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Fractured Fairy Tales

by
Vassily the Beautiful

Today’s topic comes from QSFer (and admin) Angel Martinez: “Fractured fairy tales. Which ones do you wish someone would retell as an lgbtqi story?” I love reading reinterpretations of fairy tales, especially those with an LGBT twist. Some of my favorites include Angel’s own Vassily the Beautiful, one Jon Keys is finishing up that retells Cinderella in a Colorado rodeo setting, and (stepping outside the LGBT community for a sec) the amazing Beauty by Sheri Tepper. So our questions today – what fairy tale, myth or fable would you like to see retold from an LGBT spec fic perspective, and … Read more

Announcement: Under Glass, by Rebecca Cohen

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Under Glass

QSF author Rebecca Cohen has a new sci fi book out: Creating planets and guarding the stars leaves novice planet builder Kai Faewiva lonely. For members of Kai’s species who are born with an organ called a caerellon, their true love, their Sun or Moon, is identified at birth. But the novices are people who have lost their perfect love, and Kai’s Sun is long dead, killed in an accident when he was five years old. Or so everyone thought. After recovering from another bout of the unidentified illness he has battled for years, Kai returns to work. But his … Read more

Anthropomorphic Things

by
Pounded in the Butt by My Own Butt

Today’s topic comes from QSFer Tam Ames: “What about anthropomorphic … things? There was a cute book that I have yet to read with a book who was anthropomorphic and other creatures. Think The Little Toaster for grown-ups. Anyone done it? Read it? Hate it? Love it? Too… out there? (NOT shifters)” For folks who aren’t familiar with the term: As Tam says, this is discrete from shifters – these are not people who can take the form of animals. Typically, anthropomorphism is used with actual animals that either display human-like traits, or to whom we assign them – think … Read more

Announcement: Shadowing Mace, by Cheyenne Meadows

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Shadowing Mace

QSFer Cheyenne Meadows has a new GENRE book out: With his brother away at a conference, alpha wolf shifter Shadow finds himself paired with IT analyst Mace, the one man he can’t stand. Stuck with the partnership due to his pack leader’s order, Shadow can only count down the days until his life returns to normal. He’s a loner. Period. No matter how much his inner beast protests. Mace isn’t thrilled either, but can’t resist the temptation to push all the surly alpha’s buttons, even as he fantasizes about what could be. Flirting with danger, he’s determined to make the … Read more

Alternate Genders

by
Julian Vivian Bond

QSFer John Allenson has today’s discussion topic: “Have we ever discussed writting gender past male/female binaries? The Andorians in Star Trek have four genders. Alien Nation had three. The Left Hand of Darkness has androgens. How would we write alternate genders?” It’s an interesting question. My first real awakening in terms of a third gender came via the film “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”. Terrence Stamp’s character struck me as someone who wasn’t trying to be a man or a woman, but was truly embodying something different, someone who rejected binary gender norms. Justin Vivian Bond (pictured) is another well-known … Read more

Will Driverless Cars Give Us Motion Sickness?

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Motion Sickness

We’ve heard a lot of questions about what the future of driverless cars will bring, but here is a new one: What if this great advance in transportation technology makes us motion-sick? That’s a very likely possibility, argue Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute. Plenty of people — almost always passengers — already get motion-sick in cars. But Sivak and Schoettle point out in a new paper that driverless cars, by their very design, will contribute to three of the big factors that make our stomachs turn. The first is that we’re more … Read more

Falling For Your AI

by
Her

Today’s topic comes from QSFer Tam Ames: “Virtual intelligence? AI? Have we discussed this? But could you have a romance between a human and software? Using virtual technology to have sex or communicate, but no physical body? Would we want to in the future? Could a good author really make readers believe it’s “real” romance?” So far tyhe best example I’ve seen of this is the movie “Her” – which very convincingly explored a near-future romance between what the movie called an “operating system” and a human. Downside – it was MF… LOL. So what do you think? I’ll defer … Read more

Announcement: Tracker, by Kethric Wilcox

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Tracker

QSFer Kethric Wilcox has a new paranormal book out: Once upon a time there was Beauty and there was the Beast. The spinners of tales would have you believe these two fell in love and lived happily ever after. The spinners lied! The Beast was a shifter and Beauty became a huntress and founded a long line of huntresses aided by the power of silver magic. Kieran Belle is a descendant of the House of Beauty and a tracker who longs to live a life free of killing shifters. Aided by his father he escapes to college in Little Rock, … Read more

Gay Superheroes

by
Stripling Warrior

Let’s check out the Superman/Batman end of the sci fi pool today. When I was in my early teens, I started collecting comic books, and I was fascinated by Superman – good looking guy, great muscles, and really good inside too. But in my wildest youth fantasies, I couldn’t have imagined a gay superhero at the time. But now they’re popping out all over – and not just gay ones – lesbian, bisexual – maybe even transgender. And just this morning I saw an article about a crowdfunding effort for a gay Mormon superhero (photo above)! So here are my … Read more

The Midweek Mingle: From the Horse’s Mouth

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Horse's Mouth

Last week, we talked about the Big Scary Barrier for including members of the QUILTBAG+ community in the SF/F community, and right there at the end, I put it on content creators (myself included) to create more diverse characters. By doing that, there’s more for someone queer to latch onto, and that will make that person feel more welcome. But that raises the big question: how? The easy answer would be for QUILTBAG+ individuals to start creating more content, and we do see that happening more and more, both with new authors entering the field and established authors coming out … Read more