever.

"Small but critical changes in UZ, F represent Jean's first influence on the Sime~Gen Universe. Unto Zeor, Foreverwent on to become Jacqueline's first award winning novel. Collaboration began in earnest with Jean's novel, First Channel."

Product Details

• Hardcover: 752 pages
• Publisher: Meisha Merlin Publishing, Inc.; 1st MM Pub. Ed edition (November 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592220029
• ISBN-13: 978-1592220021
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,252,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm a professional sf/f writer, and a Life Member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. (sfwa.org) I'm also a member of EPIC, The Electronic Publishing Industry Coalition, and Backlist eBooks, a group of widely published writers presenting their own previously published work in eBook format.

My first novel, House of Zeor, first of the Sime~Gen novels, was published in hc in 1974 and remained continually in print for 20 years.

Today the series has been picked up by Wildside Press, Borgo imprint, re-issued as both e-book in a wide variety of formats including Kindle, and as Print on Demand. In addition brand new, never before published novels are included, and all are presented numbered in publication order.

Like Star Trek fandom, Sime~Gen fandom has produced more fanfiction than ever was professionally published -- and RPG's and LARPS and board games, and hand-crafts, and art, and poetry - and even a professionally written and recorded song.

My works in other universes are likewise coming in new formats, and brand new novels will be added through Wildside Press.

Watch for audiobook versions via audible.com which will appear here on Amazon. The first of my novels to be recorded as an audiobook is Molt Brother, which has a direct sequel City of a Million Legends. Both those are newly available as e-books on Kindle and other formats, as well as in paper.

A vampire-romance, Those of My Blood and its sequel Dreamspy are available in paper again, at regular not collector's prices, right here on Amazon.

After selling several Sime~Gen novels to hardcover, I was joined by Jean Lorrah (author of many Trek novels, as well as her own series of fantasy novels, Savage Empire). Jean's first novel was our Sime~Gen collaboration titled First Channel. We are now co-owners of Sime~Gen Inc. which owns simegen.com

I'm the originator of the term Intimate Adventure, quoted in Publisher's Weekly. All my novels belong to the Intimate Adventure genre, as do those of Jean Lorrah.

I am the sf/f book reviewer for The Monthly Aspectarian and my column is archived on simegen.com/reviews/. There you'll find a link to an article showing the Star Trek Connection behind everything to do with Sime~Gen and simegen.com.

The first two columns have an in-depth definition of Intimate Adventure with examples by many authors across many fields. Intimate Adventure is the Hidden Genre -- everyone loves it, nobody (especially publishers) knows it exists.

You'll find links to all my online projects on my personal page, simegen.com/jl/ or select information about currently available novels on jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Symbiosis Out of Balance, March 16, 2004

By 

Wendy C. Darling (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sime~Gen: The Unity Trilogy (Paperback)

The Unity Trilogy is a book that landed in my lap -- nearly literally! I swear, I showed up one night for the writers' group I'm in and my friend Alan was there with a white box. "Hey, remember how I mentioned we could maybe use you as a proofreader?" he asked, before handing over the box. Inside were three manuscripts, since it was a trilogy being republished as an omnibus by Meisha Merlin. A couple of weeks later, I went to start proofing and boom, I was totally hooked by the first page!

So what is Sime~Gen about?

Let see... Set some centuries in the future, Sime~Gen has the human race divided (through either evolution or genetic manipulation, nobody knows) into two groups: Simes and Gens. Both groups basically look the same, but there is one big difference which dominates all goings-on between them: Simes have tentacles on their arms and need selyn to survive, while Gens don't have tentacles and produce selyn. Selyn isn't any type of bodily fluid but an invisible life force almost like chi, which builds up naturally in Gens but whose absence in Simes will kill them if they go more than a month.

Ever since the mutation divided the species, Simes and Gens have understandably been at war. In Sime-controlled territories, Gens are raised in pens like animals and bought and sold like they're food - stripped of their selyn and tossed away. In Gen-dominated territories, by contrast, there is a saying that "The only good Sime is a dead Sime." And what makes it scary is that Gens can have Sime children and vice versa - nobody knows until they hit puberty. If Gens have Sime children, they kill them, and when Simes have them, they can of course kill them or sell them to Gen dealers.

This is the basic set up of the trilogy and the plot, as it develop, involves efforts on part of Simes and Gens to overcome all the prejudice and enmity and achieve unity. After all, if Simes kill all the Gens, they'll die, and it's already a given than Gens can't kill all the Simes.

None of this is explained in boring history lessons, but laid out in the stories of individuals. In House of Zeor the story centers of a Gen named Hugh Valleroy, who goes on a dangerous, secret assignment into Sime territory in order to rescue an important Gen official who also happens to be his girlfriend. (Yes, this sounds cheesy and it sort of is.) Hugh doesn't infiltrate Sime territory on his own, however, but instead is paired up with Klyd Farris, head of the titular House of Zeor. Even though Hugh has actually grown up as a Sime sympathizer (who expected he'd "changeover" at puberty), he's never been to Sime territory and arrives completely unprepared for what he finds.

