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Black Leopard, Red Wolf has a gay male protagonist, but I'm not sure I could call Tracker and Leopard's relationship a romance (although I still haven't read Moon Witch, Spider King yet so maybe things take a turn in there).
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Jan 6, 2024 20:11
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My main source of Intel about good, queer SFF is Elias over at Bar Cart Bookshelf, I think he's made it his life's mission to cheerlead for every gay book he can get his hands on. He's responsible for me reading Spear Cuts Through Water, and is basically a constant flow of solid recs. I don't know if he exclusively talks about queer books, but I know he's really vocal about M/M, and I'm willing to give anything he praises a shot.
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Jan 6, 2024 20:29
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StrixNebulosa posted:So I got excited and wrote up a giant wall of text reviewing one of my favorite books: I read this whole post and just ordered the first book in paperback (because I read hard copy) and if you're right about how good the series is, your recommendation will end up occupying a whole shelf in my house. I'm not saying not to post like that again, but please pace yourself. The local store I got my last set of bookcases from has gone out of business.
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Jan 6, 2024 20:32
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StrixNebulosa posted:What I remember is that there aren't as many dragons as you'd want. It was mostly focused on fantasy politics, and in a lot of ways the dragons aren't characters or monsters, but rather a resource for the countries to dicker over. Dang. I was really hoping for more dragons. dwarf74 posted:I looked into it recently but it is apparently pretty goddamn rapey! I read it many years ago but have decided not to revisit it. Ok, I will... just stay the course and continue to admire the Whelan covers only. Thanks for the heads up.
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Jan 6, 2024 21:17
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Well Legends and Lattes was a loving delightful light read. It felt a lot like some of Ursula Vernon/T.Kingfisher's works except cozier and more overtly drawing on DnD convention than generalized fairy tales. There is nothing at all complex or thought-provoking and I still had a great time reading it curled up under blankets on a snowy day.
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Jan 6, 2024 21:48
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VostokProgram posted:I can't say I have a good explanation, but I have noticed the same thing. Where's scifi Jean Genet??? It's no Genet - which is definitely a gap - but Kai Ashante Wilson's Sorcerer of the Wildeeps is a good one and The Taste of Honey is explicitly a M/M romance that joyfully turns some stuff on its head. He doesn't seem to have anything out all that recently though. Hal Duncan's also worth a look, though again he hasn't published anything in nearly a decade... Ink isn't bad and Susurrus on Mars is a lovely SF novella about two stupid young dudes in love on Mars.
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Jan 6, 2024 22:03
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GhastlyBizness posted:Hal Duncan's also worth a look, though again he hasn't published anything in nearly a decade... Ink isn't bad and Susurrus on Mars is a lovely SF novella about two stupid young dudes in love on Mars. I'm only a couple of pages into Susurrus and I'll already happily second the recommendation.
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Jan 6, 2024 22:08
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For gay male SFF, Mark Gatiss (yes, of Sherlock and other TV fame) has a trilogy of spy novels (Vesuvius Club, Devil in Amber, Black Butterfly) that are softly steampunk/magical/spy-fi. The main character is a bisexual Edwardian male spy who has sex with both men and women. Also not quite what's asked for but I'll also mention Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White, a sort of post-apocalyptic cult novel whose main character is a trans man who has sex with a cis male.
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Jan 6, 2024 22:13
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Stuporstar posted:There’s pretty central gay romance in the Archive Undying, Everina Maxwell’s scifi series, Witchmark (the first book—the next two switch pov but the first book’s characters still have a role)… Off the top of my head, you can add at least one of Ursula Vernon's Saint of Steel books, Yoon Ha Lee's Hexarchate 3.5ilogy, and Klune's Cerulean Sea to the pile. I definitely read more books with lesbians in them but that's because I am personally biased towards them.
