QSFer J. Scott Coatsworth has a new gay sci-fi book out: Flawless.
In Space, No One Can Hear You Sing …
Grayson Eck’s life is a drag, in all the best possible ways. He’s perfectly happy working in the belt alone as a wildcatter, prospecting asteroids by … well, not exactly by day.
At night, he transforms into the Inner System’s most famous Valeriana Storm — a secret identity that even his closest friends and family don’t know about.
When someone tries to steal one of Greyson’s mining scores, he has half a mind to just toss the guy off his rock and into open space. But that all changes when he discovers the stranger’s identity — and that he knows Greyson’s secret.
Now he’s being chased by a pirate, and has to decide what to do with the apparent thief while also putting on his show.
What’s a space drag queen to do?
This is not a romance.
This story is part of Water Dragon Publishing’s Dragon Gems short story collection. They are always looking for fantasy and sci-fi short stories. More info on submissions here.
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Excerpt
I guided the swallow along the surface of Eros, my ship locked in a perfect dance with her, turning with her like Fred Astaire with Ginger Rogers on the old flatties from a couple of centuries ago. My chipped black nail-polished fingers moved the joystick flawlessly, firing the attitude jets a little here, a little there to match 433 Eros’s spin.
The other wildcatters back on Ceres gave me shit about the polish. “Guys don’t color their nails.” Especially rough and tumble asteroid prospectors. Like anyone ought to care what you did out here, in the vastness of space.
Half of them had tattoos of flowers with women’s names on their asses. I knew. I’d seen them in the showers. And they give a shit about my nail polish?
Valeriana — my drag patron — would have told them all to fuck off. Me, I’m a get-along kinda guy. I’d say that it helps protect my cuticles from radiation, but I doubt they know what cuticles are.
“Grayson Eck, captain of the White Swallow, picking up the last can before returning to Ceres.”
Rosie’s voice purred through the ship’s speakers. “Acknowledged, Captain Awesome.”
I grinned. It was our own private joke. I was a sucker for old cartoon flatties, though the ship mind’s voice was a bit more butch than the Jetsons version.
Rosie would append the date and time info to the log in Ceres Standard, synched to UTC back on Earth.
I always felt stupid recording the logs. Not the talking to myself part — wildcatters did that a lot out here in the middle of nowhere — but the narrating every move bit. But the Belt Patrol requires them for damage assessment in case there’s a major incident. Which basically means if your ship blows itself to smithereens. And those BP fuckers could make your life hell if you didn’t follow the rules.
Author Bio
Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.
He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.
A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, Liminal Fiction, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and is the committee chair for the Indie Authors Committee at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
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