|
fookolt posted:The only problem is that once you've finished them, it's one hell of a thing to find another series that gives you the same feeling like the Culture provides. I've found Neal Asher's Polity series to be a worth successor. It's not quite as highbrow or intelligent, and it's written a lot earlier in the timeline, so to speak, but it feels to me almost like a prequel to the Culture.
|
#
?
May 11, 2014 09:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 10:49 |
|
|
Wolpertinger posted:The only ones I really know of other than the ones you mentioned where there are main characters that are gay and neither have that aspect of them be almost entirely ignored, or devolve into smut or sexual philosophy is The Last Rune series by Mark Anthony, which is a bit of an old school style fantasy, but is actually a pretty good one. The main character doesn't even really realize he's gay, it's sort of a gradual growth of a friendship between him and another one of the main characters that turns into a real relationship without ever having angsty overdramatic relationship drama. The other one is Lyn Flewelling's Nightrunner series where the two main characters are a gay couple who work as sort of spies/thieves for hire. The latest series by Robin Hobb, Rain Wild Chronicles, features a pretty decent homosexual relationship without making it over the top. Hobb is always worth reading and I liked the latest series. thespaceinvader posted:I've found Neal Asher's Polity series to be a worth successor. It's not quite as highbrow or intelligent, and it's written a lot earlier in the timeline, so to speak, but it feels to me almost like a prequel to the Culture. I like Asher more than Banks, since Asher has better action, faster pace, better characters (Sniper) and great alien ecosystems.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2014 12:13
|
|
|
JTDistortion posted:Can you recommend any other authors like this? I've been having a rather annoying problem with my local library system. Everything that it considers 'gay fiction' tends to be either poorly written smut or serious novels that try to get deep into the issues of gender and sexuality. Unfortunately, I do most of my reading on lunch break at work. I'm just looking for something light to relax with for a bit, but I would prefer any romantic subplots to be something that I can actually relate to. That sort of stuff certainly does exist, but if I want to get it at the library I have to either know what I'm looking for ahead of time or stumble across it through blind luck. I did a bit of poking around and Elizabeth A Lynn came up, I do remember The Sardonyx Net as being well written and interesting, although that one doesn't have a gay character per se. I think you would really like Scott's Point of Hopes, and I just discovered Wikipedia has a list although some of the inclusions make me roll my eyes because having a "gay" character does not a "gay" novel make... The later Liaden books (Sharon Lee and Steve Miller) have some same-sex couples, although I would call it more "LGBT lives in our universe" rather than "gay-positive". It's accepted as perfectly normal at least. I honestly can't name anybody else off the top of my head, as I am a pretty eclectic reader and am only interested in a decent story and don't really care much about who sleeps with who, unless it's germane to the plot. Books like Lauren Hamilton's drive me up a wall in fact, because I really don't care who wants to gently caress Anita Blake or (insert character here), and you take out those parts and there's very little left. Edit: Never make a post before finishing the first cup of coffee of the day Zola fucked around with this message at 19:21 on May 11, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 11, 2014 16:35
|
|
|
There's Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint, which I didn't really warm to but I did think the main character's relationship (with another man) was pretty well written. JTDistortion warning: it's not really light reading though.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2014 17:23
|
|
|
Thanks for the suggestions everyone!Wolpertinger posted:I kinda wish there was more characters like that honestly - just ordinary good fantasy books where the point of view character happens to be gay and isn't afraid to have him have a relationship with another person (without turning into a romance novel - I mean this happens with straight leads all the time, so). I mean occasionally you get a side character or two, but almost never a point of view character. Yeah, it's probably harder to find an ordinary fantasy book where the straight lead does not have some sort of relationship than one where they do. I wonder if this sort of thing will undergo a generational change in the upcoming years. When you take the generation that is hugely supportive of gay marriage and much more likely to know/be friends with actual out gay people and compare them to previous generations of authors, I would expect a surge in both the number of gay characters and the willingness to write their relationships into the plot. It also seems likely that this sort of shift would lag behind things like political shifts. After all, it takes a lot of time and hard work to become a good author, get published, etc. Maybe in the next 5-10 years?
