Tag Archives: #ownvoices

Did you know I also write reviews?

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Yes, it’s true. When I’m not sneaking in time to write my own stuff, I’m apt to be found poring through a book, and I caught a bit of a review bug a few years back which I’ll blame on Goodreads. The site is awesome in my opinion. It’s a great place to get book recs and to talk with readers who are also fans of the genres and authors that I like. I’m an organization nerd so I also love that you can catalogue what you’ve read and reviewed. I wish it had existed when I was in grade school. I’d have a whole history of my life in books!

Well, instead I have a history of what I’ve read over the past ten years (a little spotty for the first couple). If you’d like to connect with me there–and I hope you will–here’s my Goodreads profile page.

Meanwhile, I’ve taken on some review work at other sites, and I thought it would be cute to pass that along. You can follow my reviews at New York Journal of Books, Queer Sci Fi, and Out in Print. I get called on a lot to review fantasy titles, though I’ve branched out to other genres from time to time. My most recent review at Out in Print was a reprint of a gay pulp erotic pirate novel, for instance. I like discovering unusual titles and helping to spread the word about LGBTQ+ #OwnVoices books.

Feel free to pitch a title to me if it falls into that latter category. I’ll probably say no, which I guess is pretty harsh, but I want to be realistic about expectations. Between reviewing for three sites, getting reseach in, and finding time to read for pleasure, I’m massively backlogged most of the time. But I promise not to be mean if you decide to try me!

If you’re looking for reviewers, here’s a few suggestions…

Reedsy has a searchable book review blog database you can find here. It covers the full spectrum of genres.

There’s also The Book Blogger List that has a comprehensive list of categories.

And, I just discovered this one while writing this post: Book Sirens has a blog directory. 

I’ll also mention, for my ongoing project An Introduction to Gay Fantasy, I’m always looking to build up my curated list of titles, particularly books written before 2000. So fire away with suggestions. I have the lofty aim of collecting “noteworthy” titles, which I define in lots of ways: awards, industry praise, diverse portrayals, #OwnVoices, and “ground breaking” characters and/or ideas about gender and sexuality.

 

#PrideReads

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I’ve caught the Twitter hastag bug again, and this is a really good one. For June, which of course is Pride Month, the #PrideReads meme is trending to bring attention to queer books and authors. While I’m participating on Twitter, I thought I’d share some of my responses here. There are links to Goodreads in case you want to check out my recommendations.

Describe an LGBTQIA+ novel you’d like to see written?

That pretty much describes my own writing process, but I’ll pick something outside of my wheelhouse. I love historical fiction, so I’d love to read a novel featuring LGBTQIA+ lead characters set in an evocative and underrepresented setting, like say pre-colonial Mesoamerica, or Mogul-era India, or Qing dynasty China.

Tell us about an underrated queer book.

I’ll give you three. First, John Weir’s The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket, which is like The Catcher in the Rye set in New York City during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Second, Ben Neihart’s Hey Joe, which was awesome, modern gay YA before awesome, modern gay YA became a thing. Third, only because I read it most recently, and it’s also underrated, being far ahead of it’s time in terms of modern, matter-of-fact gay portrayals, Philip Ridley’s In the Eyes of Mr. Fury.

Queer #ownvoices authors we should follow.

@ScareBearDan @lawrenceschimel @alexharrowSFF @jscoatsworth @jp_howardpoet @Xtianbaines @johncopenhaver @JoeOJazzMoon @allanbrocka @AnnAptaker @TrustMiguel @Hans_Hirshi @BrianCentron @CAClemmings @KenJONeill & sorry I ran out of characters

Your favorite queer books.

[Head explodes] Well gosh, here I’ll stick to my wheelhouse to put some boundaries on it. For SFF #Ownvoices, Samuel Delaney’s Tales of Neveryon, Ricardo Pinto’s Stone Dance of the Chameleon trilogy, and Douglas Clegg’s Mordred, Bastard Son are probably my favorites.

Does a queer book need to include romance?

Absolutely not, though my reading “sweet spot” is action-adventure with a minor romantic storyline that doesn’t have to be HEA.

Who’s a queer supporting character that should get their own book/series.

I’m going to go off canon because I didn’t read the books (shame, shame, shame), and I understand the character of Olyvar in Game of Thrones was created for the TV series. Anyway, he’s my favorite gay character in the series (and the only one who hasn’t been killed off!), so my vote is for Olyvar to get a platform to do some damage in Westeros.

via GIPHY

Favourite books with lesbian rep?

I really liked Malinda Lo’s Ash. Also, though not an #Ownvoices title, Richard Morgan’s The Steel Remains has a well-developed lesbian character Archeth who I thought shone through as the best POV character.

Favourite books with gay rep?

I mentioned a bunch of them above, but this gives me a chance to share more! For literary/history, I’ll shout out Felice Picano’s Like People in History. For mystery, Michael Nava’s The Burning Plain is probably my favorite title from his Henry Rios series. For family saga/coming of age, Shyam Selvadurai’s Cinnamon Gardens. For YA, anything by David Levithan. For romance (guilty pleasure), Scott Pomfret’s Hot Sauce. Last, for humor, far, far off the radar: Andrew Killeen’s The Khalifah’s Mirror and Jim Anderson’s Chipman’s African Adventure.

Favourite books with bi rep?

Going to do a throwback here, I read Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia as a young adult, and it’s one of those books that stayed with me for years and years.