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Jan 6, 2024 22:14
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Narsham posted:I read this whole post and just ordered the first book in paperback (because I read hard copy) and if you're right about how good the series is, your recommendation will end up occupying a whole shelf in my house. I feel this post so much
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Jan 6, 2024 22:35
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Richard Morgan's A Land Fit For Heroes trilogy has three protagonists. One of them is a gay man, one is a gay woman, one is a hetero man. Unfortunately it's a setting where being gay is definitely frowned upon, so while there's representation there, I can't say readers will find it comforting. Great books, though, absolutely mad. I am gonzo over the sword whose full name is practically a poem.quote:I am Welcomed in the Home of Ravens and Other Scavengers in the Wake of Warriors. I am Friend to Carrion Crows and Wolves. I am Carry Me and Kill with Me, and Die with Me Where the Road Ends. I am not the Honeyed Promise of Length of Life in Years to Come, I am the Iron Promise of Never Being a Slave. You can call it the Ravensfriend for short.
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Jan 6, 2024 22:47
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I’ve enjoyed Morgan’s stuff, but for a guy who writes body-swapping transhuman fiction to be a TERF is pretty unforgivable.
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Jan 6, 2024 22:55
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Velius posted:I’ve enjoyed Morgan’s stuff, but for a guy who writes body-swapping transhuman fiction to be a TERF is pretty unforgivable. I wasn't aware that he was a TERF but it looks confirmed. Damnit. Milkshake ducked again. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. The anger in Market Forces was so pervasive, so baked in to the protagonist's world, that I found myself feeling a sort of general global anger myself, by the time I finished it. If that's his anger leaking out, he's not the first person who found punching down to be an easier outlet than punching up. Not that "I was angry" excuses anything. Quite the opposite, really.
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Jan 6, 2024 23:21
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Velius posted:I’ve enjoyed Morgan’s stuff, but for a guy who writes body-swapping transhuman fiction to be a TERF is pretty unforgivable. Altered Carbon pretty clearly presents the sleeves and stacks as a horrifying and dehumanizing technology. But dude shouldn't be a TERF regardless of how he feels about (further) turning human bodies into disposable commodities.
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Jan 6, 2024 23:24
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Zorak of Michigan posted:Richard Morgan's A Land Fit For Heroes trilogy has three protagonists. One of them is a gay man, one is a gay woman, one is a hetero man. Unfortunately it's a setting where being gay is definitely frowned upon, so while there's representation there, I can't say readers will find it comforting. Great books, though, absolutely mad. I am gonzo over the sword whose full name is practically a poem. If we're reaching back to stuff that wasn't published recently, we can also add the Silence Leah trilogy (Melissa Scott), a bunch of Bard Bloom's work, and some stuff by Mercedes Lackey, again just off the top of my head without actually looking at my shelves -- but I thought Remulak et al were specifically discussing recent trends in SFF.
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Jan 6, 2024 23:39
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Chairman Capone posted:For gay male SFF, Mark Gatiss (yes, of Sherlock and other TV fame) has a trilogy of spy novels (Vesuvius Club, Devil in Amber, Black Butterfly) that are softly steampunk/magical/spy-fi. The main character is a bisexual Edwardian male spy who has sex with both men and women. This is absolutely my poo poo so thank you for the rec!!
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Jan 6, 2024 23:43
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Oh yeah Amberlough (I have not yet read the sequels) is also very much in that vein. It's not really magic at all? But it's alternate world Weimer glitz spy thriller kind of stuff, and very much gay mail protagonist.
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Jan 6, 2024 23:52
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Ugh, disappointing that Richard Morgan is a bigot, I was also going to recommend that series.
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Jan 7, 2024 00:12
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habeasdorkus posted:Ugh, disappointing that Richard Morgan is a bigot, I was also going to recommend that series. You still can, through the magic of libraries and 
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Jan 7, 2024 01:39
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Kestral posted:You still can, through the magic of libraries and Or buying used books!
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Jan 7, 2024 02:06
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They're not worth recommending even if you ignore his TERFiness, the world-building is entirely nonsensical.
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Jan 7, 2024 02:38
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I'm 40% through House of Open Wounds, and by drat Tchaikovsky is on fire with this one.
