Tag Archives: Tom Cardamone

My Year in Books

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It’s become a tradition for me to do a year-end post about the books I read and reviewed. Goodreads helps a lot with that (though annoyingly, I couldn’t find a way to copy, share or use html code for the personalized graphic as I had in years past). Anyway, you can see my Year in Books arranged with pretty images and statistics here.

I read a total of 23 books, which is down one book from last year. That’s not too bad considering this year I spent a little more time on manuscript swaps with writing buddies. The genres fell into the following categories:

LGBTQ+ sci fi/fantasy: 13

LGBTQ+ general fiction: 4

LGBTQ+ mystery: 2

General sci fi/fantasy: 2

LGBTQ+ YA: 1

Non-fiction: 1

And I’m happy to say 95% of the LGBTQ+ titles were #OwnVoices. 🙂

Fourteen of those books I read for review sites, which explains the preponderance of LGBTQ+ and fantasy titles. I volunteer to review those genres. I have two favorites to recommend from that group.

The Gurka and the Lord of Tuesday by Saad Hossain is a laugh out loud, Pratchett-esque sci fi comedy drawn from Arabian folklore. You can read my review at NY Journal of Books here.

My other favorite title that I reviewed was This Town Sleeps by Dennis E. Staples. It’s a family saga/ghost story set in an Ojibwe community, with a gay lead character. This Town Sleeps was also the last book I finished in 2019. I received an advanced review copy. It doesn’t release until March 2020, and the review hasn’t gone up yet at Out in Print.

 

Some other honorable mentions: I did well with gay mysteries this year, and I highly recommend Marshall Thornton’s Late Fees and Michael Craft’s Choirmaster.

As for the nine titles I read entirely for leisure or research, Tom Cardamone’s short story collection Night Sweats: Tales of Homosexual Wonder and Woe tops the list. The stories are visceral, often disturbing and wildly imaginative. Tom and I did a Pop Up Swap on my blog, which you can read here.

I also really enjoyed J.P. Jackson’s Magic or Die, which I read for another author swap earlier in the year. That title is a gay mutant/superhero fantasy that draws on the author’s extensive knowledge of pagan beliefs and practices.

So what’s next for me? Nothing too different, I expect. Since I’m continuing as a reviewer at NY Journal of Books, Out in Print and Queer Sci Fi, I’ll be reading more sci fi/fantasy titles, especially those of LGBTQ+ interest. Plus I’m still working on expanding my Intro to Gay Fantasy reading list, hoping to discover some gems and classics. Sadly, I didn’t find any titles to add to the list this past year.

I’m also going to read more books written by authors of color.

This post also serves as my Happy Holidays post for 2019 so here’s a handsome fellow in the holiday spirit for you.

via GIPHY

I’m so grateful for your support and hope you have a rollicking or relaxing time, whichever floats your boat. Let me know how you did with books in 2019 and/or what you are looking forward to reading next year. 🙂

Part Two of my Pop Up Swap with Tom Cardamone

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Today, my Pop Up Swap interview with Tom Cardamone continues, and we switch seats to discuss Slashed and Mashed…

TC: Andrew, I’m intrigued! Not many writers have more than one series under their belt before tackling short stories. The usual path is the reverse, so I’d like to hear about the steps that lead up to this project.

AP: I did start out as a writer in a typical fashion, submitting short stories to journals, but you’re right, I don’t have an extensive history with short fiction and anthologies, and I haven’t had a short story published in five plus years. I had pretty much stepped away from shorts in order to work on longer projects.

Slashed and MashedSo the deal with Slashed and Mashed is I was writing content to create a Patreon page and thought it made a lot of sense to queer up some classic myths. That tends to be my fantasy métier, and I love gender-swapping and revisiting characters with a different spin.

I ended up with a bunch of stories, and then I got more serious about them, running them by writing buddies and thinking about an anthology as a goal, whether I found a publisher or published the book myself.

