You know what I'm dreading most about writing a science fiction story? No, not the worldbuilding or the fear of turning off an audience...
Updating the title for this site.
I actually spent most of my reading life buried in fantasy and science fiction. Romance was a later discovery. (I was sufficiently humiliated by fantasy bookcovers to wrap them in paper when reading them in school—seriously, why does a masterpiece by Zelazny get this? [amazon.com]—and I can't imagine what the teasing would have been like had I brought certain luridly illustrated romance novels to school.) Naturally there were romantic threads in many of those sf/f stories, and they were frustratingly brief or only thinly fleshed out. It was lovely to discover that there were books that revolved entirely around romance while set in fabulous settings.
I think there is a line between romantic sf/f and sf/f romance, though. A few stories straddle this line rather gracefully. But the majority of romances use elements that, frankly, most sf/f fans or editors would maybe deign to give a haughty sniff at before turning away. There are exceptions—good writers follow the rules; great writers break 'em—but I'm frustrated when sf romance follows the Star Trek template (humanoid aliens abound, with whom we can have sex), or when fantasy romance is essentially Dragonlance (half-elves!). One sf review venue was accepting of an award-winning sf romance, but mentioned how its world came "off-the-shelf." That's how I feel—details may change, but really the parts are interchangable. This alien for that one.
Recently I found myself at The Galaxy Express [galaxyexpress.net], which was started by someone who began as an sf reader and veered into romance. I'm not an utter fan of all the recommendations there, but there's intelligent discourse about the fledgling state of this hybrid genre, and I'm looking forward to reading more.