Favourite books with trans rep?

I haven’t read nearly as many trans books as I should have, and the book I’m going to mention probably fits better as intersex. But Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex is a terrific cultural and historical saga in which the main character was born with ambiguous genitalia and lives as a girl and a young man and later as someone in-between.

Favourite books with non-binary rep?

Here again I’m shamefully poorly-read, and to mention Ursual Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness feels somewhat lame, since so many books about trans and non-binary experiences have been written since that groundbreaking SFF came out. But there I did it. I’ll add Daniel Heath Justice’s The Way of Thorn and Thunder, which takes inspiration from Indigenous lore and traditions, including non-binary ways of living.

Favourite books where everyone is queer?

I love this question because I think it’s an underrated approach to queer fiction, and it’s not uncommon to see reviews of queer books that complain it’s “unrealistic” there are so few straight characters (barf). So here’s to Alex Sanchez’ Rainbow Boys series with three rotating gay male narratives and Allison Moon’s all-lesbian Lunatic Fringe, and Matthew Rettemund’s Boy Culture, and all the fabulous queerly retold fairy tale collections like Lawrence Schimmel’s The Drag Queen of Elfland and Jeremy McAteer’s Queer Tales: Fairytales for Gay Guys.

What queer character do you identify with?

As a closeted queer teen, I devoured Paul T. Roger’s Saul’s Book, and thought I found in the narrator Stephen a deeper understanding of myself. Later, I’d say I saw more of myself in Duncan from David Levithan’s Wide Awake, with his heartfelt conviction in social justice. Nowadays, with a dearth of stories featuring older queer characters, the one who comes to mind is Gabriel Noone from Armistead Maupin’s The Night Listener.

What sparks your interest in a book? Cover? Reviews? Blurb?

This is an interesting question in the context of queer books, because thinking back to my coming of age in the 80s and 90s, living in upstate New York, it was hard as hell to find the kind of books I was interested in! I pretty much had to sneak into the stacks at librarires or bookstores and find the sexuality section, which felt like a huge taboo in itself. Even then, I had to find titles catalogued with the sterile, scientific label: homosexuality and hope they weren’t insidious, pseudo-scientific, neo-Freudian, pathologizing horseshit.

The covers of those older books rarely gave hints about the story, and the books were all fairly tragic, violent and highly sexualized (not a bad thing necessarily, especially for the young, disaffected me who was also quite eager to learn what gay men did together).

With the advent of the Internet, it became a whole lot easier to find queer books I might like. Covers matter to me, though looking through my Goodreads shelf, some of my favorite titles have pretty awful ones and that doesn’t stop me from singing their praises. I read blurbs to see what the story is about, and I’ll check out what people have to say on fan sites and Goodreads.

Favourite queer couple?

I often say my favorite couple is Gorgik and Little Sarg from Samuel Delaney’s Tales of Neveryon. They lead a frickin’ slave rebellion that liberates an entire country, so try beating that. Honorable mentions: Maurice and Scudder in E.M. Forster’s Maurice (I weep at the end of the movie), and though the relationship is muted and ill-fated in Gregory Maguire’s inimitable way, I loved Liir and Commander Cherrystone in Son of a Witch.

Does a queer book have to have a happy ending?

That’s a provocative and important issue to talk about. I expect a lot of readers would say we need more queer lit with happy endings to balance out the long history of tragic queer stories–those classics like Lillian Helman’s The Children’s Hour and Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, which suggested the impossibility of queer people finding love and leading happy, well-adjusted lives.

Some of those books, now called “bury your gays” tropes, were written from a non-queer point-of-view, which is susceptible to marginalizing, tragedizing, and at its worst demonizing queer people, e,g, the tendency to portray villainous characters as sexually ambiguous as a foil to the heteronormative hero/heroine. Yet some queer tragedies of the past were written by queer people themselves, like James Baldwin, Manuel Puig (Kiss of the Spider Woman), the aforementioned Lillian Hellman, Patricia Highsmith, and you could say most of the authors known as The Violet Quill who broke ground with realistic portraits of gay men living in the 1970s and 1980s (Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, and others).

Themes of death and suffering reflected salient aspects of real life for queer people, and I’d say writing about those issues was both realistic and helpful for readers, both queer and straight, to better understand the challenges faced by queer individuals (and for queer readers, to realize they’re not alone with their personal struggles).

All of this is to say I subscribe to the notion embodied in a famous quote by Ernest Hemingway: “A writer’s job is to tell the truth.” And the truth is some queer lives are tragic, some are triumphant, and all of them are filled with many moments of both. So no, a queer book doesn’t have to have a happy ending. But I would hope there’d be at least an equal number of books with happy endings as books that end tragically. And then, of course, stories are more complex than happy vs. sad. I tend to enjoy books that take me on a journey that runs the gamut of emotions.

Does a queer book have to have sex scenes?

Here’s another question that on its face sounds simple.

No. Why in heaven’s name would a queer book have to include explicit sex? There are tons of ways to write about queer people that don’t involve what they like to do to get it on.

So yeah, I enjoy all kinds of queer stories that have no sex or very little sex, and I certainly don’t feel as a writer that I need to add a sex scene in order to develop a queer character or make the story more interesting or marketable.

But as a guy who’s always been much more interested in queer liberation versus assimilation, I also feel it’s important to add that queer sex scenes can be marvelous and subversive and fabulously declarative and rebellious. Writing queer sex is a political act, and I respect writers who do it and think it’s important that it has a place in our literature.