House of Zeor is a "householding" which, running again most prevailing laws and attitudes, is a community where Simes and Gens live in harmony. Harmony is achieved by a special kind of Sime called a Channel. Unlike regular Simes, Channels don't need to kill Gens to get the selyn they need. Channels have two "selyn transport systems" and can collect selyn from dozens of Gens, just like milking cows almost, and then go to Simes, who then take the selyn - instead of killing Gens. Channels also have selyn needs of their own, of course, and for that reason, and because they're just so important to householdings, each Channel has a Companion. Companions, Hugh learns, are Gens who produce an extraordinarily large quantity of selyn and are able to give their selyn freely to serve the appetite of the Channel. Little does Hugh know that he's natural Companion material - for Klyd, the head channel of House of Zeor!

There's an awful lot of plot over the course of these three books. House of Zeor is a dive into the world of Simes and Gens and follows the story of Hugh and Klyd, while the middle book, Ambrov Keon, takes place in another part of the world. It centers on another householding, Keon, starting with the arrival of Risa Tigue, a "junct" (killing) Sime who stumbles upon a householding and learns she is a Channel. Risa has a lot to learn and although she fights it, she ends up being a big part of bringing her corner of the world towards unity. The final book, Zelerod's Doom, brings Hugh and Klyd together with the cast of of Ambrov Keon for a battle that eventually achieves the beginning of what gets to be called Unity - the day Simes and Gens begin to forge a truce. This story gets deeper into some of the relationships, in particular Hugh and Klyd's, and reveals a race struggling to figure out what they are about and how they can survive.

One thing I'll say about these books is that although I did enjoy them quite a lot, the writing style, plotting and other bits of it can get to sounding cheesy. It certainly isn't the sort of rich descriptive narrative I'm used to reading (Storm Constantine, Ursula Le Guin). Instead, it's more the kind of writing you'd find in a Star Trek book, which makes a lot of sense since the authors are huge Star Trek fans and have, in fact, written Star Trek novels. This doesn't stop the books from being enjoyable, but I think it is something that needs to be noted, in case a reader is expecting great literature.

Since reading Sime~Gen I have found myself wanting to read more and luckily, there is more to read, not only more books, which Meisha Merlin will be publishing over the next few years, but whole novels already online and a huge load of fan fiction, which the authors are OK with and even host on their own web site. I am so glad Alan handed me that white box!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my Longtime Favorites, November 21, 2003

By 

Alicia Shank (Mesa, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sime~Gen: The Unity Trilogy (Hardcover)

When you open the cover, you first "see" (visualize) two army professionals nervously awaiting a meeting with some type of spy. As yet, there is little hint that you have entered a world where emotions become real flaring beacons, where actually destroying the people you love the best is a literal possibility, and where philosophical questions take on a new depth of tangibility and beauty. The characterization brought me to these books the first time, and kept me reading as I struggled through the trick of reasoning within an alien world (a mental challenge that is incredibly attractive to science fiction readers). House of Zeor (the first book in the trilogy) has a point of view character who is also unfamiliar with the key concepts, so it makes a good starting place, and I caught on just by reading. There is a world of incredible beauty and fascination between these covers. They remain some of my favorite books (over five years after my first introduction to House of Zeor), and I am very pleased that they are finally republished. Keep on reading even through the alien words like "zlin" and "field gradient" --trust me, it's worth it. You meet people like Klyd Farris, who has a "brittle strength" and more courage than I can fathom; Risa Tigue, who says the funniest things; Muryin and Virena, two girls who come from almost opposite interpretations--and you unveil philosophical questions that seem so simple at first glance, but continue to develop and deepen, and finally remain unresolved--but tantalizing and invigorating. I would highly recommend this trilogy--probably because I still read it!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When fear is a capital offense, August 9, 2003

By 

"cas6854" (La Mirada, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sime~Gen: The Unity Trilogy (Paperback)

As true, classic science fiction, the Sime~Gen Universe examines a "What if this goes on" question relating to the current human condition: Fear (of pain, of loss) permeates our lives. What if humanity mutated in such a way that our very physiology made fear a death sentence--for individuals, whole societies, and even the race itself? When what was required for survival was not just *control* of fear, but deep *lack* of fear--complete trust between people. This is the situation faced by the characters in the three novels making up the Unity Trilogy.

These novels are simple, involving *stories*, with adventure, romance, and deeply moving relationships. If you like "buddy stories", if in your life you find yourself reaching for unusually, unexpectedly deep friendships regardless of age or gender, if you somehow feel a tremendous need to give, if you see a pattern of relationships and energies in the world that others fail to see ... this book will speak to you.

I've read all the Sime~Gen novels, am tremendously pleased to see them coming back into print, beginning with the Unity Trilogy, and am looking forward to reading the new stories now being written.