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sgoldin · 01-11-2011, 09:33 PM

Jade Darcy is a carc--a computer-augmented reflex commando. The Army has embedded a computer in her spine. This, combined with exhaustive training, has speeded her reflexes until she's faster than any normal human--or most other races in the known galaxy. Even by herself she's a precision fighting force, the best the human race can produce.

But whether Jade is exactly human any more may be open to debate. For the past 5 years she's lived on the transfer planet Cablans, with only aliens for company. Hiding away from other humans--and especially the Army--she finds nonhumans the norm in her life...until, one day, another Earthwoman comes to Cablans and Jade is forced to confront the core of her own being.

There are two books (so far) in the story of Jade Darcy: Jade Darcy and the Affair of Honor and Jade Darcy and the Zen Pirates. Since her first appearance in the late 1980s, she's garnered a host of devoted fans--including Hugo- and Nebula-Award-winning author Spider Robinson, who said upon the books' republication a decade ago:

A LEGEND RETURNS

Long before there were any buffed Xenas or xenophobic Buffies in the pantheon of fighting females, there existed a remarkable woman warrior named Jade Darcy: a computer-assisted mercenary so formidable and so smart that the Dark Angel, Friday and the Bionic Woman together would have hesitated to piss her off--yet so emotionally mixed up that she broke your heart. Even better: unlike any of those ladies just named, this jade's adventures were most definitely not rated PG. Indeed it was her creators' deep insight into female sexuality and spirituality, as much as their mastery of action scenes, that gave Jade Darcy an uncommon plausibility, a realness, so often missing in other woman-warrior fictions. The restoration to print of the two volumes of the Rehumanization of Jade Darcy series is long overdue, and most welcome; you'll have to go a long way to find a more addictive heroine.

More books are planned in the series, but progress is slow. A prequel, Jade Darcy: Run Out of West, is about half finished in rough draft; that story is set 5 years before Affair and shows Jade's arrival and first few days on Cablans.

You can buy the books in both paperback and multiple ebook formats through my online bookstore, Parsina Press. I hope you'll meet Jade and get to love her as much as Mary and I do.

01-11-2011, 09:33 PM	#1
sgoldin SF/Fantasy Author Posts: 297 Karma: 214264 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: San Ramon,California, USA Device: Adobe Digital Editions	The Rehumanization of Jade Darcy--science fiction by Stephen Goldin and Mary Mason Jade Darcy is a carc--a computer-augmented reflex commando. The Army has embedded a computer in her spine. This, combined with exhaustive training, has speeded her reflexes until she's faster than any normal human--or most other races in the known galaxy. Even by herself she's a precision fighting force, the best the human race can produce. But whether Jade is exactly human any more may be open to debate. For the past 5 years she's lived on the transfer planet Cablans, with only aliens for company. Hiding away from other humans--and especially the Army--she finds nonhumans the norm in her life...until, one day, another Earthwoman comes to Cablans and Jade is forced to confront the core of her own being. There are two books (so far) in the story of Jade Darcy: Jade Darcy and the Affair of Honor and Jade Darcy and the Zen Pirates. Since her first appearance in the late 1980s, she's garnered a host of devoted fans--including Hugo- and Nebula-Award-winning author Spider Robinson, who said upon the books' republication a decade ago: A LEGEND RETURNS Long before there were any buffed Xenas or xenophobic Buffies in the pantheon of fighting females, there existed a remarkable woman warrior named Jade Darcy: a computer-assisted mercenary so formidable and so smart that the Dark Angel, Friday and the Bionic Woman together would have hesitated to piss her off--yet so emotionally mixed up that she broke your heart. Even better: unlike any of those ladies just named, this jade's adventures were most definitely not rated PG. Indeed it was her creators' deep insight into female sexuality and spirituality, as much as their mastery of action scenes, that gave Jade Darcy an uncommon plausibility, a realness, so often missing in other woman-warrior fictions. The restoration to print of the two volumes of the Rehumanization of Jade Darcy series is long overdue, and most welcome; you'll have to go a long way to find a more addictive heroine. More books are planned in the series, but progress is slow. A prequel, Jade Darcy: Run Out of West, is about half finished in rough draft; that story is set 5 years before Affair and shows Jade's arrival and first few days on Cablans. You can buy the books in both paperback and multiple ebook formats through my online bookstore, Parsina Press. I hope you'll meet Jade and get to love her as much as Mary and I do.