An introduction to gay fantasy

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I’m often asked for fantasy recommendations, particularly on the gay fiction-side. That, combined with my love of the genre inspired me to tackle the project of putting together a list of titles as a departure point for readers looking for good quality portrayals of gay characters.

I could probably write an entire article on disclaimers about this list—the sea of titles to choose from, the subjective nature of singling out certain books, and the like. I actually kind of hate “best of” and “top ten” lists. They’re a bit disingenuous, so unnecessarily declarative, I think, and when I see them in magazines or blogs, I tend to be naturally cynical.

So, what should you take away from my little curated list? I guess just some ideas about what to check out if you’re new to gay fantasy, or even if you’re a huge fan and like comparing notes. I’m sure I missed some stellar books that aren’t on my radar. Feel free to let me know about those!

Disclaimer #2: These books are heavily skewed toward my reading (and writing) preferences, which are fantasy of the epic, historical, and/or magical sort, and more G than LBTQAI. I included one urban fantasy/superhero title and one magical realism. Those also happen to be the only young adult titles, and I only have one sci fi and one fairytale short story collection. Some of the titles have lesbian, bi, and trans characters. None represent Ace, Aro or Intersex. I called this “an intro to gay fantasy” because I don’t purport to have the literary cred to throw out recs across the queer spectrum, though I think there’s decent representation in terms of race/ethnicity.

Maybe I’ll work on updating the list for the future with more fantasy sub-genres. I really have to be in the right mood to read dystopian and futuristic sci fi. I make no promises.

Last, I thought it was important to include why I thought each title was noteworthy, beyond my subjective appraisal since if I was in fact teaching a course on gay fantasy, that kind of thing would be important. You’ll see that down below. I also should mention I was intentional in choosing a diverse range of titles in terms of when they were written, the types of characters, themes, as well as #OwnVoices.

In a nutshell, #OwnVoices is a movement to uplift titles about marginalized groups, which are written by members of those marginalized groups, in order to combat historic and ongoing barriers for marginalized authors. I’ve written more about #OwnVoices previously if you care to learn more, and/or, check out this handy Q&A written by #OwnVoices creator Corinne Duyvis.

And away we go!

[12/9/2017 E.T.A. Chaz Brenchley’s Tower of the King’s Daughter. 2/10/2018 E.T.A. Lawrence Schimel’s The Drag Queen of Elfland. 3/20/2018 E.T.A. Philip Ridley’s In the Eyes of Mr. Fury. 4/19/2018 E.T.A. Ricardo Pinto’s The Chosen. 9/11/2019 E.T.A. Tom Cardamone’s Green Thumb]

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin

Publisher: ACE

Year: 1969

Themes: Futuristic, science fiction, alien races, hermaphrodite/bisexuality, non-binary gender

Rationale for inclusion: Multi-awards: Hugo, Nebula; widely regarded as a groundbreaking and seminal work in SFF (see: reference); portrayal of bisexuality and reconstruction of gender

My quickie review: This won’t be the first or last rec list to begin with Ursula Le Guin. She was a prolific and critically-acclaimed author who brought feminist commentary on the construction of gender to the genre and opened doors for female authors. Of course, she’s also brilliant. The Left Hand of Darkness imagines an alien race that is neither male nor female, and undergoes a reproductive cycle (kemmer) during which they develop male/female genitalia temporarily and arbitrarily, resulting in many sexual combinations over the lifetime, including fairly universal pregnancy and ‘motherhood.’ That was a pretty wild and innovative concept for 1969, and though the story is seen through the eyes of a biologically male human Genly who is visiting this ‘ambisexual’ planet on a diplomatic mission (Genly also happens to be described as ‘dark-skinned’), the depth of development of the differently gendered world is extraordinary and engrossing. It is also a story that is interesting to look at in context. Le Guin has acknowledged that some of her own heterosexist bias crept in while imagining sexual preferences as well as ‘defaulting’ to an association between masculinity and authority/political power.

 

Tales of Neveryon by Samuel R. Delaney

Publisher: Bantam

Year: 1979

Themes: Ancient world, slavery/exploitation, gender roles, social justice, sexuality

Rationale for inclusion: Multi-award finalist: Locus, Prometheus, National Book Award; Groundbreaking for its time in terms of gay content; Critically acclaimed (see: Editorial reviews from Amazon page); #OwnVoices: Delaney is a black, gay man and the main characters of Neveryon are principally brown-skinned people, including a “gay” protagonist (see: reference)

My quickie review: Tales of Neveryon is a loosely-knit, rotating collection of narratives about people living in a pre-historic world that has hints of ancient Mesopotamia and Africa. My mind was blown when I discovered the book. It’s utterly immersive and brilliantly subversive. Hard to encapsulate the plot, but the principal character Gorgik is orphaned by war, fated to work in a mining settlement as a slave, and educated about the methods and immorality of the elite, ruling class when he is taken into an imperial court through chance circumstances. The scale of the world and its histories are epic, though it’s not precisely epic fantasy. Delaney plays the role of both philosopher and storyteller via parable-style vignettes that shed light on the human condition, from the inhumanity of slavery, patriarchy/gender roles, and even the origins of sexual kink (there’s a thread on sub/dom relations, which is more cerebral than erotic). Gorgik and his lover Small Sarg lead a revolution, earning the right to be called fiction’s first gay power couple.