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Jan 7, 2024 03:16
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I'm reminded both of LeGuin's statement "it is easier to imagine the end.of the world than the end of capitalism" and the lines in Disco Elysium about how capitalism absorbs and commodifies all critiques of itself. I don't think that was LeGuin. I think it's generally attributed to either Zizek or Jameson, and sometimes Mark Fisher. Gesturing vaguely at my title, but I inadvertently named a character 'Mark Fisher' in Shadow and no one's ever picked up on the reference.
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Jan 7, 2024 03:40
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Altered Carbon was pretty good but everything else is kinda aggressively meh. Even the WE BUILT THE MEANEST POSSIBLE HUMAN FROM THE EDITED DNA TO MAKE THE PERFECT BLAH BLAH BLAH only for it to just be a black guy. That felt like a swing and a miss. When GI Joe does something better than you as a kids cartoon, that should be a sign. Was the fantasy the one where the gay dude has faerie sex with an elf and whoops missed a duel and the most loved cousin(or something, can't recall) is now dead because I was getting my hams splashed?
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Jan 7, 2024 05:34
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I loved Altered Carbon, I was twenty, it took my newfound love of noir(particularly Chandler at the time) and put it in a blender with my favorite genre since before I could read. At the time I was hoping Land Fit for Heroes was just gonna be him pulling off the same trick with fantasy, and I still kind of wish it was. I ended up having fun with the trilogy, I remember almost nothing about it except parts reminded me of Morrowind which is no bad thing. I used to read his blog back when the internet wasn't quite so. . . centralized and some Altered Carbon stan sent him some hate mail after he hit the first gay scene in The Steel Remains and Morgan went off on him, just absolutely read him for filth, told him he didn't need his money or his fandom. It seemed refreshing. Then right around the time Rowling showed her rear end he jumped right up there too and well gently caress TERFs so gently caress him. I'll never understand it. Anyways the second Planetfall book by Emma Newman, After Atlas is a loving fantastic sci fi mystery. I've been lurking in this thread a while and I don't recall that book/series coming up. If anybody's got recommendations for anything like that I'd gladly take em.
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Jan 7, 2024 07:17
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I don't remember adding it but I just noticed one of the Kindle books on my Amazon wishlist is now completely free. Seems to be worldwide. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cryopunk-Stephen-Willis-ebook/dp/B08R99HR8B
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Jan 7, 2024 09:57
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Altered Carbon was pretty good but everything else is kinda aggressively meh. Even the WE BUILT THE MEANEST POSSIBLE HUMAN FROM THE EDITED DNA TO MAKE THE PERFECT BLAH BLAH BLAH only for it to just be a black guy. That felt like a swing and a miss. When GI Joe does something better than you as a kids cartoon, that should be a sign. Altered Carbon was good, but all the other books are pretty much the same, only slightly worse. You don't actually have to roll an intimidate check in every dialogue for all POV characters. That was finally what got me to drop his fantasy series. The multiple POV characters just made it really obvious how little range there was.
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Jan 7, 2024 14:11
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Amberlough is high on the interwar glitz and cabaret scene, but I'd say very light on any actual spying or underworld dealings. The final third was really good, but the first two seemed quite aimless and never really established whether / why not-the-Nazis were a threat (except that as the audience you know who they're standing in for and that it's the 1930s).
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Jan 7, 2024 15:44
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Strategic Tea posted:Amberlough is high on the interwar glitz and cabaret scene, but I'd say very light on any actual spying or underworld dealings. Interesting, how has the author managed to signal that they're not-nazis without revealing something that shows that they're an in-universe threat? That seems like a very specific failure.
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Jan 7, 2024 17:18
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I haven't finished the series yet, but to its credit the Baru Cormorant books does give some space to the idea that trying to change systems from the inside is a doomed premise, and that this promise is just one way empire subsumes and coopts critical voices and revolutionary energy. Of course, there's the implication that Baru Cormorant might succeed regardless because she's just that gifted, or because her position, evidence to the contrary, is morally superior somehow. That would be a terribly "lib-brained" ending to be sure. I am almost halfway through the third book and it has become a bit of a slog. I feel like the story and character arc has completed and we should be wrapping things up, but the repetition of story beats seems to be some sort of device. I am curious how it will stick the landing, but if it turns out to be "what if Kissinger was a lesbian of color" I will be annoyed.