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2014 20:07
|
|
|
Ellen Kushner has been writing elegant, complex, brutal intrigue stories that just happen to be full of bisexual characters for decades now. She is super awesome. Cat Valente's Palimpsest, one of those rare SF/F books that is both wholly about sex and not incredibly goony and creepy, is enormously queer-friendly (and also thoroughly gorgeous, it has some absolutely incendiary prose - it's about a sexually transmitted city, rendered in prose poetry so dense it'll leave you feeling physically sated). The Steel Remains is quite cool; I'm a sucker for the hints of science fiction drifting around the fantasy backdrop, and for Morgan's brand of lurid brutality. I thought both of the protagonists were pretty compelling. I've got a debut novel with a queer protagonist coming out Fall 2015. Hopefully it'll have lots of company 
General Battuta fucked around with this message at 20:26 on May 11, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 11, 2014 20:23
|
|
|
Zola posted:Agreed. And I will also point out that the first book came out in 1982. Things that might seem like tropes NOW were actually original then.  It also seems pretty certain to me in retrospect, that Jorin is probably a Bengal cat, too, between the chirping and his breed being a "Royal Gold". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA4R56kawPg coyo7e fucked around with this message at 21:06 on May 11, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 11, 2014 21:02
|
|
|
coyo7e posted:Well for what it's worth, I picked up the first couple books on kindle and am surprised by how well-written they are. I forgot a LOT about the series although it's coming back now. Tai-Tastigon is a really cool and well-written city which I forgot about almost entirely, and I'm looking forward to going through the books again and seeing what else Hodgell's written since. On her Live Journal site (I can't find the entry right now), she had visited a sanctuary and has a picture of her with a hunting ounce that she said was like Jorin  There is also a stab at a Kencyr Wiki She also said that there is going to be a Kothir short story up on the Baen Books Website as of the 15th of May Nurk Lurks In Doorways
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2014 22:00
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:Cat Valente's Palimpsest, one of those rare SF/F books that is both wholly about sex and not incredibly goony and creepy
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2014 22:44
|
|
|
Zola posted:On her Live Journal site (I can't find the entry right now), she had visited a sanctuary and has a picture of her with a hunting ounce that she said was like Jorin 
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2014 23:14
|
|
|
coyo7e posted:
I think anything written before the 90's, i.e., pre-internet, gets a pass on that kind of thing. We can't let the furries ruin every story with an anthropomorphized animal in it.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 00:13
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:I've got a debut novel with a queer protagonist coming out Fall 2015. Hopefully it'll have lots of company Congratulations! What publisher? Cardiovorax posted:Now I'll have to read it, because I'll believe a statement like that the moment I see it and no earlier. Believe it. Palimpsest is Valente's masterwork.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 00:16
|
|
|
Zola posted:I did a bit of poking around and Elizabeth A Lynn came up, I do remember The Sardonyx Net as being well written and interesting, although that one doesn't have a gay character per se. I think you would really like Scott's Point of Hopes, and I just discovered Wikipedia has a list although some of the inclusions make me roll my eyes because having a "gay" character does not a "gay" novel make... The later Liaden books (Sharon Lee and Steve Miller) have some same-sex couples, although I would call it more "LGBT lives in our universe" rather than "gay-positive". It's accepted as perfectly normal at least. I'm mostly the same about who sleeps with who, but as a gay dude it's just that since the main character will at have a relationship of some sort with someone in like 90% of books anyway, it'd be nice if it wasn't straight every single time, y'know? It's always a bit  on the few occasions I actually see a happy gay couple in a novel. (The tortured angsty dramatic gay guy who's only gay because it makes him easier to torture doesn't count - I'm looking at you, Mercedes Lackey)
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 01:17
|
|
|
I was kinda surprised cause I was reading a few books this month and it seemed like every book I opened had a gay character in there.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 01:48
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I think anything written before the 90's, i.e., pre-internet, gets a pass on that kind of thing. We can't let the furries ruin every story with an anthropomorphized animal in it.  And it is engaging and well-written, despite the few sort-of obvious setups such as Marc. I'd forgotten about the scene in the beginning of the second novel when Tori goes snipe-hunting and ends up with the soul of a little girl, attached to her lost bones, who keeps popping up as a shadow whenever she's been left ignored, sitting in a corner again and I was surprised that it didn't feel heavy-handed throughout.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 01:53
|
|
|
specklebang posted:I've finished reading all the books in Susan Matthews' Jurisdiction series and I can't figure out why I got so absorbed in these. Has anyone else read these and what was your take? Thanks for the heads up, they're $5 for the kindle, have just bought the first.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 13:34
|
|
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I was kinda surprised cause I was reading a few books this month and it seemed like every book I opened had a gay character in there.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 15:17