 

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

Publisher: Arbor House Publishing (originally, later Tor and Spectra)

Year: 1987

Themes: Regency era inspiration, swordfights/dueling, gay and bisexual relationships

Rationale for inclusion: Critically acclaimed (see: Editorial Reviews from Amazon page); Groundbreaking for its time in terms of gay content; Fan favorite (see: Listopia)

My quickie review: One of the most highly praised examples of “MM fantasy romance.”  Though I would not lump Swordspoint in with modern “MM.” The story has dark romantic elements, but there’s much more going on beyond the sexual and romantic lives of the characters. The setting itself is strange and subtly textured. It has an “almost” quality – familiar in its portrayal of greedy ‘haves’ and squalid ‘have-nots,’ a mannerly Regency Era world where grievances are settled by duels and people dress for tea. Yet there’s just enough queerness, and unique geography, to make you realize this isn’t Oxfordshire in the 18th century. The story centers on St. Vier, an expert swordsman with a host of wealthy patrons vying for his services, or to destroy him, in order to settle their petty feuds. Just about everyone is morally suspect, which makes for great drama and characters you love to hate. Kushner accomplishes quite a lot in this story of excess, greed, vanity and exploitation, including an unexpectedly compelling gay love story.

In the Eyes of Mr. Fury by Philip Ridley 

Publisher: Penguin (originally), re-released by Valancourt

Year: 1989 and 2016 respectively

Themes: 1980s, coming of age, magical realism, young adult, urban and historical legend

Rationale for inclusion: Award-winning author (most notably for screenplays The Krays and stage plays); groundbreaking in its young adult-style portrayal of gay adolescence; #OwnVoices: Ridley is a gay man and his story is a semi-autobiographical gay coming of age tale (see: reference).

My quickie review: Before he was one of Britain’s preeminent playwrights, Ridley penned what I consider an astoundingly, ahead-of-its-time, unabashed story of gay adolescence, incorporating magical elements that I’d also say are prescient of the wondrous imagination of J.K. Rowling. He expanded the story in 2016 to create “the world’s first LGBT magical realism epic,” which is the version more widely available. Eighteen-year-old Concord is a gay kid in the working-class East End of London in the 1980s, and the mysterious death of a notorious curmudgeon up the street leads him into a magical journey, chaperoned by the eccentric Mama Zepp, through which he discovers neighborhood secrets, including the gay men and women who came before him. Mama Zepp’s collection of antique eyeglasses turn out to be something like Viewmaster devices for beholding scenes from the past, and her tea biscuits can summon the departed to tell their stories. It’s not all pretty for Concord looking back on how gay people lived, nor confronting how he himself can live, but when an unusual young man, accompanied by a protective crow, enters the neighborhood, first love may help Concord transcend the horrors of the past and present. An immensely charming story for readers of all ages.

The Drag Queen of Elfland by Lawrence Schimel

Publisher: Circlet

Year: 1997

Themes: Retold fairytales, short stories, AIDS, vampires, werewolves

Rationale for inclusion: IPPY Finalist (1998); award-winning author and editor; portrayal of HIV+ characters; #OwnVoices: Schimel is a gay man and his collection is primarily stories about gay men (see: reference).

My quickie review: Schimel’s short story collection is a wonderful illustration of how fantasy can be used as an atmosphere for exploring gay and lesbian situations. The fairytale setting is an appealing context for stories of young love, whether against-the-odds triumphant (“Fag Hag”) or earnest and painfully unrequited (“Heart of Stone”). The gothic or paranormal theme lends itself quite nicely to tales of loneliness as with “Take Back the Night,” in which an older lesbian who owns an all-night feminist bookstore is visited by a werewolf and tempted to literally become a woman who runs with the wolves. I loved Schimel’s choice of featuring gay men living with AIDS (“Hemo Homo”) and “femme” gay characters (“The Drag Queen of Elfland,” “Coming Out of the Broom Closet”). While those stories are rooted in an historical context, they bring attention to issues of positionality re. serostatus and gender expression that remain highly relevant in the gay male community.

Tower of the King’s Daughter by Chaz Brenchley

Publisher: Ace

Year: 1998

Themes: Knights/Crusaders, Arabic folklore, religious persecution, magic, gay relationships

Rationale for inclusion: British Fantasy Award; Critically acclaimed (Starburst, Locus Magazine)

My quickie review: I only read this second book in Brenchley’s Outremer series as sadly, the series is out of print, and some confusion between the British and American editions led me to the Tower first. But I highly recommend it if you can get your hands on a copy from the library. The story takes inspiration from the Crusades, set in a desert kingdom where righteous ‘Ransomers’ clash with the native Sharai who have the gift of an arcane magic. A central POV character is the young, gay squire Marron, who is finding his place in the world amid his religiously fanatical countrymen, a band of insurgents with fantastical powers, and his master Sieur Anton D’Escrivey, who shares his persecuted gay identity. Brenchley’s writing is an engaging blend of quiet, introspective characterization and vivid action scenes.

The Chosen by Ricardo PintoThe Chosen by Ricardo Pinto

Publisher: Tor

Year: 1999

Themes: Ancient world, royalty, slavery, fantasy creatures, young gay relationships

Rationale for inclusion: Gaylactic Spectrum Award finalist; Critically acclaimed (Strange Horizons, SF Site Reviews); #OwnVoices: the main character’s storyline involves a gay male relationship and the author is a gay man, vis-à-vis the book dedication to his husband.

