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big dyke energy posted:So I read Priory of the Orange Tree recently and thought it was loving phenomenal. I also realized that I've barely read any fantasy novels, apart from Terry Prachett and the one time I read the Hobbit. I'm looking for more sweeping epic fantasy written by women/lgbt folk, especially ones featuring women/lgbt characters. i know it's sci-fi but I've also read all of Becky Chambers' stuff as well, which I also love, and I think Record of a Spaceborn Few is my favorite of her Wayfarer's triology. Haven't read her new one yet, but I have a hold on it at the library. This is pretty hard to narrow down because IMO that describes a lot of the best recent fantasy/sci fi. If you only read one thing from this list I think NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth series should be it. If you read two I’d probably add Anne Leckie or Naomi Novik. The Goblin Emperor specifically reminded me of The Priory of the Orange Tree. - NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth series (also basically the best fantasy series of the past five years imo) - The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie (based on yr description you should really read her book ancillary justice as well— sci fi but gender is a huge part of it. Also it’s crazy good) - Uprooted by Naomi Novik - The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison - The Poppy War RF Kuang - City of Brass SA Chakraborty - Under the pendulum sun by Jeannette Ng - Jade City by Fonda Lee (Less epic maybe but good) - All the birds in the sky by Charlie Jane anders — I actually haven’t read this yet but would be remiss not to include it, it won a ton of awards Less recent but Tamora Pierce? Sci fi but also good - Murderbot by Martha Wells (there’s a reason the last thread title recommended it). She also wrote some previous fantasy novels which play w gender roles. Though I don’t think they are quite as good overall as Murderbot, still maybe worth it if the themes interest you - the aforementioned Ancillary Justice by Leckie and sequels. - Gideon the Ninth (fantasy? Sci fi? Idk) - a memory called empire, arkady Martine (sci fi) - maaaaaaaybe too like the lightning by ada Palmer but it’s not exactly accessible Edit— if anyone has any recommendations for other books like the above I’d also appreciate more recommendations! tildes fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Oct 9, 2019 |
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Oct 9, 2019 08:59
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It's sci-fi, but Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee is definitely worth a read.
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Oct 9, 2019 09:31
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big dyke energy posted:So I read Priory of the Orange Tree recently and thought it was loving phenomenal. I also realized that I've barely read any fantasy novels, apart from Terry Prachett and the one time I read the Hobbit. I'm looking for more sweeping epic fantasy written by women/lgbt folk, especially ones featuring women/lgbt characters. i know it's sci-fi but I've also read all of Becky Chambers' stuff as well, which I also love, and I think Record of a Spaceborn Few is my favorite of her Wayfarer's triology. Haven't read her new one yet, but I have a hold on it at the library. Caitlin R. Kiernan might also be worth checking out. Laurie J Marks' Elemental Logic series might be exactly what you're looking for: https://www.tor.com/2019/05/23/living-in-hope-is-a-discipline-fire-logic-by-laurie-j-marks/ Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman series, which is kind of science-fantasy about a secret society of women trying to piece together the scientific method after it has been repressed by a patriachal monarchy. Kage Baker's Anvil of The World series might tickle you and The Company series also by her is off the walls bananas. fez_machine fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Oct 9, 2019 |
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Oct 9, 2019 13:02
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I'm currently reading City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett and after bouncing off a few pretty crap fantasy novels recently this one has really grabbed me, I was losing hope a bit.
