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Here's a few other suggestions for lgbt fantasy/sci-fi stuff that I've come across. It has been a while since I've read some of these, but I'll try to give a brief summary as best I can: The Last Rune series by Mark Anthony: A modern Earth man and woman get pulled into a fantasy world and, in a shocking twist, do not fall in love. One of the protagonists is bi and there are a number of other good lgbt characters. The stereotype for gay men in the world they get pulled into is "member of a warrior cult that believes they are doomed to lose the fight at the end of the world but still wants to fight it". And all this despite being written all the way back in 1998! Kirith Kirin, The Ordinary, and The Last Green Tree by Jim Grimsley: weird fantasy/sci-fi blend about languages that can reshape reality. I read these a very long time ago, so all I can say is I remember a gay couple being a pretty important part of the overall plot. Elemental Logic series by Laurie J. Marks: Fantasy story about people from a conquering and from a newly conquered culture trying to find a way to resolve the culture clashes between their societies before everything blows up into fresh rebellion and war. Despite the whole culture clash setting, both cultures are ok with lgbt folk; the 6 most important characters are a lesbian couple, a gay couple, and a straight couple. Dreamer by Harper Steven: the start of a series that I can't recall the name of. Sci-fi with telepathy as an important FTL communication method. It not only has a gay protagonist but bases some of the telepathy stuff off of Australian Aboriginal traditions. (Disclaimer: I can't vouch to the authenticity of the Aboriginal stuff. I'm pretty ignorant about it.) Gods of the Caravan Road series by K.V. Johansen: The 4th book in this fantasy series is very focused on a gay romance because of how the outcome will affect a wider ongoing struggle between local nature gods and demons. You'll have to read the first 3 for it to make much sense, but it's a very good series so that's more of a bonus than a problem. The Smoke and Shadows series by Tanya Huff: Spinoff thing from some earlier vampire novels she wrote. All about a guy who got rescued from the street by the vampire in the previous series learning to stand on his own, not go running to the vampire when things go wrong, and also be a wizard. The most lighthearted of these suggestions; the guy's day job is on a movie set for a trashy TV series about a vampire detective. The Tigers Daughter, by K. Arsenault Rivera: Start of a series set in an east Asian inspired land that has a northern border with a land full of demons. The Emperor's daughter and a nomadic tribeswoman fall in love, are badass. I would also like to give some credit to Bloodmage by Stephen Aryan. It's a pretty fast paced murder/politics book where no one has any time for romance whatsoever but they toss in about 2 or 3 lines to let you know that one of the protagonists is gay. It's 100% irrelevant to the story, but to be honest that's kind of what I'm looking for personally. It has been getting a lot better in recent years, but it can still be a bit hard to find lgbt sci-fi and fantasy that is not really trying to send any sort of message about sexuality. Sometimes all I want to do is read a dumb adventure book where the hero's inevitable romantic interest is actually relatable.
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Oct 11, 2019 03:55
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Ben Nevis posted:Might want to check out Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson. It's a novella about on a group of soldiers for hire guarding a shipment through a dangerous area, so very much classic fantasy there. But the focus is on the relationship between one of the men and the captain. Pretty brief read, but I liked it. If I'm remembering correctly, this one ends with one of the guys suddenly deciding to commit suicide by monster and the other guy once again depressed and alone, right? Because gently caress that gay tragedy poo poo.
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Oct 26, 2019 05:12
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Ben Nevis posted:Honestly, it's been a couple years and I don't 100% remember how the end shakes out, specifically deciding to commit suicide, I don't recall there being like a ton of choice. While I remember him dying, a quick review of goodreads makes it seem that at least some people found it ambiguous. I'm pretty sure I remember that it was explicitly stated that he didn't even try to defend himself despite having time to do so. It's ambiguous in the sense that we don't really know if he could have successfully defended himself, but the part where he doesn't even try was framed as being deliberate. I'm also pretty disinclined to give the author the benefit of the doubt. I gave them a second chance and started reading one of their other books; it opened with a guy screaming and trying to throw himself into the sea to follow the ship that was taking his lover away forever. The rest of the book appeared to be flashback stuff about how they fell in love, so I dropped it pretty much immediately and have never regretted it.
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Oct 26, 2019 14:52
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StrixNebulosa posted:
I'm going to call this one out again for having a very abrupt ~gay tragedy~ sort of ending that pissed me off. It ruined an otherwise enjoyably weird book for me.
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Jun 5, 2020 20:49
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StrixNebulosa posted:Obviously this is very YMMV but I felt there was all kinds of foreshadowing for what happened, and it was a fitting ending that heightened the book, so to speak. Also, if it matters, I'm queer myself. I will admit that I have a pretty low tolerance for that sort of stuff, but I gave the author a second chance, tried another book, and got one that opened up with a guy running into the sea to chase the boat carrying his lover away. IIRC it then started going into flashbacks so you got to read a love story that you know ends tragically. At that point I just kinda gave up, put the book down, and moved on. Finding sci-fi/fantasy with good gay characters that don't arbitrarily have something horrible happen to them has been a source of frustration for me ever since I was a teenager. Things have improved a lot since then and there's a lot more stuff that actually has gay characters in it, but that has come alongside a rise in god-awful gay romance written by and for straight women. It can be difficult to find good stuff in the midst of all that (particularly because sci-fi/fantasy that happens to feature good gay characters without being about them being gay will rarely be marketed as LGBTQ fiction).
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Jun 5, 2020 22:07
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anilEhilated posted:This may be really obvious, but have you read Gideon the Ninth? Yes. It's really good. I think lesbian characters in sci-fi/fantasy are a step ahead of gay characters; there are a number of really good authors out there writing books with awesome lesbian protagonists. I'm a bit jealous to be honest.