My quickie review: Described as “low fantasy,” meaning no swords or sorcery, Pinto’s début novel and first book in the Stone Dance of the Chameleon attains its magic via a brilliantly imagined fantasy world that reads at times like it’s spun out of terrifying, fever dream. Pinto touches on ancient world sensibilities, but really the setting is one-of-a-kind. An aristocratic class (the titular ‘Chosen’) live lavishly, grotesquely, supported by a slave economy and caste system codified by gods-given edicts. That may not sound so new and innovative, but to see is to believe as Pinto draws the reader into a world of bizarre rituals, impossibly extravagant costumes, and strange beings who serve the royal court such as conjoined ‘syblings’ and the blinded undead who live in symbiosis with homunculus creatures. Carnelian, the fifteen-year-old heir to a royal house, is coming of age while a new god-emperor must be chosen through a complex and treacherous political process, which Carnelian’s father must oversee. In spite of his privileged status, he makes for a compelling lead—sensitive yet unafraid to stand up for himself, and an attempted assassination of his father propels him on a journey of increasing danger and isolation. Along the way, an encounter with a mysterious boy in a pitch dark, forbidden library leads to a tender, triumphant, and high stakes love story. This one hits all the marks for me.

 

 

Kirith Kirin by Jim Grimsley

Publisher: Meisha Merlin

Year: 2000

Themes: Elemental magic, coming of age, gay relationships

Rationale for inclusion: Multi-awards: Lambda Literary Foundation (winner), Gaylactic Spectrum (finalist); #OwnVoices: author is an openly gay man and the main characters are gay (see: reference).

My quickie review: Grimsley’s approach to fantasy is earthy, atmospheric and mystical, and reminded me a bit of Ursula Le Guin’s Wizard of Earthsea. He is also extremely meticulous. The story is a nearly day-to-day account of the magician Jessex’s apprenticeship and the eventual mastery of his powers. There’s not a lot of sword and sorcery as that’s not the story’s style. Jessex is kind and gentle and fights the battles that he must through a complex command of magic involving sacred songs and the manipulation of time and space. The book is at least equally a love story (Jessex and the titular Kirith Kirin) and a coming-of-age adventure. I thought the romantic storyline was sweet, surprising and accessible.

 

Mordred, Bastard Son by Douglas Clegg

Publisher: Alyson Books

Year: 2006

Themes: Arthurian legend, magic, coming of age, gay relationships

Rationale for inclusion: Critically acclaimed (see: Editorial reviews on Amazon page); Somewhat of a ‘cult favorite’ from a popular horror author; #OwnVoices: author is an openly gay man and the main character is a young gay man (see: reference).

My quickie review: Where Samuel Delaney blew me away with how provocative gay fantasy can be, Douglas Clegg’s retelling of the King Arthur legend blew me away with how fabulously subversive gay fantasy can be. Here, Clegg takes a despised character from a beloved canon, and tells his story in an inexorably sympathetic way. I think of it as a particularly noteworthy achievement in that traditional Arthurian legend is so stridently heterocentric. Evil, fey Mordred has been the inspiration for countless tales of queer villains, the archetypical foil to the righteous, sword-wielding, damsel-in-distress loving hero, repeated ad finitum in SFF. Clegg’s story is more than just a skewering of that narrative. It is a poignant story of a boy alienated from the human world because of his strange magical abilities and alienated from his own magical kin because of his queerness. And he has an affair with Lancelot. Read this book now!

 

Wicked Gentlemen by Ginn Hale

Publisher: Blind Eye Books

Year: 2007

Themes: Demons, persecution, mystery/crime, steampunk, gay romance

Rationale for inclusion: Gaylactic Spectrum award; Fan favorite (see: Listopia).

My quickie review: An immensely dark tale premised on the existence of an ancient demon race whose descendants are persecuted and exploited by an authoritarian, religious fanatic regime. That may sound rather “on the nose” for gay fantasy allegory, but this is quite a sophisticated novel that doesn’t veer into sentimentality or preachiness. Bellamai, who has demon blood, must team up with Captain William Harper who is tracking down a serial murderer and needs an expert who can help him navigate the seedy underground, aptly called Hell’s Below. There’s a complicated romance between the two men and lots of action, suspense and creepy atmosphere along the way.

 

Hero by Perry Moore

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Year: 2007

Themes: Superheroes, coming of age, coming out

Rationale for inclusion: Multi-awards: Lambda Literary Foundation Award winner, Gaylactic Spectrum finalist, Inky Awards finalist; Groundbreaking portrayal of gay superhero in teen literature; #Ownvoices: author (deceased) was a gay man and the main character is a gay youth (see: reference)

My quickie review: I’m coming out as a fantasy reader who is not a comic geek, which explains the paltry number of superhero titles on my list. What drew me to read Hero was the story behind the story. Perry Moore was a crusader for fair treatment of LGBTs in comics and SFF, and beyond the book he wrote, his outspoken, tenacious advocacy opened doors for LGBT superhero creators in the industry. The book is lovely. Closeted teen Thom Creed is trying to stay below the radar in a homophobic, working class town, and living with a gruff, single dad who was disabled by an accident. When Thom discovers he has magical abilities, he reluctantly and secretly joins ‘the League.’ There’s a boy he’s crushing on, but their encounters are always bittersweet near misses, along with lots of comic in-jokes and a simmering battle with the bad guys in the background.