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Oct 9, 2019 13:17
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big dyke energy posted:So I read Priory of the Orange Tree recently and thought it was loving phenomenal. I also realized that I've barely read any fantasy novels, apart from Terry Prachett and the one time I read the Hobbit. I'm looking for more sweeping epic fantasy written by women/lgbt folk, especially ones featuring women/lgbt characters. i know it's sci-fi but I've also read all of Becky Chambers' stuff as well, which I also love, and I think Record of a Spaceborn Few is my favorite of her Wayfarer's triology. Haven't read her new one yet, but I have a hold on it at the library. I've only read the first book in the trilogy so far, but Ninth Rain by Jen Williams is also fantastic fantasy featuring a lesbian main character. Gonna pull my review of it from the last thread: quote:Ninth Rain by Jen Williams: first in a trilogy, finished this one a few minutes ago so I'm still reeling from that finale. And drat, what a finale. Ahem, no spoilers. This is a weird one where it feels like a fantasy, acts like a fantasy, but has sci-fi and steampunk elements in equal turn. It's a fantasy universe that faces an alien invasion every few centuries, and the aliens are fought off by magic tree elves and their warbeasts (dragons, gryphons, etc) - but the last invasion ended when the Tree God powering the elves died mysteriously, and now centuries later the elves are dying out / turning to vampirism, and our heroine is a rich biologist nerd in her forties who goes around studying the ruins of the alien ships and seeing how they twist the landscape. Our other heroine is an imprisoned fell-witch, a lady who can summon fire at will - she's imprisoned by an insane cult/mega-corporation that steals these fell-witches, tells them they're abominations in the eyes of god, and then uses them to make drugs to sell to people. Oh yes. It's full of weird stuff that somehow seamlessly works together, the characters are fun, etc. The prose isn't amazing, but it works and has a modern tone ala Gideon - oh yes, these elves say gently caress. I'm hyped for reading the second one - after I've slept off the high of that finale. drat, what an ending! And I've got a handful of recs that don't overlap with tildes' list so  Fortress in the Eye of Time + its sequels by CJ Cherryh: 90s fantasy that's dense and delicious and about an old mage who tries to bring back an ancient magical hero but screws up and gets an amnesiac young man who loves birds instead. Said young man has to grow up in a hurry once his old mage gets attacked, and he winds up stumbling into the local province and meeting the Prince and for all that it's high fantasy it pays a ton of attention to details and the low-folk. You can treat the first book as standalone, and if you continue it turns into a kind of early version of Foreigner as Cherryh settles into exploring the implications of the first book, how the Prince secures his power and how the hero continues to grow up. It feels like a living universe. Cherryh in general is my favorite author, she wrote a billion books and almost all of them contain interesting aliens and/or worldbuilding. There is a general trend that her earlier stuff tends to be darker/bleaker and she lightens up over the years, with her best stuff arriving in the 90s. imho. She writes a ton of badass women, and has written at least one gay couple (they're in Cyteen) and is married to a lady herself. Next up is To Ride Hell's Chasm by Janny Wurts, a nice fat standalone fantasy that's basically a thriller. The princess has gone missing the night of her betrothal banquet and the captain of the guard has been tapped to lead up the investigation. Cue a lot of interesting court politics, weird magic, and then in the back half of the book the author reveals that she's a horse girl and if you do not love horses you will not appreciate those chase sequences as much as I did. They're such great horses, haha. I really loved this book and blazed through it quickly, and it's the best of Wurts' works - it distills everything she's good at. If you like her, there's more - her earlier work is weak (sadly) but her Curse of the Mistwraith mega-series is 10+ books of truly epic fantasy. I've read four of the books and they're really good but also really tough to read because awful things keep happening. Not in a grimdark way, but in a way where the main character has the worst luck in the entire world, and his brother has been cursed to hate him so he's also doing everything in his power to screw him over. If you start this series you're in for a ride, but be warned that the final book in the series isn't out yet and won't be for at least a few years. Black Sun Rising by CS Friedman is another 90s fantasy author, and this one is a trilogy that's all nice and gothic. The premise is, a colony ship crashed into a planet and got stranded because the natural forces on this planet are hyper-sensitive to psychic emanations and basically if you have a nightmare, this planet will make it real. Centuries later, this ain't a sci-fi novel anymore: it's a fantasy about these cultures that have adapted to this planet. People worship gods (that are now real), there are endless monsters and demons, and this trilogy centers around the conflict between a powerful religion that's trying to convert everyone so their faith tames the planet, and various mages and adventurers who get into other problems with this church. The main character is a mage-priest-swordsman who is new in town. He falls for a local mage lady, she gets kidnapped by demons, and he sets off to rescue her and winds up getting aid from a vampire lord. .... God I make it sound terrible and cliche, it's not, the writing is rich and it really makes these basic concepts sing. If you like that trilogy, she's written other good stuff - Madness Season, This Alien Shore, etc - but those are sci-fi. Hunter's Oath + Hunter's Death duology by Michelle West/Sagara, aka my new favorite fantasy author. I'm forty pages into Hunter's Death and recommending this duology as a starting point because she's written a billion books set in this one universe and these are the earliest two books in publication order - and they're a duology instead of being a seven+ book long epic fantasy series full of chonkers. These two books are about a country where they worship the Hunter God, and in exchange for fertile fields and good hunting, once a year he demand his chosen Hunterlords go on a sacred hunt where the god may hunt one of them. The book focuses on a young hunterlord and his brother as they grow up, but it also has main characters in their mother (she's a great pov) and a mysterious time-traveling seer-mage who is trying to prevent the demonlord from manifesting. If you like Hunter's Oath, she's written the Sun Sword series (chonkers) in the same universe, and the House War series (also chonkers) as well as an earlier, unrelated four book fantasy series (haven't read it yet), and also if you dig urban fantasy, her Cast in Shadow series is excellent. I'll quote myself again. quote:Cast in Shadow by Michelle West/Sagara: yeah I'm a fangirl of hers now, I've bought almost everything she's written because I adore her writing style. Anyways, this one is her urban fantasy series, which feels like a weird way of describing it because while it has the lighter tone/writing style of UF, it has no romance, it has really rich and weird fantasy-focused worldbuilding, and instead of treating the fantasy races like Star Trek treats its aliens - elves are just tree people with ears, etc - it instead makes them deeply alien and I spent a good chunk of the second book struggling to understand some profoundly alien psychologies. In the third book you even get a hive mind species that meshes very poorly with the vanilla humans. ... But this is also urban fantasy in the sense that each book is a different case, and the first one is solving a string of child murders. I've read the first two and am nearly done with the third and it's delicious weird fantasy. I could probably dig out more recs - I've been on an epic quest to find lady-written fantasy and sci-fi for years now and there's a LOT of good stuff out there - but that should be enough to get you started!
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Oct 9, 2019 13:41
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StrixNebulosa posted:Next up is To Ride Hell's Chasm by Janny Wurts, a nice fat standalone fantasy that's basically a thriller. The princess has gone missing the night of her betrothal banquet and the captain of the guard has been tapped to lead up the investigation. Cue a lot of interesting court politics, weird magic, and then in the back half of the book the author reveals that she's a horse girl and if you do not love horses you will not appreciate those chase sequences as much as I did. They're such great horses, haha. I really loved this book and blazed through it quickly, and it's the best of Wurts' works - it distills everything she's good at. If you like her, there's more - her earlier work is weak (sadly) but her Curse of the Mistwraith mega-series is 10+ books of truly epic fantasy. I've read four of the books and they're really good but also really tough to read because awful things keep happening. Not in a grimdark way, but in a way where the main character has the worst luck in the entire world, and his brother has been cursed to hate him so he's also doing everything in his power to screw him over. If you start this series you're in for a ride, but be warned that the final book in the series isn't out yet and won't be for at least a few years. She was giving away stacks of the hardcover at DragonCon. I grabbed one, good to know it's worth reading.
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Oct 9, 2019 13:55
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big dyke energy posted:So I read Priory of the Orange Tree recently and thought it was loving phenomenal. I also realized that I've barely read any fantasy novels, apart from Terry Prachett and the one time I read the Hobbit. I'm looking for more sweeping epic fantasy written by women/lgbt folk, especially ones featuring women/lgbt characters. i know it's sci-fi but I've also read all of Becky Chambers' stuff as well, which I also love, and I think Record of a Spaceborn Few is my favorite of her Wayfarer's triology. Haven't read her new one yet, but I have a hold on it at the library. I don't really have a good recommendation for big fat single books that meet your requirement -- Priory is a bit unusual in that it's doorstopper epic fantasy but is also a single book rather than a trilogy or a never-ending series. That said -- in addition to all the existing recommendations -- you might want to check out Rachel Aaron's Legend of Eli Monpress (5 books + 1 prequel novella; fun as hell but not particularly queer) and Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series (an absolute shitload of books, but they're grouped into stand-alone trilogies; Arrows of the Queen is the first published, The Last Herald-Mage is -- so far, I've not read that many of them -- the gayest.) There's also a lot of recent fantasy that I wouldn't call "epic fantasy" or particularly similar to Priory but which is absolutely worth reading, most of which has already been recommended, but I particularly want to call out J.Y. Yang's Tensorate novellas, starting with The Black Tides of Heaven. tildes posted:This is pretty hard to narrow down because IMO that describes a lot of the best recent fantasy/sci fi. If you only read one thing from this list I think NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth series should be it. If you read two I’d probably add Anne Leckie or Naomi Novik. The Goblin Emperor specifically reminded me of The Priory of the Orange Tree. I liked both a great deal but I think I'd also be hard