I truly had no idea what my chances were getting anyone interested in publishing the collection. As you noted, I’m not known as a short story author, plus the kind of retold myths and fairytales that typically garner interest in the gay publishing world are happily-ever-after (HEA) romances, of which I had a few, but I didn’t want to limit myself to that.

So I pitched the idea to my editor Elizabetta at NineStar Press since she likes my writing and NineStar welcomes diverse fantasy and cross-genre titles, not solely focused on HEA romance and they do short story anthologies. We had a lot of back and forth about what would work best in terms of varying story length, mood, characters, and themes.

Not every piece I submitted made it into the collection. The publisher prefers “complete” stories, so the anthology leans toward longer works with start-to-finish plot arcs. I see the wisdom in that now that the book is out in the world. The fuller stories tend to get the most positive response from readers. Anyway, I’m happy with the variety in the seven pieces we included.

TC: How’d you arrive at the title?

AP: I also pitched a few possible titles to my editor, and we both liked Slashed and Mashed. I think it sums up the connective tissue. I wanted to reboot stories pretty boldly, and slashed is a nod to slash fiction, and I like that shorthand for subverting heterosexual canon.

TC: I loved the twist in the opening story, and not giving anything a way, I’m wondering if you’re a Mary Renault fan?

AP: Absolutely. I don’t read ancient world historical fiction as often these days, but there was a time when I was absorbed in it, and Mary Renault is the grand dame of ancient world historicals. I’m humbled you made that connection. With “Theseus and the Minotaur,” I wanted the story to have the feel of historical accuracy, fictional as it is. I wanted it to be a portrait of the two main characters with greater depth than the epic myth, which doesn’t really go beyond their surface characteristics and motivations.

TC: What was the first book of hers you read?

AP: Naturally, I started with The Persian Boy. I had big expectations, and that book was a case of meeting them and then some.

Mary Renault

English/South African author Mary Renault. Image retrieved from Wikipedia

I’ve also read The King Must Die, The Last of the Wine, and The Charioteer. The Persian Boy remains my favorite. Renault is probably the most reliable historical storyteller in my estimation. I don’t know that for a fact, but she has such a voice and an ear and an eye for the time period, you just don’t question anything she says.

And her rendering of Alexander’s relationship with his slave Bagoas, as well as with his companion Hephaistion, feels so honest and real. They’re not heartwarming romances. I mean, there are definitely heartwarming moments, but they’re complicated as they necessarily would have been. Another thing that made me a Renault fan is the fact she took the story from Bagoas’s point-of-view, giving that lesser known historical figure the humanity he deserves.

TC: I’ve read some interesting discussions on-line about women writing gay stories, with the accusation that they’re crowding gay writers out of the market, though their audience seems to be women. I’m of the mind that this argument isn’t necessary but rather such books signify a cultural phenomenon that’s worth talking about. That said, some writers who happen to be women and happen to write gay characters are making fantastic books. Are there any that you’ve enjoyed?

AP: I haven’t been shy being one of the voices in that discussion, and I always qualify my position by saying writers should write whatever the hell they want within an ethical framework, and I admire many female authors who write gay characters.

My other lead-in is the issue of who gets to tell gay stories, I mean the ones that see the light of day, goes way beyond what women are or aren’t writing with regard to gay subjects. I think what a lot of people don’t understand about the #OwnVoices movement, which I’m proudly a part of, is it’s not an effort to elevate marginalized writers as “better” authors of marginalized stories. No one is winning that argument given the vicissitudes of what constitutes quality and value in literature. Issues like cultural appropriation and lived experience come up in the #OwnVoices discussion, but for me and a lot of authors I talk to, what’s even more important is equity, i.e. how do we support stories about marginalized communities written by marginalized writers?

The crowding out issue you mention is interesting and complex because you need to consider intersectionality and the fact that gay male white cis gender authors like myself face some obstacles in the industry on one hand but many privileges on the other that don’t exist for trans writers and queer writers of color and women writers in other contexts.