 

The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan

Publisher: Gollancz (originally, later Del Rey)

Year: 2008

Themes: Sword and sorcery, slavery, persecution (including persecution of gays), gay relationships

Rationale for inclusion: Gaylactic Spectrum award; Commercially successful ‘crossover’ to mainstream SFF

My quickie review: Fantasy does not get much darker than The Steel Remains, so if you’re looking for an uplifting, gay-themed story and/or are squeamish about graphic violence including rape and sexualized torture, this is not the book for you. In fact, I vacillated about including The Steel Remains on my list because the two principal gay characters’ queerness is largely a source of hardship, persecution, and tragedy, a problematic treatment you can find far and wide in SFF. Still, two of the three rotating protagonists are unabashedly gay: Ringil, an emotionally and physically hardened male warrior, and Archeth, a tightly-wrapped, female dignitary of a mystical race, and the fact that their stories are front-and-center in a ‘popular’ market epic fantasy is something of an achievement for sure. The two must navigate a corrupt, war-torn world, which may be further unraveling by the return of an ancient race of magical demons. The writing is terrific, and the constant sense of danger makes the book a page-turner.

 

 

Ash by Malinda Lo

Publisher: Little Brown

Year: 2009

Themes: Retold fairytale; Medieval setting; fairies; lesbian relationships

Rationale for inclusion: Multi-award nominee: Lambda Literary Awards, Gaylactic Spectrum, William C. Morris for Début Young Adult fiction; Critically acclaimed (see: Editorial reviews on Amazon page); Commercially successful; #OwnVoices: author is an Asian, lesbian woman and the main character is a young lesbian (see: reference).

My quickie review: The tagline is: “Cinderella retold,” but this is quite a freshly imagined tale that charms the reader with its subtlety and eloquence. Lo pays tribute to the original source in clever ways: her use of language (the titular heroine Ash) and gender-swapped characters (a fairy godfather; a female “woodsman”), and the world and characters are much more complex than the good vs. evil conventions of classic fairytales. A convincing portrayal of an orphaned girl’s very high stakes struggle to live in an unsparing, feudal country with dangers arising from tradition as well as an intriguing, hidden magical world.

 

The Way of Thorn and Thunder by Daniel Heath Justice

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press

Year: 2011

Themes: Indigenous folklore/mythology, elemental magic, fantasy creatures and fantasy ‘races,’ war, persecution, two-spirit, gay relationships

Rationale for inclusion: Portrayal of people of color in fantasy; #OwnVoices: author is a Native, gay man and many of the characters are Native and non-heteronormative (see: reference).

My quickie review: This full-on Indigenous fantasy epic spans years and many miles in an engrossing story of a pre-historic America filled with magic and fantasy races and more political themes of cultural exploitation and extermination. Told through the rotating and intersecting journeys of ‘Kyn-folk’ characters, it is the story of the struggle to protect the ‘Everland’ from Men who would exploit and enslave its people and its sacred lands. Same-sex relationships and non-traditional gender roles among the ‘Kyn’ are portrayed matter-of-fact, and there’s a two-spirit character, a tribal healer, who is partnered with a male chief. As an allegory for the real, current and historical atrocities against Amerindian peoples, it is one of the most compelling heroic fantasies I’ve read.

Green Thumb by Tom Cardamone

Publisher: Lethe Press

Year: 2012

Themes: Post-apocalypse, dystopia, futuristic, “new weird fantasy,” mutation, gay relationships

Rationale for inclusion: Lambda award for SFF; Critically acclaimed (see Editorial reviews on Amazon); #OwnVoices: author is a gay man and the principal characters are gay men (see: reference)

My quickie review: I mentioned in my lead-in I’m not a huge fan of post-apocalypic, dystopian stories, but Green Thumb is such a brilliant testament to the power of the queer imagination, it surely belongs on a list of stand-out fantasy reads. The subject is near future biological catastrophe, and the lead character Leaf is described as a boy who eats the sun. Anthropomorphic and polymorphic characters abound. Leaf’s friends are a scaly skinned boy called Scallop and a manta ray-human hybrid called Skate. Leaf himself is more plant than human in constitution, but much more human than plant in emotion. Cardamone pushes boundaries in eroticizing the grotesque, yet the story is grounded in a sense of humanity for all things freakish, even achieving a sense of poignancy in its portrayal of young love. The writing style is lyrical and psychedelic, reminiscent of William S. Burroughs to me, thus it’s one wild, weird, wondrous and at times disturbing romp.

The Sorcerer of Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson

Publisher: Tor

Year: 2015

Themes: Demigods, sorcerers, African-inspired setting, gay relationships, fantasy creatures

Rationale for inclusion: Crawford award; Portrayal of people of color in fantasy; #OwnVoices: author is a black, gay man and the principal characters are black, gay men (see: reference)

My quickie review: A fantasy adventure strong on style and literary “voice.” The main character Demane and his love interest the Captain are demigods. Demane is also a sorcerer with a magical ability to heal. Different from traditional fantasy, we don’t see much of what that means on the page, and the spare storyline is an expedition into the wild to kill a lion-like beast called the junkiere. What you do get is lyrical passages and effective dialogue that grounds the reader in a wondrous world of Wilson’s imagination.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the state of #Ownvoices in queer SFF: A look at popularity, library recs and awards

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Most of us would agree that diversity and inclusion are good things. Perhaps especially in science fiction and fantasy (SFF), a white, cisgender, heterosexual male perspective has dominated the genre since the days of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells,  and largely neglected fully-formed portrayals of women, people of color, and LGBTs, among other marginalized groups. Cultural marginalization creates political marginalization, and vice versa, so when all we see and read in SFF are worlds with white, male heroes, often populated solely by white people, it reinforces the belief that the dominant culture is superior, and the only norm; the rest of us are the “others.”