pressed to point at two more different recent fantasy novels, Priory is a world-spanning multi-viewpoint fantasy epic about dragon wizards trying to prevent the end of the world and Emperor is a cozy personal story about one dude getting dropped into the deep end of court politics and trying to make friends and not drown. StrixNebulosa posted:Fortress in the Eye of Time + its sequels by CJ Cherryh: 90s fantasy that's dense and delicious and about an old mage who tries to bring back an ancient magical hero but screws up and gets an amnesiac young man who loves birds instead. Said young man has to grow up in a hurry once his old mage gets attacked, and he winds up stumbling into the local province and meeting the Prince and for all that it's high fantasy it pays a ton of attention to details and the low-folk. You can treat the first book as standalone, and if you continue it turns into a kind of early version of Foreigner as Cherryh settles into exploring the implications of the first book, how the Prince secures his power and how the hero continues to grow up. It feels like a living universe. I bounced off Fortress several times before finally getting into it, but once I did I really enjoyed it; it suffers somewhat, I think, from the first ~100 pages being exceptionally slow paced and not much really happening. Once I did make it past that hump I found it and its sequels very cozy, though, and yes, they're definitely the prototype for Foreigner -- I did a lot of "oh hey, it's [character] from Foreigner!" while reading the first two books in particular. And yes, Cherryh is fantastic. I just wish she'd return to the Compact Space setting. quote:If you like [Janny Wurts], there's more - her earlier work is weak (sadly) but her Curse of the Mistwraith mega-series is 10+ books of truly epic fantasy. If you want something a bit lighter there's also her Daughter of the Empire trilogy co-authored with Feist; you don't need to have read any of Feist's other stuff to appreciate it and it's much less imposing read than either Mistwraith or Stormwarden. quote:Black Sun Rising by CS Friedman is another 90s fantasy author, and this one is a trilogy that's all nice and gothic. [...] For shame, leaving out Magister? That's another fantasy trilogy (full on fantasy this time, not fantasy with an SF backstory like Black Sun Rising) that thematically is almost a reprise of Sun and its sequels. That said, I think I enjoyed it more for having read BSR first, since it kind of takes one of the questions raised at the very end of the third book and just runs with it until it unrolls into an entire setting.
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Oct 9, 2019 14:21
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ToxicFrog posted:For shame, leaving out Magister? That's another fantasy trilogy (full on fantasy this time, not fantasy with an SF backstory like Black Sun Rising) that thematically is almost a reprise of Sun and its sequels. That said, I think I enjoyed it more for having read BSR first, since it kind of takes one of the questions raised at the very end of the third book and just runs with it until it unrolls into an entire setting. I haven't read Magister! I read everything she wrote in the mid 2000s and Magister hadn't released then and I haven't been back yet.... partly because the sequel to In Conquest Born was a dud. I adored that book and then the Wilding happened and I was so excited for it and oh. Nope. So I was wary of trying her other new stuff.
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Oct 9, 2019 14:47
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Finished Empress of Forever and was uhh, a bit disappointed. It felt like it was trying, but worse at the contemporary voice than Gideon/Murderbot, while simultaneously having a less compelling story and cast. It's weird, because I liked the Craft sequence. I think the narrative voice of Empress felt forced or something. 
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Oct 9, 2019 15:04
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TheAardvark posted:Finished Empress of Forever and was uhh, a bit disappointed. It felt like it was trying, but worse at the contemporary voice than Gideon/Murderbot, while simultaneously having a less compelling story and cast. I liked it but I would have honestly preferred to read the the alternative story they mentioned at the end instead.
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Oct 9, 2019 15:13
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big dyke energy posted:So I read Priory of the Orange Tree recently and thought it was loving phenomenal. I also realized that I've barely read any fantasy novels, apart from Terry Prachett and the one time I read the Hobbit. I'm looking for more sweeping epic fantasy written by women/lgbt folk, especially ones featuring women/lgbt characters. i know it's sci-fi but I've also read all of Becky Chambers' stuff as well, which I also love, and I think Record of a Spaceborn Few is my favorite of her Wayfarer's triology. Haven't read her new one yet, but I have a hold on it at the library. Michelle West writes epic fantasy easily better or on par with the men writing epic fantasy and unlike many others has produced several complete arcs in her Essalieyan Novels. You can start with the House War series which are newer but the earliest starting point in the world’s chronology, or the Sun Sword series which was published earlier but begins at a later point in the timeline. I recommend the former which begins with The Hidden City. Here is a more in depth overview for new readers that discusses reading order and provides some spoilers like names of places and characters to provide context on the various Essalieyan storylines but does a nice job of not giving away plot. She’s awesome and the central protagonists of both series are women but there are multiple viewpoints as with much epic fantasy some of them male and some of them simply nongendered.