I’ve done some research on #OwnVoices in gay fantasy, and my conclusion that somewhere between five to 20 percent of published titles are authored by gay men sounds dismal at first blush. But then you step back and look at what’s getting published generally in queer/LGBT fantasy, and it’s a lot more white, cisgender G stories, and that’s regardless of authorship as far as I can tell. So really writers like me aren’t doing too bad in that regard and as allies should be talking about the lack of diversity within diversity so to speak.

I agree female-authored MM is a cultural phenomenon which has had a big impact on the market and perhaps more significantly, for some of us, on gay literature as a category and a tradition, which is slightly different from the idea of being crowded out.

I never describe my work as MM, for example, but that’s what publishers, reviewers and readers generally want to call it, and it’s gotten to the point where I see it as a generational thing. I run into young gay authors who talk about their work as MM. It was jarring to me at first. I mean, MM started as slash romance by women for women and intentionally tropish and eroticized, and none of these guys are actually writing that. But nowadays, you have folks calling books by André Aciman to Andrew Sean Greer to Adam Silvera “MM” so I think it’s a losing battle to be the grumpy older guy pointing out: hey, we used to just call books about gay people gay fiction. Though I still do that sometimes.

So setting aside my commentary, I’ve enjoyed many books with gay characters and themes written by female writers. Mary Renault probably shines the brightest for me. I was also blown away by Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian, which similarly leaves you scratching your head: this couldn’t have been written in the twentieth century; it’s got to be translated source material.

In queer fantasy, I think Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint is a classic, and Ginn Hale’s work stands out as well. I also loved Patricia Nell Warren’s The Front Runner, and now I think I’ve outed myself as partial to lesbian authors who take on the gay male subject.

TC: Back to Slashed and Mashed, with The Peach Boy, I was thrilled that not only did you visit my favorite literary landscape, Japan, but that you did such a believable job. I was transported. Can you tell us a little about the research that went into making this tale?

AP: Thanks! I’m glad. I know you’re a Japanese culture aficionado, and a ton more well-traveled and versed than me.

I looked fairly high and low for a story to subvert from Asian folklore. I actually tried doing something with my very favorite Chinese myth about how the panda got its spots, and then I gave some thought to “The Passion of the Cut Sleeve,” which is a surprising queer story from Chinese history about the relationship between Emperor Ai of Han and his court minister Dong Xian. Nothing worked in my head, and I couldn’t find any stories from Southeastern Asian sources that gelled for me either. Hopefully, I’ll have the chance to go back there and see if there’s something I can queer up.

Momotaro shrine in Aichi Inuyama, Japan. Photo retrieved from Wikipedia Commons

Momotaro shrine in Aichi Inuyama, Japan. Photo retrieved from Wikipedia Commons

I have to say I was both excited and a little terrified by the prospect of taking on Japanese folklore. I adore Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films. They’re so imaginative and different from Western stories. I’ve also read and watched some gay manga (yaoi), and it’s really madcap and sentimental, which fascinates me. But it felt like quite a reach to successfully capture the voice and tone of that kind of Japanese lore.

I knew a little bit about Momotarō (aka the Peach Boy), and I started reading versions of the original legend. It’s strange in some ways, but I have to confess it’s also one of the more accessible Japanese hero legends for Western readers, so the lights started blinking in my head. I can do this!

I also read Royall Tyler’s Japanese Tales to get some background on folk beliefs and customs and settings. If you get the chance, take a look at “Two Buckets of Marital Bliss.” I think you’ll enjoy the humor there.

TC: I particularly liked that the story centered on an older gay married couple. What inspired you to spin it in this direction?

AP: I thought about taking the approach of queering Momotarō himself, but I discarded that pretty quickly because I already had two young adult hero pieces in the collection (“Theseus and the Minotaur” and “Károly, Who Kept a Secret”). What appealed to me more was reimagining the older, childless couple who find a boy inside a peach and focusing on what it would be like to be an older gay couple in 18th century Okayama Prefecture. More generally, I wanted to include multigenerational gay men’s stories in the collection.

