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My Favorite Dragonriders

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I just saw the news (in EW, of all places) that there’s finally going to be a Dragonriders of Pern movie. I am thrilled, elated, and scared. This series is one of my most beloved in the sci fi realm – I started reading it in my early teens, and fell in love with it. My mom had this bookshelf in our third bedroom, next to where the dogs were crated at night. The shelves went up and up and up to the ceiling in the tiny home, and about in the middle were her two shelves of sci fi … Read more

Announcement: Idolatry, by Rebecca Cohen

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QSFer Rebecca Cohen has a new Fantasy out called Idolatry: Upon taking the throne as High Lord of Katraman and Liege of Scura, Lornyc Reagalos’s focus on rebuilding one city and reassuring another leaves little time for his husband, Methian. Added to that, he must contend with the unexpected revelation that his grandfather, Romanus, set up his own religion and named an enigmatic figure called The One as its deity. Through some twisted interpretation of the signs left by Romanus, the Cerulean Cult comes to believe Lornyc is their god and invites him to sanctify the Cult as part of … Read more

Will Anarchy Ever Be a Viable Option?

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Will anarchy ever be a viable option? In my heart, I’m an anarchist. I don’t like people who try to control others or tell them what to do. I have no desire to impose my will on anyone, and I don’t want anyone attempting to impose their will on me. However, I’m realistic enough to recognize anarchy would not work in our current society. Left to their own devices, I’m sad to acknowledge many people would take the opportunity to exploit others in every imaginable way. That’s where the human race stands at the moment. Without the threat of consequences, … Read more

The Science in Sci Fi

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Today’s topic comes form QSFer Angel Martinez: “The need for science in SF.” I know what she means. I see a lot of “sci fi”, especially in the cross-over romance category, that uses sci fi as purely a backdrop – throw the two protagonists on a space ship and you’ve got a sci fi story. In sci fi, the science should be more than just a back-drop – it’s almost another character. Sure, you can write a compelling romance that is set in a future world. But if that future world itself is not compelling and built on a solid … Read more

That Wendingo Ate My Baby

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I watched the last season of Teen Wolf with great interest, as the sow expanded beyond the small California town of Beacon Hills to Mexico, and embraced some shifters and other supernatural bad-asses from other cultural traditions. That got me thinking – what other cultures and beasties are ripe for new stories in the paranormal genre? Every culture has its own set of traditional stories and legends from which to choose, along with a unique set of superstitions. As a child, I had a huge fascination with Native American tales – especially the ones abut little white kids kidnapped and … Read more

Announcement: Walk a Mile, by Sarah Madison

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QSF’er Sarah Madison has a new release today: Six months after starting their hunt for a serial killer who is still at large, FBI agents Jerry Lee Parker and John Flynn are partners in every sense. But Jerry has serious doubts about their relationship and whether they would even be together if not for the way Flynn changed after touching a mysterious artifact in a museum. Flynn hates the extraordinary power bestowed on him by the artifact and wants nothing more than to have a normal life again. Jerry fears that without the unusual connection they forged, Flynn will no … Read more

Shining a Light on Prejudice

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Today’s topic is from QSF’er Tracy Rowan: “Off the top of my head: How do you think about the role of gender and orientation in the future or in fantasy worlds? If you posit a distant future or a fantasy world with the same prejudices as exist in our world, why? If you don’t, why?” Of course, the easy answer is “because I’m the writer and I said so.” But that masks a more complex one. What’s different about a society that accepts its LGBT population, vs. one that doesn’t? We’ve come to a point where we generally have widespread … Read more

Flipping History

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Today’s topic comes from QSFer John Allenson: “A suggestion for a discussion. What do people think of Alternate History? Anyone writing AH? What would be some good possibilities for Queer AH?” Ooh, I like this one. What if things had gone differently in the middle ages and we’d had an openly gay Pope who had steered the Church to be gay friendly? How would things have been different if the Nazis had singled out Christians, or whites, or straights instead of Jews and gays for the holocaust? What if drag queens hadn’t risen up at Stonewall? So many possibilities. So … Read more

Elves in the Tropics

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OK, so I’m fresh back from an island adventure with our two friends from Italy, so I’m in a tropical frame of mind. Thinking about it, I realize that most “traditional” fantasy takes place in forests and plains and woody places. But what about tropical locales, like Hawaii? Were the famed “menehune” – a short people who were credited as fairies and tricksters in Polynesia, really elves? I’ve read a few stories that touched on tropical locations (Stephen Donaldson’s books come to mind) but very little actually set in such a locale. So my questions to you today – can … Read more

Love Among the Test Tubes

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Today’s topic comes to us from QSFer Sadie Rose Bermingham: “How to tackle love stories in a world where reproduction is a process that takes place entirely in a test tube and babies allocated according to a means test and regardless of orientation or marital status?” It’s a great question. How does the human element fit in when procreation is entirely done by science? I’ve seen a few books that have tackled this topic, most notably in “Ethan of Athos”, where a planet of men reproduces solely via artificial wombs. Such technology in our current society, if evenly applied to … Read more