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Oct 9, 2019 15:14
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StrixNebulosa posted:I haven't read Magister! I read everything she wrote in the mid 2000s and Magister hadn't released then and I haven't been back yet.... partly because the sequel to In Conquest Born was a dud. I adored that book and then the Wilding happened and I was so excited for it and oh. Nope. So I was wary of trying her other new stuff. The Wilding was a disappointment, yeah. And it's not like In Conquest Born needed a sequel, anyways. I liked Magister a lot, though, and I think it's technically better than BSR and closer to what big dyke energy was asking for. I do prefer BSR overall, though; I just love the aesthetics of the setting. Also, Gerald Tarrant is my favourite 900-year-old vampire scientist theologician horse-fancier.
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Oct 9, 2019 15:32
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ToxicFrog posted:you might want to check out Rachel Aaron's Legend of Eli Monpress (5 books + 1 prequel novella; fun as hell but not particularly queer) Yea, there's not anything really queer going on in the series but it is a really good fantasy one. It's one of the few you can say PLEASE DO NOT JUDGE THIS BY THE COVER because for some reason the first few covers look like some weird romance novel, when it's really not. Like, exceptionally not.
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Oct 9, 2019 17:25
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ToxicFrog posted:I liked both a great deal but I think I'd also be hard pressed to point at two more different recent fantasy novels, Priory is a world-spanning multi-viewpoint fantasy epic about dragon wizards trying to prevent the end of the world and Emperor is a cozy personal story about one dude getting dropped into the deep end of court politics and trying to make friends and not drown. On further reflection you’re probably right. I guess the beginning of Priory is what really reminded me of Emperor, but Priory then expands out a ton and Emperor doesn’t/Priory doesn’t have much of the initial phase. Belay that specific recommendation.
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Oct 9, 2019 19:45
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TheAardvark posted:Finished Empress of Forever and was uhh, a bit disappointed. It felt like it was trying, but worse at the contemporary voice than Gideon/Murderbot, while simultaneously having a less compelling story and cast. i read it a month ago and had to wiki it before i could remember anything. years later i can still recall the first bits of the craft sequence. YMMV.
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Oct 9, 2019 23:40
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:It's one of the few you can say PLEASE DO NOT JUDGE THIS BY THE COVER because for some reason the first few covers look like some weird romance novel, when it's really not. Too late
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Oct 10, 2019 00:10
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I was thiiiiis close to picking up Priory of the Orange Tree when I saw it at a bookstore last week, but I didn't know enough about it. Sounds like it is good?
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Oct 10, 2019 00:20
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big dyke energy posted:I'm looking for more sweeping epic fantasy written by women/lgbt folk, especially ones featuring women/lgbt characters. It doesn't come out for another month, but The Dawnhounds by NZ author Sascha Stronach is excellent (I was a beta reader) and could really be up your alley. Queer woman protagonist joins a pirate ship full of LGBT folks, and it cleverly plays with the Bury Your Gays trope ('all our lgbt characters must have tragic ends!') in a really neat way.
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Oct 10, 2019 00:59
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Does Priory of the Orange Tree have a kind of storybook (for lack of a better word) vibe a la Spinning Silver, or does the "retelling of George and the Dragon" tag line not really mean that? For whatever reason it's something I kind of bounced off of, despite liking all of Naomi Novik's other stuff I've read. Also very good recommendations in general, I came to the thread to post asking for the same thing!
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Oct 10, 2019 01:41
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Thank you so much for all the recs, this should keep me busy for awhile. Really looking forward to some new stuff.
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Oct 10, 2019 01:53
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professor metis posted:I'm reading Ted Chiang's latest story collection, Exhalation. Turns out I've already read quite a few of the stories in this one but that's fine, they're good stories! Exhalation is such a good story and it was easily the best story we read in my genre fiction class. I'm reading The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay and it is really scratching that Bernard Cornwell Saxon Stories itch with its "kind of like Earth but with low-key fantasy trappings" dark ages Europe setting. It does have some odd kinks in his writing style. Kay really likes his abbreviated sentence fragments to emphasize rapid actions and it takes some getting used to.