Japan was still very much a feudal society in the 1700s, and that got me interested in taking the Momotarō story a bit deeper, how this older, peasant couple navigated taking in an orphan. And Japanese culture isn’t infected by the stridently homophobic religious beliefs of many other parts of the world, but I was aware there were and still are prejudices toward LGBTs based on traditional gender roles and norms. So I wanted to depict that part of the struggle, these two men, a widower and an older bachelor who made a home together in a small village and then face the decision of what to do with an orphaned child.

TC: While you supply some very needed positive portrayals of gay relationships and desire in Slashed and Mashed, you don’t sugar coat things. I was particularly glad to see a narcissistic gay character get his just deserts- were you following the form of fables or aiming for well-rounded characterization? And while much has been said about narcissism in the gay community, it’s always as an aside, and never dealt with head on- does “The Vain Prince” serve as something of a corrective?

AP: Well, I agree, but if I’m being honest it was not all that intentional of a commentary in “The Vain Prince.” The spoiled princess from “The Frog Prince” was my inspiration point, and I also had the contest of suitors from the opera Turandot on my brain. More so, I thought of that story as subversive in the sense that male beauty and certainly gayness aren’t things that get celebrated and indulged in traditional fairytales, so it struck me as time for a very pretty and very gay prince to have his day. Other than that, I think I held to form with a story about a cold-hearted beauty who gets a hard lesson in the importance of self-sacrifice.

Now I thought you might be leading into “Ma’aruf the Street Vendor,” who has the misfortune of falling in love with a young, handsome and very self-centered “artist cum model” Fareed. While the tone is light and absurd in that Arabian Nights reboot, I did think of their relationship as something that happens with some frequency in the gay community.

It’s kind of two thorns in one for me. You have this pretty, narcissistic guy who takes advantage of an older man he doesn’t really care about. Then you have this older guy who sacrifices everything because only a pretty young man makes him feel worthy and desirable. I think those are situations we still contend with in our community, and the beauty obsession has a negative impact on how we relate to one another. Part of Ma’aruf’s journey is recognizing he doesn’t need a hot, young guy to fulfill his sense of happiness, and in that I’ll admit I was channeling my criticism of youthful vanity as well as older guys who become fixed in the search for young beauty.

The other story that touches on the narcissistic theme is “The Jaguar of the Backward Glance.” I actually didn’t really think much about what I was doing with the gay characterization there until one of the story’s early readers, who happens to be straight, commented that the main character René is hard to like because he’s so petty after he gets discarded by his lover.

René’s story is set in the seventeenth century, and I had in mind both historical and contemporary challenges to gay identity formation. He’s this closeted thirty-five-year-old man, who is terrified of being discovered as gay and turned quite bitter toward the world because he can’t have what he desires. So when he finally experiences sex and affection then loses it because his lover falls back on heterosexual convention, it totally made sense for me that he’d be destroyed in the proportions of teenage heartbreak.

It’s frankly not so different from how I reacted to unrequited crushes as a young adult, and I hadn’t suffered nearly as many years feeling injured and alienated as poor René. He has suicidal and homicidal fantasies, which I can see as coming across as “petty” in relation to a failed week-long affair, but I felt gay readers could relate to that. René is a narcissistic character, but not so much by constitution as from the trauma of having to hide his gayness. I do think that’s the genesis of narcissism in some cases. We turn inward and create this inflated sense of ourselves as a defense against a hostile world.

TC:  Can you talk about the global reach of the book? You have adapted tales from multiple cultures, was this your initial intent or did your reach grow as the project grew?

