List: queer

Clive Barker is, without doubt, the coolest character at Midnight Pals, and I wanted to find out why. Yes, this is a weird motivation for reading an author, but I've read worse with less reason. Much worse, as it turns out – Imajica was a good read.

Berlins Drittes Geschlecht

by Magnus Hirschfeld · published 1904 · read 2020-08-12

Berlin's Third Gender (Berlins drittes Geschlecht) by Dr Magnus Hirschfeld is a description of queer lives in Berlin around 1900 (published 1905). Even though it's naturally sad in some ways, it's also encouraging: Berlin was comparatively liberal at the time, and I enjoyed the descriptions of queer groups, events, relationships, and creative side-stepping of general conventions. The descriptions are very vivid and obviously well-researched, and contain lots of amusing facts about everyday life in different social circles.

The Left Hand of Darkness

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1969 · read 2017-03-01

Wow! This is a fantastic, clever, wonderful scifi book. I loved the explicitly humanoid species (that are probably expanded on, especially their origin, in other parts of the series). I loved the mostly-androgynous species, their peculiarities, the mechanics of it all, the implications. I loved the protagonist and the carefully spun story arch - but I loved most that the narrator/protagonist was both clever, relatable, and fallible - there were several instances where, in the middle of narration, you started to think "Hold up, I'm sure that's not quite …" or "Isn't that just your weird bisexual bias …?"

Silver in the Wood

by Emily Tesh · published 2019 · read 2020-02-20

Good forest fairytale. Heavier on the "hurt" side of hurt/comfort that I initially thought. Good characters, good writing, and only a bit low on substance.

Don We Now Our Gay Apparel: Gay Men’s Dress in the Twentieth Century

by Shaun Cole · published 2000 · read 2020-02-18

This book is a treasure! It follows the history of gay men's dress from the days of Oscar Wilde to the 90s, and by necessity along the way explains the cultural changes in and around gay groups. It explains hidden and implicit cultural meanings, is sourced from interviews, magazines, and lots and lots of other books and articles. I can't overstate how in-depth and conscientously the information is presented.

Sansûkh

by determamfidd · published 2017 · last read 2021-01-27

Sansûkh is an incredibly well-researched, detailed, well-written Lord of the Rings fanfiction, telling the whole story from the perspective of the dead dwarves keeping watch over their relatives. Its protagonist is Thorin Oakenshield, and in addition to all the plots told by the primary books, it also features Erebor and Mirkwood. The writing is very appropriate and well-done, and I enjoyed every part of it tremendously. It's funny, and it's epic, and it's very much as it should be.

Luck in the Shadows

by Lynn Flewelling · published 1996 · read 2021-07-02

Excellent fantasy – very 90s, and I devoured it in a single Saturday. Teenage boy with no family gets helped out of prison by a mysterious stranger who accepts him as apprentice. Said stranger turns out to be a jack-of-all trades spy, a charming and capable rogue. They encounter harship and intrigue and find friends and blah blah, classic fantasy story arc in the end.

Full Fathom Five

by Max Gladstone · published 2014 · read 2021-10-17

Redeeming Max Gladstone after whatever Empress of Forever was: yess, this is the stuff. The Craft Sequence formula is a very readable mix of great, emergent worldbuilding, with some harsh economic truths, a sense of wonder, and some extremely forgettable characters. This time we don't only get the usual corporate lawyers, we also get an angry girl living in the streets and a spy (plus the usual forgotten gods).

Two Serpents Rise

by Max Gladstone · published 2013 · read 2020-09-30

Three Parts Dead was lots of fun, and I had high expectations of this book. I was not disappointed. Max Gladstone has now a firm place among my favourite authors!

The Magpie Lord

by K.J. Charles · published 2013 · read 2020-06-30

Romance, mysterious curse, estate management: A queer/gay romance in a fantasy version of Victorian England. The youngest exiled son of a lord returns to England after his father and brother die, and has to contest with the curse that led to their deaths. Luckily, he finds a strange but attractive young wizard blah blah blah, you see where this ends. Very atmospheric, and too well-written to deserve to be labeled as "enjoyable trash".

A Desolation Called Peace

by Arkady Martine · published 2021 · read 2021-04-11

Generally, A Desolation Called Peace is nearly as good as A Memory Called Empire. It replaces parts of the intrical cultural commentary with very alien aliens who need to be communicated with, but surprisingly, the aliens are one of the weakest parts of the book. This is basially the anti-Tchaikovsky, where humans are inevitably more interesting than even hive mind aliens.

Red, White & Royal Blue

by Casey McQuiston · published 2019 · read 2019-07-07

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston is a rom-com, pure and simple. It's light-hearted, it's witty, it doesn't feel like "Hello, fellow kids" – what more do you want?

Pale Fire

by Vladimir Nabokov · published 1962 · read 2019-12-02

Pale Fire was my second book by Vladimir Nabokov, and it curiously resembled the first one (Lolita, naturally): An unreliable narrator, who felt incredibly off-putting, full of himself, and mentally ill. I do want to note that the narrator is gay and there is no obvious stigmatisation associated with the fact.

The Door into Sunset

by Diane Duane · published 1992 · read 2021-04-14

Silly me, I assumed that this series was a trilogy. This book was published in 1992 and doesn't wrap up the series. There were some news on the final volume in 2018/2019, nothing since then. Sad stuff, I would have loved a real ending, and this book was … not it.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop

by Meredith Katz · published 2016 · read 2021-09-05

Short, sweet queer sci-fi romance, telling the story of a world where production of humanoid robots has been banned, but the last remaining ones are allowed to live out their life. Ace robot trope though.