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Oct 10, 2019 02:43
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Stupid problem: I'm enjoying the Bone Ships by RJ Barker, yeah? Well I can't bring up the book in my bookchat without everyone whipping out the eggplant emoji It's not a sex book guys it just has the word bone in the title!
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Oct 10, 2019 13:03
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StrixNebulosa posted:Stupid problem: I'm enjoying the Bone Ships by RJ Barker, yeah?   ?No! 
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Oct 10, 2019 15:05
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tildes posted:On further reflection you’re probably right. I guess the beginning of Priory is what really reminded me of Emperor, but Priory then expands out a ton and Emperor doesn’t/Priory doesn’t have much of the initial phase. Belay that specific recommendation. I mean, I would still wholeheartedly recommend TGE, just not for the specific query of "I'm looking for Big Gay Epic Fantasy". foutre posted:Does Priory of the Orange Tree have a kind of storybook (for lack of a better word) vibe a la Spinning Silver, or does the "retelling of George and the Dragon" tag line not really mean that? It really doesn't, no.
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Oct 10, 2019 16:11
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ToxicFrog posted:I mean, I would still wholeheartedly recommend TGE, just not for the specific query of "I'm looking for Big Gay Epic Fantasy". I don't think Land Fit for Heroes series by Richard K Morgan was mentioned. It probably counts, and is definitely lgbt friendly. Looking at this, I don't think I ever read the third. Huh.
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Oct 10, 2019 17:32
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Ben Nevis posted:I don't think Land Fit for Heroes series by Richard K Morgan was mentioned. It probably counts, and is definitely lgbt friendly. Which is exactly how I feel about it. Quite OK when I read it, but I forgot it exists before the third came out.
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Oct 10, 2019 21:45
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XBenedict posted:Too late I appreciated that there was a plucky young punk and his adversary, a lady who is totally over his poo poo, and at no point was there absurd sexual tension, it was actually really loving nice to see that cliche avoided.
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Oct 10, 2019 22:02
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Didn't he write a book where some gay warrior guy ends up getting his nephew or something killed because he volunteered to fight in his place, and then ended up loving an elf or something and it turns out that in elf land time passes WAY FASTER so a night for him was like a week for normal people?
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Oct 10, 2019 22:04
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Didn't he write a book where some gay warrior guy ends up getting his nephew or something killed because he volunteered to fight in his place, and then ended up loving an elf or something and it turns out that in elf land time passes WAY FASTER so a night for him was like a week for normal people? Turns out "don't eat anything the elves give you" also applies to elf rear end.
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Oct 10, 2019 22:07
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It was pretty meh. It solidified my decision to not read any more books by Richard K. Morgan.
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Oct 10, 2019 22:34
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The consequences of elf banging does seem to be a pretty big plot point.
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Oct 10, 2019 23:31
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Ben Nevis posted:The consequences of elf banging does seem to be a pretty big plot point. New thread title.
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Oct 11, 2019 00:28
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Per General Battuta's inside quote I would like to know more about these sixteen years of Yoon Ha Le short fiction I really should have been reading before now, if anyone's got a good dish. Ninefox Gambit was excellent and I'll be grabbing 2-4 tonight but I'm definitely down for just more of his brain.
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Oct 11, 2019 00:39
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Orv posted:Per General Battuta's inside quote I would like to know more about these sixteen years of Yoon Ha Le short fiction I really should have been reading before now, if anyone's got a good dish. Ninefox Gambit was excellent and I'll be grabbing 2-4 tonight but I'm definitely down for just more of his brain. I think if you pick up The Fox's Tower, Conservation of Shadows, and Hexarchate Stories that'll cover most of it.
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Oct 11, 2019 01:50
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Done, thanks.
