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Transhumanism and the LGBT Community

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Today’s topic comes from QSFer Jim Comer: “Transhumanism and whether *sexuality* or *sex* will matter/could matter at all in a transhuman setting. Transhumanism takes many forms. AI is one of them. Others involve ideas such as immortality, bionics, cryonics and so on. Given the right-wing nuttiness of many hard-SF and transhumanist authors, what are some QUILTBAG answers?” Jim provided this link to give is a better idea what he is talking about: http://www.aleph.se/Trans/ Many sci fi authors have long predicted that humanity would eventually evolve, one way or another, to a transhuman or post-human state – something beyond what we … Read more

Sadly, The Rumor That Disney Would Make Gay Prince Movie is Not True

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Is Disney really making an animated feature film about two gay princes that fall in love? Sorry, but no. The false story is circulating this week, raising the hopes of many that everyone’s favorite children’s filmmakers will show gay characters on screen. The ‘report’, which has so far been shared 60,000 times on Facebook, claimed it would be adapted from Jeffrey A. Miles’ children’s book The Princes and the Treasure. While the book is real, the adaptation isn’t. In the very modern fairy tale, two very dashing princes set off to rescue a princess… and unexpectedly fall in love with … Read more

Announcement: Eve the Soul Reaper, by Leonard Cliffton

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QSFer Leonard Clifton has a new YA fantasy novel out: Raven the mysterious Fairy Warrior comes to the small town of Wonderwood to warn Eve Summers and the handsome new guy in town named Adam Winters of a sinister evil conspiring to rule the World. The teenagers discover they’ve lived a past life together fighting Grim Reapers that has resurfaced in search of a powerful scythe that takes souls, which will give Eve the power to restore souls. Raven and trusted allies train Adam and Eve to fight their fear of losing everyone they love by the Grim Reapers creating … Read more

Writing Anti Heroes

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Google defines “anti hero” as: “a central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes.” In practice, this often means a character who is the purported “hero” of the story – the protagonist who carries the arc of the plot – but is often deeply flawed or does bad things. My classic go-to for this one is Thomas Covenant from Stephen Donaldson’s The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever – a man with leprosy from our world who is transported to a fantasy world where he is suddenly healed, and, because he doesn’t believe it can … Read more

Announcement: Wolf’s Own, Book One – Ghost, by Carole Cummings

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QSFer Carole Cummings has a new fantasy novel out: Untouchable. Ghost. Assassin. Mad. Fen Jacin-rei is all these and none. His mind is host to the spirits of long-dead magicians, and Fen’s fate should be one of madness and ignoble death. So how is it Fen lives, carrying out shadowy vengeance for his subjugated people and protecting the family he loves? Kamen Malick means to find out. When Malick and his own small band of assassins ambush Fen in an alley, Malick offers Fen a choice: Join us or die. Determined to decode the intrigue that surrounds Fen, Malick sets … Read more

What the Frak?

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Today’s topic comes from QSFer Jim Comer: “Profanity from books and conworlds – The swearwords in my made-up worlds tend to be very odd, such as “Puyurh baVasola”, which means “By the Flames of Paradise!”, or “Chochvort ve’amet!”, or “Go fuck a house-ape!” (um, those are in two different made-up languages, but I think you see what I mean).” So I thought it would be fun to take a look at swearing in theoretical worlds. I loved when Anne McCaffrey used “shards’ (form the idea of dragon’s eggs) as one of her curse words in the Dragonriders of Pern books. … Read more

Announcement: Rarely Pure and Never Simple, by Angel Martinez

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QSFer Angel Martinez has a great sci fi book out: A search for missing children throws a misanthropic human GPS and an obnoxious human torch together in a struggle to survive dangerous conpiracies and each other. Damien just wants to be left alone. Too bad his variant talent as a locator makes him the go-to contractor for the government’s missing person cases. He can refuse, but it’s not so easy when the missing are variant kids. Blaze Emerson is a sparker. People fear him as much for his ability to call fire as his obnoxious, violent temperament. He’s good at … Read more

Professional Organizations for the LGBTQ Sci Fi / Fantasy Writer

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Today we have a question from our own Angel Martinez: “The best professional organizations for the LGBTQ SFF writer?” Well, obviously, the best is QueerSciFi.com, followed closely by our friends at Gay Sci Fi MM Romance and Queer Sci Fi, Horror, & Fantasy Creators & Fans on FB. But beyond these, there have to be other organizations, both with an LGBT bent and with a more mainstream flair that also welcome LGBT writers. So spill – what other groups or organizations should we all be joining? Keeping in mind that, in the words of the great Groucho marx, “I don’t … Read more

Announcement: Death Gets a Boyfriend, by Sophie Bonaste

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Dreamspinner has a new paranormal romance out from Sophie Bonaste: Death is in a lonely business. Since the beginning of time he’s been reaping souls then returning home to his little condo in the sky. It’s not a bad job. There are perks. But Death would kill to meet his soul mate, no pun intended. Tommy Neilson is the next human slated for death. But when he can see Death, Tommy turns his whole world upside down. Curious, Death seeks Tommy out. The chemistry between the two is immediate and soon an unlikely romance starts to form. While Death may … Read more

The Bestiary

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Yesterday, we had a couple fairly heavy topics on our Facebook discussion page – one on branching out into characters beyond the traditional male male couple and into mainstream sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal, and the other, posted by a Queer Sci Fi member, about the ongoing argument about who should write gay male-male romance. I was very proud of the group for keeping the conversation civil on both topics. But now I’d like to do something a little lighter. Since we haven’t done a paranormal topic for a while, I thought it would be fun to compile a Bestiary together … Read more