|
|
|
The new neolithic murder mystery fantasy-ish book Talus and the Frozen King by Graham Edwards has a positive portrayal of a gay side character but he ends up being one of the murder victims so uh
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 15:39
|
|
|
A positive portrayal isn't a realistic portrayal, is what I mean. There are a lot of positive portrayals of gay people in modern fiction, but a lot of them aren't written by gay people or even people who know much about gay people. Women will probably understand what I mean.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 15:50
|
|
|
Cardiovorax posted:A positive portrayal isn't a realistic portrayal, is what I mean. There are a lot of positive portrayals of gay people in modern fiction, but a lot of them aren't written by gay people or even people who know much about gay people. Women will probably understand what I mean. If you're talking in the sense that there are entirely too many female heroines who are simply men with boobs, then yes, I hear you. I hear you.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 15:52
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:The new neolithic murder mystery fantasy-ish book Talus and the Frozen King by Graham Edwards has a positive portrayal of a gay side character but he ends up being one of the murder victims so uh Well, to be fair most everyone in that book who has a name and a plot device gets murderfied. Regarding finding gays all up in my books, I was just kinda shocked cause I have gone most of my life not reading about gay people (not really as a choice, just never seem to read a book where a character is gay or it's so subtle I missed it), and then BOOM 3 in a row. Times are a changin'.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 17:17
|
|
|
Cardiovorax posted:A positive portrayal isn't a realistic portrayal, is what I mean. There are a lot of positive portrayals of gay people in modern fiction, but a lot of them aren't written by gay people or even people who know much about gay people. Women will probably understand what I mean. The best fictional portrayal I've ever read of a gay romantic relationship was in Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine, which isn't fantasy or SF but a historical novel set in classical Greece during the era of the Pelopponesian War. Renault was also a lesbian and a classicist. Especially for something written in the 1970's it's an amazing book -- they're just two young men who fall in love in a society where that's normal. It must have been a revolutionary work when it came out. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:25 on May 12, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 17:20
|
|
|
What about The Iron Council?
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 17:42
|
|
|
I'm looking for some help in finding a series of books I read when I was in highschool - they were not good books but I was on a big scifi binge at the time and recently I've remembered enough to make me curious. Unfortunately I don't remember much about them other than that (they were bad) one of the main characters was a sort of assassin that was able to take on the physical shape of other people it had killed and absorbed - I believe it was some sort of T-1000ish type thing, named maybe Vulture? I believe there was some sort of like, torture moon? called Melchior, but neither Vulture or Melchior is helpful in coming up with anything. Like I'm sure there was a scrappy crew of people fighting against some greater evil, but that's not narrowing things down. Anyway, it sounds familiar to anyone I'd be glad to kknow, it's a bit like an ear-worm.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 19:28
|
|
|
angerbot posted:I'm looking for some help in finding a series of books I read when I was in highschool - they were not good books but I was on a big scifi binge at the time and recently I've remembered enough to make me curious. Usually these kinds of questions are best posted to The identify that story/book thread. That being said, I suspect you are thinking of Jack Chalker's The Rings of the Master series, which has both the assassin and the base on the moon Melchior
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 19:44
|
|
|
Yes, that's it exactly, thanks. Sorry for being in the wrong thread!
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 20:07
|
|
|
angerbot posted:
Melchior's Fire. http://www.amazon.com/Melchiors-Fire-JACK-CHALKER/dp/0671319914 e;f,b, and in the wrong thread, too! (double beaten because I had a series with Melchior but not with Vulture the assassin). ulmont fucked around with this message at 20:13 on May 12, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 20:10
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:Ellen Kushner has been writing elegant, complex, brutal intrigue stories that just happen to be full of bisexual characters for decades now. She is super awesome. Cat Valente's Palimpsest, one of those rare SF/F books that is both wholly about sex and not incredibly goony and creepy, is enormously queer-friendly (and also thoroughly gorgeous, it has some absolutely incendiary prose - it's about a sexually transmitted city, rendered in prose poetry so dense it'll leave you feeling physically sated). Ellen Kushner's Privilege of the Sword is a really nice read. Tight little fantasy book with good characters, some of whom happen to be gay. I wasn't left with the feeling I had read something didactic and politically motivated, which is an issue that often dampens my enjoyment of books with LGBT characters. Either they're a punch line or so obviously chosen by the author as a rejection to classically Hetero male dominated SF. But Kushner gets it right, and I highly recommend that book.
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2014 08:24
|
|
|
I ran out of books by Stanislaw Lem. Then I ran out of books by PKD. ...so who do I read now?  Seriously, I've got all summer and I love those two to death, any recommendations?