AP: I wrote a lot of classical myths initially in developing my Patreon page, and it hit me at some point I’d love to go broader with world folklore from the standpoint of representation as well as creating a collection that’s a little different from the ones that have come before. There are a lot of queer retold fairytale collections based on classic European sources, so part of my motivation was creating a collection that offered something new and different. For me, my natural tendency is to represent the community realistically, in all of its diversity.

TC: New York City pops up as a location, too. Our city is a character in much of literature. Sometimes I try hard to put a story somewhere else, other times I can’t wait to write what I consider a “New York story.” Were you of the same mind with your work here?

AP: In a way, yes. I’m one of the millions of gays who flocked to New York City as a place where I could be myself, and yes, I’ve read many gay novels set in NYC. Actually, I’d say those novels had a lot to do with me coming to NYC.

As a writer, I don’t think I’ve been as concerned about actively avoiding NYC as a locale versus being part of that breed that’s terrible about choosing to write what I know. I tend to write stories in fantasy or historical settings. Then, even with my contemporary work – the Werecat series and Irresistible – the stories came to me as starting in New York City, but then I had the characters running off to far flung places that served the plot.

I will say when I get the chance to place situations in the city where I live, it’s a big weight off my shoulders. Zero location research went into “A Rabbit Grows in Brooklyn.” Well okay, I did peek at a street map of Fort Greene, on which I based Ramon’s neighborhood. Ma’aruf’s story also begins in New York City, Queens even, where I live, so that setting was easy for me to render.

TC: In our chat about my short story collection, Night Sweats: Tales of Homosexual Wonder and Woe, you brought up a favorite, out-of-print gay classic, Saul’s Book by Paul Rogers. In your research for Slashed and Mashed, did you uncover any gay titles that deserve some renewed attention?

AP: I mention in my author’s note, there are two gay fairytale collections that inspired me to try my hand at short retellings: Jeremy McAteer’s Fairytales for Gay Guys and Lawrence Schimel’s The Drag Queen of Elfland. Somehow, I bet you’re familiar with the latter, Tom. Some of Schimel’s pieces remind me a bit of yours in subject and mood. Schimel also explores HIV+ characters in his stories, which I think is rare and so important for a modern fairytale collection.

TC: Cool talking books and stories with Andrew, thanks for this, I hope we get a chance to do it again!

Pop Up Swap with Tom Cardamone

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Hello my long-neglected darlings! Papa’s back (with strange new affectations you may have noticed), and he’s got a long and meaty Pop Up for you.

Wow. That didn’t sound as creepy in my head as it came out on the page. This isn’t that kind of blog. What I have today is my author exchange with horror/fantasy/erotica author Tom Cardamone. I guess the erotica part had double entendres on my brain. I read Tom’s short story anthology Night Sweats, and he read my recently published anthology Slashed and Mashed: Seven Gayly Subverted Stories.

This Pop Up will be a two-parter. Today I post my interview with him, and I’ll post our conversation about me next week.

Here’s Tom’s impressive bio:

Tom Cardamone is the editor of Crashing Cathedrals: Edmund White by the Book and author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning novella, Green Thumb, as well as other works of fiction and non-fiction. You can read more about him and his writings at www.pumpkinteeth.net. And check out Crashing Cathedrals over at ITNA Press.

I met Tom years back when we were both tabling for Bold Strokes Books at the NYC Rainbow Book Fair. How far back? Meh. These days I’m lucky if I can answer that with an accurate range, but I’d say it would have to be somewhere between 2013 and 2015. A few years later, we joined up again at NYC’s inaugural queer comic-con Flame-con. And we hit it off and kept in touch. I’d read an anthology he edited: The Lavender Menace: Tales of Queer Villainy so I was already a fan. Then I read his novella Green Thumb and loved it, and I reviewed his erotic-fantasy The Lurid Sea for Queer Sci Fi.

Here’s the back cover blurb from Night Sweats.

Set in Japan, small town America, midnight Manhattan, ancient Greece and Rome, and beyond, these stories run the gamut of urban nightmare, gay love lost and found, dragons, super villains, a fairy addicted to meth, and Satan on the subway. Readers of Night Sweats will find tales that push boundaries while supplying ample scares, erotic thrills, much wonderment, and some woe.

