It’s amazing some of the things people have done out of spite. Like how Lamborghini started making sports cars to piss off the owner of Ferrari. Or how Sony made the PlayStation after Nintendo backed out of a deal for them to make CD-Rom drives for a Nintendo game console.
Well, it looks like there’s another one for the list: Kimberly Lemming’s science fiction / romantic comedy novel I Got Abducted By Aliens And Now I’m Trapped In A Rom-Com (paperback, Kindle, audiobook).
And yes, as she explains in the following email interview, the title is part of the spite process.
To start, what is I Got Abducted By Aliens And Now I’m Trapped In A Rom-Com about, and when and where does it take place?
I honestly can’t tell you anything much without spoiling it, so I’ll say it does what it says on the tin. A Wildlife biologist gets abducted by aliens and ends up on a strange planet she later names Waffles.
Where did you get the idea for I Got Abducted By Aliens And Now I’m Trapped In A Rom-Com, and how different is the finished story from what you originally conceived?
The idea started as “a call my bluff” pitch to another publisher. A while back, I got approached by a publisher who wanted to buy a new series from me, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay indie, or step a little deeper into traditional publishing.
Around the same time, some folks on twitter were raising a stink about me putting “Yeet” in the title of That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted A Love Potion At A Werewolf. I am both petty and spiteful, so I took it as a challenge immediately decided to double down and write a book so ridiculous and over the top with chaos and millennial humor that it would piss them off twice as much, and the publisher would have to turn it down. Then I’d self-publish it, as I cannot be stopped.
As you can imagine, this led to a lot of evil cackling during the first plotting session. In the end I decided on an alien conservation planet created by an underfunded research department who outsourced a lot of the work to AI. Then I made it a poly romance and threw in a talking lion just for some added sugar and thought to myself, “Perfect! There’s no way anyone will say yes to this!”
Plot twist: Berkley said yes.
The story hasn’t really changed much from its original concept. Which is fine by me, I had a lot of fun with this one.
The planet that Dory and Toto crash land onto has dinosaurs. Why dinosaurs as opposed to just lizard-like aliens or some other kind of dangerous fauna? Or flora, for that matter? You ever grab a rose? Those thorns are no joke.
The planet was terraformed by an underfunded Biwbanian research team who cut corners wherever they could. Which included their research into human environments. They wanted to make Waffles a decent replica of Earth so the humans could assimilate easily enough. But instead of taking the time to sort out how we live, they just let their computers scan the planet and located a few buildings with a high concentration of Earth DNA. Which led them to scan DNA from The Academy Of Natural Sciences Of Drexel University, The American Museum Of Natural History, and The Wagner Free Institute, all of which have dinosaur exhibits.
It sounds like I Got Abducted By Aliens And Now I’m Trapped In A Rom-Com is a science fiction story, as well as a romantic comedy. Are there any other genres at work in this story?
Probably action if you don’t count that under the umbrella of sci-fi. Theres a lot of dinosaur fights going on. When I felt the story was lagging I’d occasionally just throw a brontosaurus at them and said “here, figure it out.”
Now, the leading lady is Dorothy, the lion’s name is Toto, and the tagline on the cover says, “Lions and dinosaurs and sexy aliens, oh my!” I’m going to go out on a limb and say this story may have been somewhat influenced by The Wizard Of Oz. But was it more influenced by the movie or by L. Frank Baum’s original novel, The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz?
Neither. I named her after Dorothy Vaughan, the American mathematician and human computer who worked for the (NACA), and NASA. I thought it would be cool to name my first space faring heroine after a famous black scientist, and of course, since the name Dorothy also worked as a woman thrust into a strange new world, I decided to run with The Wizard Of Oz jokes and named the lion Toto.
As you indicated, I Got Abducted By Aliens And Now I’m Trapped In A Rom-Com is not your first novel. Are there any other authors, or specific stories, that had a big influence on Rom-Com but not on anything else you’ve written?
Ruby Dixon is the queen of alien romance in my humble opinion, and I think had a big hand in shaping the genre.
What about non-literary influences? Was I Got Abducted By Aliens And Now I’m Trapped In A Rom-Com influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games?
Meerkat Manor and Steve Irwin. I’ve always loved watching Animal Planet growing up (before all that “surprisingly human” crap) and I really got to explore that love through Dory’s eyes in this book. Theres just something really magical about how the world works, and it was fun to twist the laws of nature to make this haphazard planet.
Now, on your website, I Got Abducted By Aliens And Now I’m Trapped In A Rom-Com is listed in the “Books” section under the heading “Cosmic Chaos.” Does that mean it’s the first book in a new series called Cosmic Chaos?
Yes! I’m currently drafting the second book between Blair and Osid.
So, what are your plans for this series? Like, will it be an ongoing thing or a set number of books like a trilogy, and why will it be whatever it will be?
So far we’ve only planned to release two in this series, but I doubt I’ll be done with the series after only two books.
Right now all I have are working titles, and this may change in the future, but right now the second book is called I Got Abducted By Aliens And I’m Gonna Make It Everyone’s Problem. The second book with be some much-needed marriage counseling between Blair and Osid. [SPOILER ALERT] They don’t exactly end on a happy note in book 1, so they’ve got a lot of ground to cover before they can get there happily ever after. At the same time, the Biwbans are getting audited due to suspected abuse of funding. Which leads me to the third book: I Got Abducted By Aliens And I Might Be Entitled To Compensation.
I think they have plans to release book 2 in late 2025 or early 2026. No clue on the third one.
Earlier I asked if I Got Abducted By Aliens And Now I’m Trapped In A Rom-Com was influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games. But to flip things around, do you think Rom-Com could work as a movie, a TV show, or a game?
I think it could be a funny TV show if all three future books are included. Book 2 goes into more detail of what happened to Blair and Osid while Dory was off galivanting with her group, and I could see it interconnecting in a really fun way. The third book about the lawsuit would tie the ending together. Ideally it would get an animated series like The Legend Of Vox Machina. But that’s mostly because I have a degree in animation and it would make my nerd heart sing if I ever got my own anime.
And if you did get your own anime, who would you want them to cast as Dory and the other main characters?
I’ll be honest, I don’t know the first thing about actors and actresses, so here are the results of my frantic google search.
Dory: Alexandra Shipp [Barbie]
Sol: Kelvin Harrison, Jr. [Elvis]
Toto: Snoop Dog
Lok: Aaron Pierre [The Underground Railroad]
Intern: Chris Tucker [Rush Hour]
Blair: Amy Love from [the band] Nova Twins
Osid: Michael B. Jordan [Black Panther]
Finally, if someone enjoys I Got Abducted By Aliens And Now I’m Trapped In A Rom-Com, what sci-fi rom-com novel or novella of someone else’s would you suggest they check out?
Anything by Ruby Dixon or Elizabeth Stephens; Ruby for cutesy and fun, Elizabeth for darker romances.