That tradition has changed somewhat through the success of celebrated female authors like Ursula LeGuin and Margaret Atwood and authors of color like Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany. Recently, N.K. Jemisin became the first black, female author to win the Hugo award for a novel, and three of the five titles that were shortlisted in 2016 were written by women. The annual output of SFF has become more diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, sexuality and other characteristics, but surveys show we still have a long way to go to bring representations of people of color, women, and LGBTs out of the margins.

It’s hard to find data outside of the YA world, where, for good reason, a lot of the attention to diversity has been placed. The YA data I did find may or may not reflect the state of diversity in SFF as a whole.

For example, the Cooperative Children’s Book Center tracks a rising number of SFF books about people of color over the past few years, though in the last recorded year (2015), those books represented a little less than fifteen percent of all SFF releases. Regarding LGBT diversity, Malinda Lo’s most recent (2014) LGBT YA by the Numbers also showed a growing, yet still disappointing number of SFF releases about LGBTs: a total of seventeen in 2014.

CCBC also tracks how many SFF books are written by people of color, and that share is even smaller at ten percent. That gap in authorship is one of the reasons behind the #OwnVoices hashtag.

Started by YA author Corinne Duyvis in 2015, #OwnVoices was created to uplift books about marginalized groups that are written by authors who are members of that marginalized group. In addition to concerns about depth of characterization and accuracy, Duyvis says her interest in #OwnVoices grew out a collective concern that many minority authors who write about their own communities experience marginalization within the publishing industry, in the form of less recognition, lower advances, and less promotion than their privileged peers who garner kudos for writing diverse characters.

#Ownvoices supporter Ellen Oh tweeted home the point with the example: “Everyone knows Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden but not Geisha of Gion by Mineko Iwasaki.” In terms of queer SFF, you might say: everyone knows the gay wizard Dumbledore, created by J.K. Rowling, but not the gay wizard Jessex, created by Jim Grimsley (that observation is especially depressing since Rowling didn’t even write the character as gay, but she was lauded for promoting LGBT diversity just by saying she had envisioned him as gay).

Duyvis makes the important distinction that #Ownvoices refers to titles, not the authors themselves, since not all minority authors write about their own communities. It’s also not a campaign against authors outside of minority groups writing about minorities, who are often allies, but rather a campaign for uplifting #Ownvoices titles.

That point is important to me as I segueway into my analysis of #Ownvoices in queer SFF. A good number of authors writing about gay SFF characters, for example, are women, and as I’ve gotten involved in the queer SFF community, I have tremendous gratitude and respect for the many female authors who are my colleagues and my friends and my Twitter and Facebook “buddies.” They are a source of inspiration and have opened up opportunities for me as an author. Maybe it should go without saying, but repeating the point from the paragraph above, my interest in #Ownvoices in queer SFF is not to criticize female authors (or non-gay male authors) who write gay SFF or to suggest that they should not be doing it. I’ve read, and on occasion, participated in online discussions about appropriation and objectification, and I do think those are important conversations for authors and readers to have. The data I compiled, however, does not and is not meant to speak to those issues.

My purpose is to delve deeper into the state of queer diversity in SFF. Good and plentiful portrayals of queer characters are one dimension of progress, and one that many of us would argue could stand for some improvement. But authorship is important to consider as well. Queer authors have historically faced censorship and discrimination in the publishing industry (and beyond) when writing about queer experiences. Authorship is an aspect of diversifying literature that hasn’t been well-explored in a quantifiable way. If efforts to diversify literature seek to promote cultural fairness, I would argue, as #Ownvoices does, then they should acknowledge the differential experiences of privileged and disadvantaged authors who are writing diverse books, and seek to remedy the disparities that exist.

All segments of the queer spectrum need to be considered. I chose gay male SFF as an appropriate starting point because I know that genre most intimately as an author and as a reader, and I also have lived experience as gay man. By compiling some data on how gay SFF #Ownvoices titles fare in the publishing world, my hope is to begin to examine diversity from the perspective of authorship.

It would have been useful to count the number of gay SFF titles published each year by the big houses (Tor, Gollancz, Ace Books) and determine how many were authored by gay men, as a measure of disparity and “status.” Those big house titles have access to trade reviews, wide distribution, marketing, libraries, and awards programs to a far greater extent than small press and self-published titles. Unfortunately, I struggled to find data on the annual output of gay SFF books, and the prospect of researching the many hundreds of releases listed on the publishers’ websites was just too overwhelming; though I’m happy to cheer on anyone who endeavors to do that. 🙂

Malindo Lo’s meticulous investigation of big house titles, just in the YA world, those seventeen LGBT SFF books she found in 2014, are not identified by title or author or L or G or B or T. Lo also noted in her report she couldn’t estimate with accuracy proportionality with respect to the total number of published books due to the complexity of capturing that data.

