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Dispatches from the Front – Review of The World Until Yesterday

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Review of The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond J. Comer Science fiction authors create fictional worlds. In fact, this is a major focus of our field. Examples of intriguing fictional worlds include de Camp’s Krishna, le Guin’s Gethen, the huge structures imagined by Larry Niven and Bob Shaw, and the World of Tekumel, the lifework of Phil Barker. All of these have been used as settings for adventure stories and novels, and many fictional societies inhabit each one. In all these places (and most other fantasy worlds) there are many small-scale or “traditional” societies: groups of people subsisting by … Read more

Announcement: Mail Order Husbands, by Abraham Steele

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Mail Order Husbands

QSFer Abraham Steele has a new Paranormal book out: Edmund Knox is an upstanding citizen, a devoted father, and the alpha of a large urban shifter pack. He came out of the closet when he got divorced, but his numerous responsibilities haven’t allowed him to date in recent years. No, he isn’t lonely – or at least, he’d never admit to that kind of weakness. When Edmund gets a little too controlling about his daughter’s love life, the rebellious teen realizes he might be less uptight if he had a love life of his own. Taking matters into her own … Read more

Discussion: Where Do You Get Ideas?

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writing and marketing

Today’s topic comes from QSFer Elizabeth Barrette: Where do you find ideas for stories? Specifically, a lot of material about queerfolk is crap, so it’s necessary to sort through and find reliable, relevant stuff if you want to do research. How do current events influence your writing? Do you work in things like legal changes or scientific advances that affect queerfolk, or ignore them? It’s a good question. For me, many ideas originate in music, or in calls for submission – anthology calls have been a great source of new story ideas for me. Sometimes a newspaper article will trigger … Read more

Announcement: Lore and Logos, by Matthew P. Buscemi

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Lore and Logos

QSFer Matthew P. Buscemi has a new Sci Fi anthology out: Twins enter a forest and witness strange phenomena that the other sibling is unable to see. A cat enthusiast wishes to procure a genetically unadulterated breed of feline. A young couple is torn apart as they discover the opportunities and costs of exploration. A scientist’s experiment gone awry contorts her reality into a scrambled mess of terror. Self-aware server code contemplates the meaning and purpose of its existence. Matthew Buscemi spins his weirdest and most eloquent tales to date in this collection of nine short stories, elegantly weaving the … Read more

Angel’s Bits: Crowds Send Me Screaming or Introvert Conference-going

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Scott and I just returned from Rainbow Con in Tampa this week, which was a fabulous time, but we just did a podcast on the Con with the 3M/Musketeers. Instead, I thought I’d talk about cons in general. Many of you are probably veteran con-goers and will be able to add advice from your own experiences for those QSF’ers (like Scott) who aren’t so familiar with cons. Crowds Send Me Screaming or Introvert Conference-going Conference season! It’s really a year-round thing these days but most of the important events for LGBT authors seem to happen throughout the summer and fall. … Read more

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde

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Genre: Gay Paranormal Historical Length: Novel   As is well known, this is a story about a man, Dorian Gray, whose soul is housed in a painting, keeping his body from showing the stains of his immorality. The novel is told in third person omniscient, mostly using these three viewpoints: Dorian Gray, Basil Hallward, and Lord Henry Wotton. Dorian Gray is an impressionable youth, beautiful beyond measure. Basil Hallward is a painter, and inspired by Dorian, he paints his portrait week after week, until one day he creates his magnum opus. Lord Henry is a good friend of Basil’s, and … Read more

Announcement: Heart Scarab, by Anna Butler

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Gilded Scarab

QSFer Anna Butler has a new Sci Fi book out: Telnos is an unpleasant little planet, inhabited by religious fanatics in the festering marshlands and unregistered miners running illegal solactinium mines up in the hills. But the Maess want Telnos, and Shield Captain Bennet’s job is to get out as many civilians as he can—a task that leaves him lying on Telnos while the last cutter of evacuees escapes in the teeth of the Maess invasion. Bennet is listed missing in action, believed dead on a planet now overrun by Maess drones. His family is grieving. His long-term partner, Joss, … Read more

Discussion: Is It Homage or Theft?

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Blurred Lines

Today’s discussion topic comes from Albert Nothlit: How about homage vs, um, ‘unauthorized borrowing’? We all draw inspiration from somewhere, but where do you draw the line? There was a big summer musical hit in 2013 called blurred lines, by Pharrell and Robin Thicke. It was a bubbly happy, feel-good song that made millions. Beneath the happy exterior, there were some controversial, misogynistic undercurrents, but the controversy I’m thinking about had nothing to do with that part of the song or video. It’s this – last year, a jury gave the estate of Marvin Gaye a huge award for alleged … Read more

Announcement: The Guardian’s Destiny, by Fil Preis

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The Guardian's Destiny

QSFer Fil Preis has a new Fantasy book out: Jarmal has been the Guardian of Scryer’s Well for three decades. Romantic liaisons with the warriors and wizards who come to the Well for mystical insight into their destinies no longer satisfy a man who’s grown old alone. Despite Jarmal’s pride in his life’s work, his forty-seventh birthday is a hard reminder that he has not yet chosen a successor, and he’s never been granted a vision by the Well he’s spent his life guarding. Fortunately, Jarmal receives a distraction in the form of the handsome foreign magician Tariq and his … Read more

Discussion: Writing From the Dark Side

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Maleficent

Today’s discussion topic comes from QSFer MK Mancos: How about turning the genre on its ear and writing from the villain’s perspective? What kind of world would it be then? I know a few of our QSF authors have done this, and we’ve seen it in pop culture – think Maleficent and Wicked. So my questions today – what other villains are ripe for a rehabilitation? And on the LGBTQI side, how can we turn the old trope of the gay villain around?