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Rocking the Haunted House

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Today is paranormal day at the Queer Sci Fi blog. And with the weather starting to change and Halloween fast approaching, I thought we’d have a fun topic today. The Haunted House. This is a classic paranormal/sci-fi staple. It has appeared over and over in movies, TV shows, and literature. When I was about 12 years old, I read the Amityville Horror from cover to cover in one evening. Unfortunately, it was an evening when I was home alone, and I finished it at around one in the morning. The damn thing left me sleepless for a week. Good haunted … Read more

A Future Without Sex for Procreation?

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Imagine a society, in the not too distant future, where sex is no longer the main method for reproduction. In the eyes of Stanford University law professor Hank Greely, director of the Stanford Center for Law Bioethics, that scenario will become a reality within this century. At his “End of Sex” event Wednesday, Greely compared the future of conception to the society in the science fiction movie “GATTACA.” Greely, often referred to as the godfather of the field between human genetics and biological sciences, foresees that the majority of births in developed countries will feature in-vitro fertilization and whole genome … Read more

Ruin Release Party September 21st

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Our very own Alex Jones is set to release the fourth book in the Knights of Amaranth series: Ruin is coming! Join me 9/21 to celebrate Book IV in the Knights of Amaranth series. Giveaways include free copies of Ruin and the rest of the Knights of Amaranth books, along with a $5 Amazon gift card. So exciting! There’s a release party too – details here. Congrats, Alex!

Jupiter Ascending Trailer

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OK, so it’s not actually gay, but who doesn’t want to see Channing Tatum in pretty much anything? Non-disclaimer disclaimer – no one has asked us to post this or paid us to do so. I just really wanna see this film: From the makers of The Matrix trilogy comes another futuristic science fiction film – Jupiter Ascending. Jupiter Ascending has Channing Tatum (Caine) and Mila Kunis (Jupiter Jones) as its lead stars. The film will follow the life of Jupiter Jones, an ordinary cleaning lady who always dream of the stars. She is always wondering what is in store … Read more

Elves and Star Cruisers

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OK, so every morning, I sit down and figure out what I’m going to write about here. I try to do a bit of a round-robin – a post on sci fi, one about fantasy, and then one on paranormal… and then something about the writing process more generally. Today is Fantasy day. And a couple things have come together for me this morning to suggest a topic. Fantasy intruding into the sci fi world. I’m not talking about other worlds that blend a pastoral setting with a sci fi origin. I’m going a little more hard-core – I’m talking … Read more

Torquere Press Celebrates 11 Years

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Torquere Press is celebrating their 11-year anniversary this month with giveaways, special releases, contests, and more. Torquere Press, a royalty paying, full-service publisher of gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual romance, began in 2003. The original eBook publisher for the GLBT community, Torquere has published several best-selling authors such as Sean Michael, Julia Talbot, Chris Owen, BA Tortuga, and Kiernan Kelly. Eleven years ago, two authors started Torquere Press because no one else in the publishing industry was producing gay romance. Today, Torquere publishes every genre of romance, from paranormal to western to sci-fi, as long as the main characters are … Read more

Paying Our Debts

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The announcement (finally) of the long-awaited Apple Watch, and the related announcement of Apple’s new payment system got me wondering – how will we handle money in the future? If you’ve never seen the movie “In Time”, go rent it now. It’s a fascinating look at a future payment system, in which time really is money. People have a counter on their wrists, and get paid in time. And when your time runs out, you die. Many people are, literally, living from day to day in low-end jobs. I’m not saying we’re actually edging toward that kind of future, but … Read more

Writing a Transgender Character

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I’ll start by saying that I’m not transgender. I am a gay man, and so to a limited extent, I think I can relate to someone who is transgender – at least in terms of struggling with something inside of me that’s different – and with society’s reaction to it. But I’ve always imagined that coming out as transgender must be like coming out as gay or lesbian, times ten. In my writing career, I’ve mostly stuck to writing straight characters and gay men. But I’m starting to challenge myself to write in some of the other parts of the … Read more

Shifting Away from Shifters

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Ever since Twilight became a thing, shifters and been all the rage in the paranormal genre. Sure, we’ve seen attempts by zombies, Frankenstein, and even a return of the vampires to dethrone shifters, but they still seem to rule the roost. But every dynasty must eventually fall. So what’s the next great paranormal craze? At one point, vampires held sway over the popular imagination, with icons like Lestat, Dracula, Count Chocula, and Elvira in the national limelight. And some shows have tried to blend the cast of characters – even Twilight had both vampires and werewolves. Being Human had a … Read more

How Magic Conquered Popular Culture

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Editor’s Note: After yesterday’s discussion on how we can use Fantasy to explore our own community and issues, this article from Lev Grossman at Time seemed particularly apropos: ———— hen I was a kid, in the 1980s, fantasy was not entirely OK. It had, let us say, some unpleasant associations. It was fringey and subcultural and uncool. In my suburban Massachusetts junior high, to be a fantasy fan was not to be a good, contented hobbit, working his sunny garden and smoking his fragrant pipeweed. It was to be Gollum, slimy and gross and hidden away, riddling in the dark. … Read more