A little easier to analyze are lists of books that are popular among readers, and recommended lists, and winners and finalists in awards programs. I decided those were decent places to gather data.

Looking at the top 100 books in Goodreads’ Listopia “Best Fantasy Books with Gay Characters,” 89 of the titles are authored by female authors, including the top ten. Of the eleven titles authored by male authors, five are authored by self-identified gay men, two are authored by a self-identified heterosexual man (Richard K. Morgan), and four are authored by men whose sexual identity I could not determine. That’s a rather paltry five, or at best nine percent share by #Ownvoices titles.

My method for determining an author’s gender and sexuality involved looking at biographies for pronouns and mentions of “husbands,” “wives,” or male “partners,” and in some cases delving into media interviews in which the author talked about his sexuality.

The fantasy Listopia leans toward “M/M” category romance titles like Lynn Flewelling’s Nightrunner series and Mercedes Lackey’s Last Herald Mage, so despite its title, the voters may not be so representative of the range of gay SFF readers and buyers.

So I also looked at the top 100 books in Goodreads’ Listopia “Best Science Fiction Books with Gay Characters,” where I found that 69 of the titles were authored by female authors. Twenty-two of the titles were authored by self-identified gay men, six are authored by heterosexual men, and three were authored by men whose sexuality I could not determine. That seems to indicate that sci fi #OwnVoices titles do a little better than their fantasy counterparts, though Goodreads members are still much more aware of, and/or enthusiastic about gay sci fi titles written by non-gay authors.

ALA’s GLBT Roundtable compiles recommended GLBT titles each year, based on “exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender experience.” I analyzed their lists from the past five years (2012-2016). The Roundtable creates two annual “Over the Rainbow” lists: one for Young Readers and one for Adult Readers (18+). In the past three years, their Adult Readers list did not include any SFF titles. Their Young Readers list has more consistently included works of SFF.

In total, over the past five years, the Roundtable chose thirteen SFF titles featuring gay protagonists or secondary characters for its Young Adult list. Seven gay SFF titles figured into its Adult list for the years 2012 and 2013. Selections from both lists lean toward futuristic, dystopian and short story collections that are reflective of contemporary issues faced by LGBTs like religious and political persecution and coming out.

Out of those twenty selected titles, only six or 30 percent were authored by gay men. The Adult lists favored #Ownvoices titles a little more at 42 percent. The Young Adult lists included just three #Ownvoices titles out of thirteen books or 23 percent: Tim Floreen’s Willful Machines, Steven De Los Santos’ The Culling, and Alex London’s Proxy.

Another source I looked at was the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards. Their picks tend to be more “hard” and high concept SFF rather than M/M or books with educational themes. With its mission to: “honor outstanding works of science fiction, fantasy and horror which include significant positive explorations of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered characters, themes, or issues,” you would expect to find lots of titles by gay authors on its shortlists, right?

Erm, not exactly. Spectrum nominees include a mix of lesbian, transgender, bisexual and gay male-themed titles, and of the twenty books with gay male protagonist or secondary characters that won awards or were shortlisted by Gaylactic over the past five years (2012-2016), exactly zero were written by gay men. Most were written by women, and two were written by heterosexual men.

Last, I looked at the winners and finalists at Lambda Literary Awards over the same five year period. The Lammys combine SFF and horror into one category, and, like Gaylactic, they don’t separate out the L, G, B or T. I did not consider horror titles in my analysis, and one challenge was that Lambda’s SFF picks lean toward literary speculative fiction, which in some cases defies conventional categorization, e.g. contemporary stories with some surrealistic elements (Robert Levy’s The Glittering World, Craig Laurance Gidney’s Skin Deep Magic) and stories that imagine gender and sexuality in fantastical ways (Mary Anne Mohanraj’s The Stars Change). I decided to include all of their SFF titles that contained some depiction of gay male sexuality, regardless of whether the SFF elements were “light” or “heavy.”

In total, I found eighteen titles that fit those criteria for the period of 2012-2016. Nine of the titles were written by female authors. Eight were written by gay male authors. One was written by a male author whose sexuality I could not determine. The upshot: 44 percent of Lambda’s picks were #Ownvoices titles.

Taken together, my analysis of five data sources seems to indicate that popular, recommended, and award-winning gay SFF titles are significantly more likely to be authored by non-gay authors, primarily women. The highest proportion of #OwnVoices titles I found was 44 percent within Lambda’s shortlist over the past five years. The lowest proportion was zero at Gaylactic.

And, wait for it…I made a chart!

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More research is definitely needed. For example, I’ll be the first to indict my preliminary analysis as one dimensional. I have not as yet taken the time to cross-analyze the titles and authors I found by characteristics like race/ethnicity, which is immensely important to consider. I would hypothesize that #Ownvoices titles by gay men of color receive even less recognition than their white-authored counterparts.

My findings suggest there is indeed a gap between #Ownvoices titles and non-gay authored titles in gay SFF, and that gap appears to run across M/M romance titles (where one might expect to find the biggest disparity), but also, more surprisingly, titles with educational themes, “hard” and high concept SFF, and literary speculative fiction. The results also suggest that gay authors who are writing gay science fiction and literary speculative fiction may be having more success than those who are writing fantasy romance and high concept SFF. It raises a questions worthy of further exploration: why aren’t #Ownvoices gay SFF titles received by readers, librarians, and awards programs with at least the same amount of enthusiasm as gay SFF written by non-gay authors?