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Oct 11, 2019 02:17
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Here's a few other suggestions for lgbt fantasy/sci-fi stuff that I've come across. It has been a while since I've read some of these, but I'll try to give a brief summary as best I can: The Last Rune series by Mark Anthony: A modern Earth man and woman get pulled into a fantasy world and, in a shocking twist, do not fall in love. One of the protagonists is bi and there are a number of other good lgbt characters. The stereotype for gay men in the world they get pulled into is "member of a warrior cult that believes they are doomed to lose the fight at the end of the world but still wants to fight it". And all this despite being written all the way back in 1998! Kirith Kirin, The Ordinary, and The Last Green Tree by Jim Grimsley: weird fantasy/sci-fi blend about languages that can reshape reality. I read these a very long time ago, so all I can say is I remember a gay couple being a pretty important part of the overall plot. Elemental Logic series by Laurie J. Marks: Fantasy story about people from a conquering and from a newly conquered culture trying to find a way to resolve the culture clashes between their societies before everything blows up into fresh rebellion and war. Despite the whole culture clash setting, both cultures are ok with lgbt folk; the 6 most important characters are a lesbian couple, a gay couple, and a straight couple. Dreamer by Harper Steven: the start of a series that I can't recall the name of. Sci-fi with telepathy as an important FTL communication method. It not only has a gay protagonist but bases some of the telepathy stuff off of Australian Aboriginal traditions. (Disclaimer: I can't vouch to the authenticity of the Aboriginal stuff. I'm pretty ignorant about it.) Gods of the Caravan Road series by K.V. Johansen: The 4th book in this fantasy series is very focused on a gay romance because of how the outcome will affect a wider ongoing struggle between local nature gods and demons. You'll have to read the first 3 for it to make much sense, but it's a very good series so that's more of a bonus than a problem. The Smoke and Shadows series by Tanya Huff: Spinoff thing from some earlier vampire novels she wrote. All about a guy who got rescued from the street by the vampire in the previous series learning to stand on his own, not go running to the vampire when things go wrong, and also be a wizard. The most lighthearted of these suggestions; the guy's day job is on a movie set for a trashy TV series about a vampire detective. The Tigers Daughter, by K. Arsenault Rivera: Start of a series set in an east Asian inspired land that has a northern border with a land full of demons. The Emperor's daughter and a nomadic tribeswoman fall in love, are badass. I would also like to give some credit to Bloodmage by Stephen Aryan. It's a pretty fast paced murder/politics book where no one has any time for romance whatsoever but they toss in about 2 or 3 lines to let you know that one of the protagonists is gay. It's 100% irrelevant to the story, but to be honest that's kind of what I'm looking for personally. It has been getting a lot better in recent years, but it can still be a bit hard to find lgbt sci-fi and fantasy that is not really trying to send any sort of message about sexuality. Sometimes all I want to do is read a dumb adventure book where the hero's inevitable romantic interest is actually relatable.
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Oct 11, 2019 03:55
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JTDistortion posted:I would also like to give some credit to Bloodmage by Stephen Aryan. It's a pretty fast paced murder/politics book where no one has any time for romance whatsoever but they toss in about 2 or 3 lines to let you know that one of the protagonists is gay. It's 100% irrelevant to the story, but to be honest that's kind of what I'm looking for personally. It has been getting a lot better in recent years, but it can still be a bit hard to find lgbt sci-fi and fantasy that is not really trying to send any sort of message about sexuality. Sometimes all I want to do is read a dumb adventure book where the hero's inevitable romantic interest is actually relatable. I reckon for straight writers/readers, especially those who might not personally know any out gay people, "this person just happens to be gay" is a good message about sexuality in itself.
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Oct 11, 2019 04:34
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I always liked the "Silverglass" series from the 90s, which is basically What If Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser Were Women. There's a fair bit of casual bisexuality, including both of the protagonists, but it's not a major part of the story. The author, "J. F. Rivkin," is a pen name for two writers whose identity seems to still be a mystery (although one of them also wrote under the names Ellen Foxxe and Jeri Freedman).
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Oct 11, 2019 05:30
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The Copper Cat trilogy has a gay protag. He gets romanced in the books, but it's nothing like, horrendously graphic and badly written. Just dudes who like dudes. I actually felt kinda weird about it, because the main protag is a chick who really doesn't hook up with anyone and the third protag is a guy who starts out as a pain in the rear end and ends up being not a pain in the rear end as much, but also not balls deep in the female protag (which is kinda rare for the fantasy genre in general). At least I don't think he does, I haven't read the books in a while.
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Oct 11, 2019 05:49
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:The Copper Cat trilogy has a gay protag. He gets romanced in the books, but it's nothing like, horrendously graphic and badly written. Just dudes who like dudes. It was wrote by a lady? Not pulling some biotruths thing, but men are total slags. Evidence? History.
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Oct 11, 2019 05:56
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