 

 

 

 

So let’s dive in!

AP: Tom, you know I’ve been an admirer of your writing for some time. Big thanks for taking part in the Swap.

I loved Night Sweats. It left me with so many lasting images, from Cyclops babies to giant owls descending on small towns in New England to hallucinogenic fairy snot. I’ll get to some of your inspiration points and storytelling approaches, but I wanted to say off the bat, that quality of taking readers to places they haven’t been before is really present across the collection and pretty darn impressive.

I wanted to start though with more of an editing and production question. What was the process like for you selecting and ordering the stories? Slashed and Mashed was my first short story collection, so it got me intrigued about how other writers navigate that process, and maybe you could share with me and my visitors how you saw your stories fitting together as an anthology?

TC: Thank you for that outstanding introduction! I’ve enjoyed your work as well, and think Slashed and Mashed really covers some important ground, so congrats there! It’s one of those books that I wished had existed and been accessible in my youth.

To your question of story selection: years and years ago I read Nabokov’s Dozen, which featured thirteen of the maestro’s stories, and it’s stuck in my head that thirteen is the magic number. That said, I also pay attention to the flow, as if they were pieces of a quilt, and then the greater story tells itself, in terms of which one belongs at the beginning, the middle, the end and so on.

Also, and I think this applies to other writers as well, there are always pieces that are interesting but maybe experimental, too short or too weird to find a home anywhere else but in a collection of your work, where the consistency of your voice gives them buoyancy and permanency, so I’ve always written stories that I’ve never tried to place, but just crossed my fingers and thought “If I ever cobble together another collection, I know right where I’m going to plant this dark little seed. . .”

AP: That’s a great point. I’ve got some dark little seeds myself.

There’s a lot to love about your collection, and related to that topic of theme and subject, I’ve read two of your longer books, which were both on the dark and gritty side. With Night Sweats, you certainly included stories in that vein with characters on the margins like “Honeysuckle” and taboo orgiastic adventures like “Diabolical” and “Halloween Parade.” If I’m remembering correctly, there’s just one love story with a heartwarming, happy ending: “Blue Seaweed,” which I suspect was a germination point for your longer work about Nerites by the way, no?

TC: “Blue Seaweed” reflects my obsession with ancient history and myth, a fascination we share! This story, about a Greek boy during the time of the Roman Empire who meets a Godling from the sea and sparks fly, underwater as it were -this was one that gestated over a long period of time, and benefited from early readers, something I rarely do, but I did want love to win with this one.

AP: Nice. I’ve mentioned with regard to Green Thumb, your writing reminds me of William S. Burroughs in its hallucinogenic lyricism (or lyrical hallucinogenics?), and your work explores similar themes about the gay experience like lust and desperation and cruelty and loneliness and jealousy. Those were major themes from gay writers of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. I’m thinking of John Rechy, Edmund White, and Paul Rogers whose work I devoured in high school and college.

I’m great at long, meandering lead-ins to questions, and I also have a tendency to wrap up several of them together. Who do you see as your influences?

Saul's BookTC: Well thank you for the awesome Burroughs comparison, I’ve certainly read most of his work. And you’ve certainly hit upon some of my major influences. It’s very nice to hear Paul Rogers get name-checked. His lone novel, Saul’s Book, is astounding, more so once you learn he was murdered by his lover and adopted son shortly after publication.

Another writer I admire, Paul Russell, wrote about him in a book I edited: The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered. Other writers who have influenced me, especially early on, are Kathe Koja, Octavia E. Butler, Geoff Ryman and John Varley. Stylistically and the breadths and depths of their imaginations leave me breathless, which is what I hope some of my readers feel as well. The gay writers that you referenced, along with Saint Genet, are definite influences as well.

