Speculative Ficiton
ANNOUNCEMENT/GIVEAWAY: Impact Flash Fiction Anthology
Queer Sci Fi is releasing its fourth flash fiction anthology: Impact. The book has just come out! IM * PACT (noun) 1) One object colliding with another 2) An impinging of something upon something else 3) An influence or effect on something or someone 4) The force of a new idea, concept, technology or ideology Four definitions to inspire writers around the world, and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell, but only 110 made the final cut. A difficult choice to be made. An object hurtling recklessly through space. A new invention that will change the world. So … Read more
Musing on Endings – Boogieman In Lavender
“All Good Things…” By Jeff Baker For this month, a brief rumination on the state of the Queer Speculative Fiction short-story. Word has reached us that the upcoming edition of Lethe Press’ fine “Wilde Stories” will be the last. Likewise, “Heiresses of Russ,” the edition reviewed in this column June 12, 2017 will be its last. This is sad news for followers of short fiction, for while there have been and will be Queer-themed short stories published in online, independent … Read more
“Transcendent 2,” review. Jeff Baker, Boogieman in Lavender.
Transcendent 2 a Review By Jeff Baker As this column was going to press, (read; as I was getting off my lazy behind and typing it up) word came that “Transcendent 2” won for best Transgender Fiction at the 2018 Lambda Literary Awards. Congratulations to all involved, starting with editor, Bogi Takacs. Those who want some specifics about just how good this book is, read on. —J.S. Baker “Transcendent 2,” Lethe Press’ second annual collection of Transgender themed speculative … Read more
A Testament Against Hate; Jeff Baker, Boogieman in Lavender
I Am The Night; Rod Serling’s Testament Against Hatred By Jeff Baker The fifth season of the original Twilight Zone gets unjustly maligned. The show was showing its age and while there were some classics (“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”) there were some clunkers (“The Encounter”). One of those episodes deserves a re-examination. “I Am the Night, Color Me Black” aired March 27, 1964, and I have agreed with many that it is a heavy-handed and obvious diatribe against racial injustice and prejudice. Valid concerns in the country in 1964, but Zone had done it better earlier, for example in the … Read more
Shadows of the Night: Remembering “Dark Shadows” – Boogieman In Lavender
It all started with a dream. A woman on a train on her way to a place unfamiliar and strange to her with the voiceover narration beginning with the words; “My name is Victoria Winters.” The understated beginning (from a dream by producer/creator Dan Curtis) of the cult T.V. series Dark Shadows which started out as a soap opera with gothic elements and morphed into something different, darker and some people insist, gayer. Remembered today as “the show with the vampire in it,” way before Twilight, Forever Knight or even Lestat and co., Dark Shadows added supernatural elements in a … Read more
Out of the Past: LGBTQ Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror 2010 – present
As part of my ongoing history of LGBTQ+ speculative fiction, I’m in the process of doing interviews with authors, editors and reviewers who are working in different areas of the genre that I’m not as familiar with. I’m hoping to boost the signal on some of their projects, too so please check out their writings and other projects. There’ll be interviews with various folks on trans and nonbinary spec fic, indie queer romance, new trends and recommendations for short fiction and other fun things coming up as well as my essays on different aspects of the field. I hope … Read more
ANNOUNCEMENT: Can You Hear Me, by Geonn Cannon
QSFer Geonn Cannon has a new FF sci fi book out: For the next two years, Colonel Noa Laurie – the sole survivor of a disaster which destroyed the International Space Station – will be orbiting Earth in an experimental craft called ODIE. Her mission: to clear away the treacherous minefield of space junk that has accumulated around the planet and endangers future missions. Her only lifeline during this mission will be the radio connecting her to the command center and whoever happens to be assigned to the communications desk. Or so she thinks. Because tucked away and almost forgotten … Read more
Jeff Baker, Boogieman In Lavender; Reading Tom Reamy
Somewhere in my files is the beginning of a bad story called “Summer Job.” It’s wordy and takes an overly long time getting started. It has a small-town Kansas setting, an adolescent protagonist and an element of dark fantasy—all things that appear regularly in stories I’ve written. But I wasn’t trying to be Jeff Baker; I was trying to be Tom Reamy. I first stumbled across Tom Reamy’s short fiction in an anthology of horror stories from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The story, “Insects in Amber” grabbed me right off with its setting in an old (and … Read more