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Jan 7, 2024 17:50
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Strategic Tea posted:Amberlough is high on the interwar glitz and cabaret scene, but I'd say very light on any actual spying or underworld dealings. Good to know that I'm in for an eh second book but a great third book, I guess! I thought there was enough spying, but I also don't need a huge amount for it to land. No Declare, for sure, or actual Le Carre.
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Jan 7, 2024 17:58
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VostokProgram posted:Interesting, how has the author managed to signal that they're not-nazis without revealing something that shows that they're an in-universe threat? That seems like a very specific failure. So they're very obviously the nazis but no one in the extremely queer cabaret scene seems to give a drat about their growing influence. One of the protagonists works in an intelligence office where everyone talks about how they have no popular support and the status quo is secure. The only supporters we see are a street preacher and some industrialists from the hinterlands who are introduced as bankrupt and begging for finance. I don't think we're shown them doing a single thing to threaten or intimidate until the last third of the book when they get elected anyway. I don't think the author was going for dramatic irony though because the spy protagonist permanently flips to work for them on being told "no we're gonna win the election and things will be very bad for you if you don't cooperate". So he's clearly appropriately scared, but it never comes across in his narration otherwise. Strategic Tea fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Jan 7, 2024 |
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Jan 7, 2024 21:02
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Never got past the first few chapters of Amberlough but is that perhaps a deliberate choice of atmosphere? “It could never happen here” and “I don’t know anyone who voted for Nixon” sort of thing and then boom, nazis. I could easily see a book written by an American author in 2017 taking that angle, that the characters are just oblivious (which would also fit with the pop culture stereotype of Weimar German as glitzy, gay, inward-looking and doomed).
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Jan 8, 2024 10:44
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Crashbee posted:I don't remember adding it but I just noticed one of the Kindle books on my Amazon wishlist is now completely free. Seems to be worldwide. bizarrely, this came through as being ordered from Amazon Fresh. wonder if there's some tax shenanigans going on or something?
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Jan 8, 2024 14:41
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Finished She Who Became The Sun Top 10 Anime Betrayals. Really well written, vivid and loud characters, everyone has beef and clear motivations, simple politics, everyone is gay for everyone else, plot is creative and takes turns I didn't expect. But ultimately the constant betrayals left me cold because everyone does it constantly. Along with everyone constantly struggling with melodramatic internal turmoil made it a bit operatic for my taste. Great book would recommend.
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Jan 9, 2024 05:59
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algebra testes posted:Finished She Who Became The Sun Top 10 Anime Betrayals. Now get onto the sequel, He Who Drowned the World!
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Jan 9, 2024 06:05
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algebra testes posted:Finished She Who Became The Sun Top 10 Anime Betrayals. ohh buddy I hope you read the second one lmao (it's really good)
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Jan 9, 2024 08:31
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Kind of a random question but I recently reread Eye in the Sky by Dick, and I'm also thinking I'll reread Sphere which is always gonna be my favorite Crichton novel. Putting these two thoughts together, I think I have a weakness for "the fraility of the human mind manifesting into reality and nearly killing everyone" stories. Can anybody recommend me stuff like that? "Eye" and Sphere have nothing in common besides roughly that so really, anything where circumstances lead to neurotic people being given realty warping abilities is what I'm after.
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Jan 9, 2024 12:58
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NikkolasKing posted:Kind of a random question but I recently reread Eye in the Sky by Dick, and I'm also thinking I'll reread Sphere which is always gonna be my favorite Crichton novel. Putting these two thoughts together, I think I have a weakness for "the fraility of the human mind manifesting into reality and nearly killing everyone" stories. Solaris by Stanislav Lem is considered the prime example.
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Jan 9, 2024 13:18
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I also just finished She Who Became the Sun. I've ordered the sequel, and got partway reading through the real Zhu's wikipedia page before realising I should probably stop because it was full of spoilers (I know very little chinese history)
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Jan 9, 2024 13:29
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