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Jun 6, 2020 18:18
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foutre posted:Admittedly there's tragic stuff that happens to most of the characters, but the Broken Earth trilogy has pretty solid representation imo, if you're up for more generally queer men. I've read Broken Earth, the Green Bone Saga books, and Raven Tower (I didn't catch what you said before your edit, but the central queer character in that book is a trans man. BTW if anyone hasn't read Raven Tower, do it.) I'll take a look at Docile and Six of Crows though, those are new to me. And yes, my own experiences would also indicate that there are a lot more queer male characters in books by non-male authors. I'll give your web serial a look too, Anomalous. Web serials are kind of unexplored territory for me. I generally got most of my books through the local library system before the pandemic made them stop doing book transfers from all the various member libraries. I think there might have been a bit of misunderstanding about my original post. I'm not opposed to tragic stuff or bad things happening to queer characters in a general sense; I just hate it when it feels arbitrary. Stuff like the Vagrant trilogy by Peter Newman or Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James don't end well for the queer guys in them, but the poo poo that happens feels like it's well tied into the story and is not just queer suffering for the sake of it. Sorcerer of the Wildeeps did not feel like that to me. It does a bit of setup, kills one guy, leaves the other heartbroken and alone again, and then promptly ends. The misery felt like the point, and that's what I can't stand.
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Jun 7, 2020 00:39
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Ben Nevis posted:I recall we'd talked a couple weeks ago about fantasy with gay male protags, and I just read one that was pretty good. White Trash Warlock by David Slayton is the first in a series. The main character is Adam Binder, a witch from Guthrie, OK who heads out to help his estranged brother. When he gets out to Denver the city has a giant malevolent spirit hanging over it. Obviously Adam needs to fix this. Slayton says he based the character on his own experiences growing up gay in Guthrie, OK. The main plot of this one wraps up, though there's obvious hooks for a sequel (due out in October). I found it to be good, very readable. I got through it faster than expected. I enjoyed the working class protagonist, and being set in Denver, felt like a pretty decent take on the urban fantasy. I'll second this recommendation; it was a fun read.
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May 9, 2021 05:15
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General Battuta posted:He’s a TERF. It's definitely not a series for everyone, but if you're ok with the grimdark nature of the setting it can be pretty refreshing to see gay and lesbian characters who are just unrepentant, vicious assholes. They're not witty or sophisticated or safe in any way; they're just hyperaggresive badasses flaunting their sexuality as a gently caress you to a world that hates them but needs them. I can't really think of any other good examples where gay guys in particular get to be like that. (Kameron Hurley would be the author I'd think of for more lesbian badasses in that vein.)
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Aug 15, 2021 19:51
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MockingQuantum posted:What are some good science fantasy or sword & planet novels? My partner wants some stuff that scratches that "wizards in space" kind of itch. I actually don't know that I've read much that fits the bill. I think she'll like Ninefox Gambit, but I could use some stuff that's closer to, say, Phantasy Star in terms of style and tone. I'll throw in a recommendation for The Ordinary by Jim Grimsley. It's about a technologically advanced culture and a magic-based culture getting linked by a portal and slowly sliding towards war . There's technically a book that comes before it but it reads more as pure fantasy and isn't really necessary to enjoy The Ordinary.
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Oct 13, 2021 05:00
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ToxicFrog posted:I've read a few books like that (Jaran and Shards of Honour come to mind) and bounce off them pretty consistently, but it's not because I'm averse to SF romance in general so much as that if I'm reading it I don't want the SF aspects to just amount to a thinly veiled excuse to spend most of the book trudging through a forest populated by totally-not-werewolves or whatever. Have you read A Matter of Oaths by Helen S. Wright? It might fit the bill of what you're looking for. The romance is definitely there, but the power struggle between space empires and a neutral shipping guild and central mystery of why everyone is so interested in the mind-wiped protagonist is the main focus.
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Jul 10, 2022 01:12
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ToxicFrog posted:I have, and it's excellent, and occasionally I contemplate the fact that she doesn't seem to have written anything else ever and am sad about that fact. Same. I only know about it because I stumbled across it in some list or another, the rest of which was entirely forgettable. After I finished it I wondered why I had never come across at least a mention of stuff by her before, and then I found out that's all there is  .
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Jul 12, 2022 00:01
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Kestral posted:After struggling with it for way too long, I finally DNF'd The Archive Undying at around 70% of the way through. I can't remember the last time I encountered a book with such a cool setting that I wanted to know so much more about, but couldn't actually finish because the page-to-page events were just so loving tedious. I even like the characters! I just wish they would do something. I can recommend this one for the cozy fiction readers though, because it is a book overwhelmingly concerned with making food, caring or being cared for, and Feeling Things. I just finished up The Archive Undying. While the last part does have a bit more of the sort of action you are looking for, in the end it's a book about people dealing with all the various traumas caused by the collapse of a particular god-like AI. Giant robots are part of this but never the real focus. I feel like the book is pretty poorly served by some of the marketing for it. For example, this part of the book overview on Barnes and Noble: Series description posted:The Archive Undying is the first volume of Emma Mieko Candon's Downworld Sequence, a sci-fi series where AI deities and brutal police states clash, wielding giant robots steered by pilot-priests with corrupted bodies. This is a technically accurate description, but it gives a totally wrong impression of what sort of book to expect. I'm not really sure I'd say it's for cozy fiction readers either, unless I'm behind the times on how 'cozy' is interpreted these days. It's certainly about feelings and coping with trauma, but that doesn't mean it's about healing from trauma or arriving at any solution that isn't as horrific as the starting situation in its own way.
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Aug 20, 2023 15:40
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