LICHTENBERG, Jacqueline

(1942-)

   US writer who began publishing sf with "Operation High Time" for Worlds of If in 1969, but soon concentrated on fan fiction set in the OPEN UNIVERSE permitted by the owners of STAR TREK; Star Trek Lives! (1975) with Sondra MARSHAK and Joan Winston is a famous nonfiction description of the early days of Star Trek fandom. Her first book was House of Zeor (1974), the initial volume of the Sime/Gen sequence, also an open-universeseries, which continued with Unto Zeor, Forever (1978), First Channel (1980) with Jean LORRAH, Mahogany Trinrose (1981), Channel's Destiny(1982) with Lorrah, RenSime (1984) and Zelerod's Doom (1986) with Lorrah. The series is set 1000 years after a mutation has split the human race into Gens and Simes; the latter survive by sucking life force ("selyn") from the former, a process that is fatal unless effected through a specially mutated Sime called a Channel. First Channel and Channel's Destiny describe the first appearance of Channels in a society which hasbeen reduced to near-barbarism by undeclared war between the two subspecies. House of Zeor and later volumes (in terms of internal chronology) follow the gradual evolution of a compromise, and move toward a sense that the two subspecies together may form a whole greater than the sum of the parts. The considerable success of the series may be partially due to the sexual connotations of the Sime/Gen relationship, particularly the Simes' use of remarkably phallic tentacles to (sometimes forcibly) acquire selyn.A second sequence, the Molt Brothers series - Molt Brother (1982) and City of a Million Legends (1985) - deals with relationshipsbetween humans and members of a reptilian species (the Kren) who must choose special companions to guard them when they moult. The Dushau trilogy - Dushau (1985), Farfetch (1985) and Outreach (1986) - tells the story of a rebellion against a repressive galactic empire by the human heroine and a group of alien empaths who establish rapport with planetary ecologies.Although JL's prose is sometimes undistinguished and her backgrounds are routine, she has acquired many dedicated readers through writing about intensely emotional cross-species relationships based on mutual affection and need.

   NT

   Other works: Those of My Blood (1988) and its sequel, Dreamspy (1989).

   See also: ECOLOGY.