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2014 07:11
|
|
|
DACK FAYDEN posted:I ran out of books by Stanislaw Lem. Then I ran out of books by PKD. Roadside Picnic? A lot of Strugatsky books are probably something you'd enjoy, but I'm not sure if you can find them.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2014 08:02
|
|
|
DACK FAYDEN posted:I ran out of books by Stanislaw Lem. Then I ran out of books by PKD. Jack Chalker, maybe?
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2014 11:43
|
|
|
DACK FAYDEN posted:I ran out of books by Stanislaw Lem. Then I ran out of books by PKD. Ballard?
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2014 20:43
|
|
|
I just finished The Emperor's Blades(Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne #1)by Brian Stavely. It was really fun, pretty drat good for a first novel, and I'll definitely read the next installment. But.... after reading this, and Blood Song, and Rothfuss, and the three Locke Lamora books, and the Broken Empire books ... I think I'm done with 'kid goes to magic warrior thief school and makes friends but a rich kid hates him but he gets awesome and wins everythings' for quite a while. I thoroughly enjoyed all those books, some more than others, but seriously, I miss the days when people were just good at poo poo and you accepted it. Aragorn and Legolas were just badasses. You didn't need two books telling the story of how Legolas went to elf school and learned to do elf stuff but since he was from the wrong side of the elf tracks the elf teachers and rich elf kids were always elf discriminating against him but his innate elf talents shone through (and then he randomly had an elf crush on elf Evangeline Lily, but I digress). So, with that in mind, shoot some random recommendations, totally different to the above so I can clear my brain before Half A King/The Tower Lord/The Slow Regard of Silent Things/The Thorn of Emberlain/Prince of Fools drag me back in like the sucker I am.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2014 07:39
|
|
|
NinjaDebugger posted:Jack Chalker, maybe? you have to be careful with Chalker because of the whole transformation / mind control fetish thing.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2014 07:46
|
|
|
BrosephofArimathea posted:
Isle of the Dead by Roger Zelazny. It's a science fiction novel about a thousand-year-old man, one of the wealthiest men in the galaxy. The protagonist has to come to terms with what may or may not be his ultimate limitations: death, his past, and the possibility of his own godhood. It's a magnificent book, a magnificently adult book, and the absolute opposite of the standard fantasy bildungsroman. It's not at all about growing up and succeeding; it's about a grown and successful man coming to terms with his limitations.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2014 08:15
|
|
|
fritz posted:you have to be careful with Chalker because of the whole transformation / mind control fetish thing. On a scale of Freaky Friday to I Will Fear No Evil, how bad is he?
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2014 08:45
|
|
|
High Warlord Zog posted:On a scale of Freaky Friday to I Will Fear No Evil, how bad is he? Oh no, Chalker was in a league of his own.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2014 09:27
|
|
|
BrosephofArimathea posted:I just finished The Emperor's Blades(Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne #1)by Brian Stavely. It was really fun, pretty drat good for a first novel, and I'll definitely read the next installment. I decided to try this. It's pretty good, but it has some parts that are hard for me to get past. The fact that the female lead doesn't get half the attention of the two male leads has already been a well-documented complaint. The fact that one character motivation has a pretty lazy "woman gets fridged" arc is also an issue. But for me, the biggest grievance is that they introduce the main thrust of the plot within the first two pages and only get around to addressing it within the last quarter of the book. "The Emperor is dead." "Wow, that's kind of a big deal. I should go warn my brother or do some duties or something?" "Yeah, but that can wait until we finish your Ninja School Training."
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2014 09:56
|
|
|
Can anyone shed some light on whether or not to read The Fell Sword by Miles Cameron? The reviews seem vastly mixed. I loved the Red Knight but what I loved was the fast pace of it, and I hear The Fell Sword is very slow.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2014 20:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 10:49 |
|
|
RisqueBarber posted:Can anyone shed some light on whether or not to read The Fell Sword by Miles Cameron? The reviews seem vastly mixed. I loved the Red Knight but what I loved was the fast pace of it, and I hear The Fell Sword is very slow. I liked it almost as much as the first one. I didn't find it slow, but it did introduce new characters and places and the action was more spread out amongst different locations than it was in the first one, so I can see how some people might have a harder time getting into it as fast as the first one. It's definitely less self contained, so if you don't feel like getting caught up in a series and having to wait for the sequel, then I'd just wait on reading it.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2014 20:50
|
|