AP: I’m ashamed to say I’m only familiar with Geoff Ryman and Genet, but I can see the connection in both cases. There’s a haunting sadness in a lot of Geoff Ryman’s work and Jean Genet of course was provocative and unapologetic in his approach to sexuality.

I mentioned before I sensed some of the stories fed into your longer work. “Blue Seaweed” and “The Love of the Emperor is Divine” reminded me of The Lurid Sea for different reasons. I also got hints of Green Thumb here and there, not the post-apocalyptic setting but from your depiction of anthropomorphic characters and the eroticization of the unusual and from the tone of death and desperation. All of which makes for great, high impact reading by the way.

I don’t write short fiction nearly as much as you do, but I did have the experience of some of my shorter work leading into writing a novel. Around the time I wrote “Theseus and the Minotaur” from Slashed and Mashed, I wrote an experimental piece about Telemachus from The Odyssey and another based on the Nerites myth. It hit me later: hmm, what would happen if these four gay boys met up and had an adventure? That turned into a YA buddy comedy I’m currently pitching around.

Do you find that your shorter work stimulates an interest in writing longer pieces? I know you write both, and I’m curious if you find yourself more at home with short versus long?

TC: Confession: I write short fiction mostly to avoid novel-length projects, so I can feel productive while still dragging my feet.

AP: Alrighty. I’ll step back from that one.

Back to the fantasy subject, I recognized little reference points here and there — Greek/Roman sea godlings in “Blue Seaweed” and the superhero/super villain theme in “The Ice King” and “Kid Cyclops” — but there’s a lot of originality with the characters and situations. You have a spectacular imagination.

A common thread is alienation and the line between beauty/desire and the grotesque/repulsive. I mean, you have two stories with men fellating a pretty gory, reptilian devil. “Halloween Parade” concerns a guy looking to have sex with Michael Myers. Here comes my deep question, what do you think your choices of subject and I guess I’d say aesthetic have to say about your worldview and/or just your own experience in the world?

TC: I think it’s my commitment to going in a different direction, to figure out what we avoid talking about and having a full discussion right there, no matter how uncomfortable the subject matter.

AP: Interesting. I think that’s what makes your work high impact for me as I said. It’s confrontational, and whether or not you like the characters or the situations, they stay with you because they make you stop and think.

I have to confess, I used to read gay short fiction regularly, but that was before I hatched the great idea to start plodding through writing novels about ten or so years back. So I’ll share some of the short fiction writers I admire, but I bet you’ll be much more up to date than me.

I like Sam J. Miller, Victor Banis, Lawrence Schimel, Scott Hess, and Charlie Vazquez to name a few. Back in the day, I was a big fan of the queer fantasy journal Collective Fallout, which sadly folded in 2013. This year, I reviewed a similar anthology Broken Metropolis, edited by Dave Ring, and it was fabulous and made me appreciate the next generation of up and coming queer writers.

What short fiction writers are you reading these days?

TC: You mentioned some great names! Sam’s in The Lost Library, and Charlie wrote a great piece for a book I’ve recently edited: Crashing Cathedrals: Edmund White by the Book, which is a celebration of Ed’s work, book by book; his oeuvre is seminal, beyond impressive, it’s historical, and putting that together was an adventure.

Crashing CathedralsI’m currently reading Trebor Healey’s latest short story collection, Falling, and I love it. It’s astounding how stories that are thematically linked can also be so diverse yet well-drawn. And Craig Gidney is a favorite of mine. I interviewed him about his collection Skin Deep Magic a few years ago, and definitely recommend it as well as his first collection, Sea, Swallow Me and Other Stories. Both are stellar, fans of Tanith Lee will be impressed, and gay boys will see a multitude of reflections in his work that are otherwise hard to find.

As you’ve recognized the influence of 80s and 90s gay writers, I must say that I did not know Andrew Holleran had a short story collection, he’s so known as a novelist that this escaped my attention, but earlier this year a friend recommended his book, In September the Light Changes, from 1999. I found a perfect hardback at the Strand and devoured it. So of those times yet timeless.

