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!
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
In the Doctor Who season premiere episode ‘Deep Breath’ nearly a million Australian ABC viewers via BBC simulcast, repeat evening viewing and iView, were treated to an intimate lesbian kiss between Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh) and wife Jenny (Catrin Stewart), that created quite a stir based on its primetime “family viewing” time slot. Ok, they may have been “sharing oxygen” to avoid detection by cybernetic sword-wielding breath detectors, and one may have been a reptile and therefore not human, and despite being married they may live out their roles as master and servant to be seen as socially acceptable, but … Read more
Fantasy novels, especially High Fantasy like Tad Williams “The Dragonbone Chair”, J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”, Terry Brooks’ “Shanara” or Robert Jordan’s “The Wheel of Time” have a special place in my heart. Not so much “The Game of Thrones”. Not because it’s not well done. It is. It’s amazing, and well plotted. But damn, it’s so dark and violent. And shaded. I tend to be a bit of a round-robin reader, bouncing back and forth between science fiction and fantasy. I love science fiction for its speculation about what might be coming. But more and more, those … Read more