AP: Great suggestions! Both Healey and Gidney have been on my TBR list for too long. I’m bumping them up per your testimonials.

Onto another topic, the two of us have talked about the state of the gay publishing before, most recently over drinks perhaps to numb the pain. Like me, you’ve bounced around a bit in terms of publishers, and we’ve chatted about the joys and discontents of the changing market and the limited reach of the few remaining small presses for gay fiction versus m/m romance. Perhaps you could share your view based on your experience?

TC: Let me turn that around and reposition it as advice for an up and coming writer: decide now if you’re a commercial artist or an outsider. I knew early on I was in this for the story, and the stories I was going to tell would be from the margins, for the margins. So if you choose the latter, be prepared to do a lot of the heavy lifting, and know that you’ll be genuinely proud when you break new ground, but when you do break new ground, it will be midnight in a wet cemetery and you’ll probably be alone.

AP: Egad. Too true. Well, I do see your point. I think I mentioned this to you before, it’s a sad reckoning that even queer books that garner acclaim through programs like Lambda’s annual awards program often only achieve a small readership.

My last Swap with fantasy author J.P. Jackson got me thinking about how my writing has, and hasn’t, changed over the years. I could go back to what I wrote in grade school as an extreme example, and even though the kind of hack jobs I did back then were pretty hysterically awful, I can recognize some similarities in the way I approached character even those many years ago.

On the other hand, since I started writing with the goal of getting published, I have noticed that my interests have changed a little. My early work was quite serious in tone, and I mentioned my latest work is a buddy-comedy and overall, I’ve been drawn to writing humor more.

Do you find different inspiration points since your first short fiction pieces came out? I’ll attribute my switch to lighter stories as something of a safe zone in which to write about my observations of the world and perhaps, just perhaps as I get older I’m learning to not take myself so seriously. Do you think getting older has influenced your writing?

TC: Aging has had a huge impact on my writing because it has deeply affected my reading. I’ve always read one author biography a year, just to sharpen my literary interests and see what else I can learn about the craft. At some point, during the last ten years, my interest in nonfiction has really perked up. I struggle to finish a novel but can consume a biography in just days. Something inside of me is hungry for the truth, not that fiction doesn’t often lead there, sometimes profoundly so, but I’ve felt for a long time that so much of our history remains untold, uncovered, so that as my readings take me in that direction, I see my writing following that same compass.

AP: I’ve noticed you’re editing and writing nonfiction lately. Selfishly, I hope you’ll return to fiction down the line. What are you writing these days? Do you have upcoming projects?

TC: I’m working on a true crime piece to see if it grows into a book, so stay tuned.

AP: Awesome. Anything else you’d like to say you wish I’d asked? 🙂

TC:  Yes, to meet for drinks! We should go to Julius again, though now that it’s cold out, maybe Metropolitan, I love their fire place.

AP: Deal!

Some photos from the BGS-QD Pride Reading

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Last night was great! What better way to celebrate Pride month than reading fierce, audacious, queer stories in what must be the queerest bookstore in New York City (if not the United States, the world?).

Many thanks to our fearless leader Tom Cardamone (The Lurid Sea, Green Thumb), and the owners of Bureau of General Services – Queer Division Greg and Donnie!

I’ll keep this post-event dispatch brief, just sharing a few photos from the event with captions.

BGS-QD Sandwich Board

BGS-QD Panel

Here are all the authors (l to r): Nora Olsen (Maxine Wore Black), Ann Apkater (Cantor Gold series), Tom Cardamone (The Lurid Sea), Nell Stark (The Princess Deception), Alexa Black (The Outcasts), and me

BGS-QD Deniro Hello

My favorite shot from the night. We invited folks from the audience to join us to give President Trump a Robert Deniro Hello from the queer literary community. You can see some of the cool artwork on display throughou the shop.

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.