A Marvellous Light

by Freya Marske · published 2021 · read 2021-11-05

Comfort ~~food~~ read. But for real, what is it with fantasy novels about gay magicians in Victorian England, where the lower-class magician falls for the upper-class non-magical nobility? Not that I'm complaining.

A Master of Djinn

by P. Djèlí Clark · published 2021 · read 2021-09-06

Steampunk, non-Victorian edition: In 1912, Egypt is a rising world power due to its access to magic. Holding its own against the British and other world powers in a multicultural metropolis, Cairo is far from free and perfect, though: Our protagonist, Fatma, is one of the few women in the Ministry of supernatural stuff, where she works as an investigator, and gets to unravel the bloodless-but-supernatural murder of some British guys.

Gender Euphoria

by Laura Kate Dale · published 2021 · read 2021-10-10

Gender Euphoria does some things very well, but felt generally underwhelming. Let me explain: I was happy to see a collection of essays on this theme, because from what I can see, especially younger parts of trans* communities often focus on the downsides and suffering of being trans. Entirely understandable, of course, but it's all the more important to talk about the flip side. The direction and presence of this book is both welcome and refreshing.

Safely You Deliver

by Graydon Saunders · published 2016 · read 2021-05-20

by Aiden Thomas · published 2020 · read 2021-06-12

Cemetery Boys

Coming-of-age novel set in an urban fantasy: Yadriel is a Latinx trans boy in the US. His whole family are brujx and don't accept him as a brujo. Naturally, he spends the novel proving himself – but with a fair bit of reflection and friendships and non-transition related plot thrown in. Intersectional YA is pretty cool and all (most non-Latinx people here are queer by default, delightfully), and my only issue with this was how predictable the plot is and how YA possibly just isn't for me anymore.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune

by Nghi Vo · published 2020 · read 2021-02-26

High fantasy novella, vaguely Chinese-plus-Inuit (shush, it makes sense). After the Empress has died, a young monk – monks are enby in this world, which is neat – travels to her old castle, that has been off limits for decades. They explore the house and chronicle the stories of various things they find. It turns out to be vastly different than expected.

The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller · published 2011 · read 2021-05-13

Circe was okayish, this is the second chance I was giving Miller before deciding that her access to myths doesn't match mine. I liked Achilles more than Circe, but part of that is that I'm a sucker for the pairing. I didn't like the depiction of Patroclus too much, and both felt oddly pale to me. I know it's the current poster child of queer readership and TikTok in particular, but … ehh. It's alright.

Tournament of Losers

by Megan Derr · published 2016 · read 2019-04-10

Tournament of Losers by Megan Derr was surprisingly good for a fantasy romance novel, but it was still utterly predictable (and fairytale sounding in the ritual situations that lead to its predictability, actually). A nice enough read, especially since semi-realistic fantasy with m/m relationships isn't common, but definitely more of a guilty pleasure than anything else.

Death by Silver

by Melissa Scott, Amy Griswold · published 2013 · read 2022-01-14

MORE gay Victorian (well, Gaslamp) magicians, will it ever stop? This one at least doesn't follow the cookie-cutter for the genre: no nobility, and magic is well-known and accepted, so there's an actual industry and civil services. Magic has actual rules, and a lot of it seems to be grammar-based, and people can, for example, take educated guesses about a magician's schooling (Oxford vs Cambridge styles) – but only guesses, not enough to be actually important clues, which I thought was a nice show of restraint.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue

by Mackenzi Lee · published 2017 · read 2019-12-09

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee is fun, but not outstanding. I was very tolerant of its flaws because it's very queer. The protagonist is an English aristocratic ass on his Grand Tour, which is a fine narrative device … until it gets tiring. Even a mistreated entitled idiot is still an entitled idiot, who in this case is surrounded by way cooler people. Especially his sister, who was the most competent person involved, would've made the book much better if it had been multi-POV, I think. Also, less of a euphoric "we ride into the sunset" ending – I had been hoping against hope for a better ending, and was disgruntled at this.

Traitor’s Moon

by Lynn Flewelling · published 1999 · read 2021-07-18

Just as with the previous book in the series, I enjoyed the world and the storytelling a lot, but some relationship-related things clouded my enjoyment.

Stalking Darkness

by Lynn Flewelling · published 1997 · read 2021-07-14

Avoiding second-book syndrome, Stalking Darkness is at least as good as Luck in the Shadows – but it also touches on some serious yikes. I have thoughts.

A Case of Possession

by K.J. Charles · published 2014 · read 2021-08-03

For the first part of the series, I called it “too well-written to deserve to be labeled as enjoyable trash”. The language of this second part remains well done, but the writing … not as much. It's more over-the-top, tryhard – when it doesn't really need to try hard, being itself would be enough: Magic Victorian lover boys return to the dirty city and deal with giant rats and prejudice while alternating between horniness and relationship drama. It's not bad, but the charm of the first part has worn off a bit. I'm not planning to read the next part any time soon, but I imagine at some point I'll be sick or tired or just in need of a comfort read, and I'll come back to the series then.

We Are Satellites

by Sarah Pinsker · published 2021 · read 2022-04-02

Let this website attest that I like Sarah Pinsker a lot – I'm not a short story person in general, and I love hers. That said: I wasn't a fan of this book. Her usual skill with small scenes and emotional gut punches showed, but the plot was so extremely on the nose that I did my best not to eyeroll my way through it. Hard to engage with the cool characters when the plot is yelling its generic dystopia blah lecture at you. (tldr: Brain enhancement that some want, others not, peer pressure, hmmm, wonder if the sleazy bigcos will have our best interest at heart, unconvincing HAPPY GOOD END. The end.) This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.

Salt Magic, Skin Magic

by Lee Welch · published 2018 · read 2022-01-12

More Victorian urban history queer romance with an aristocrat with evil family and a lower-class magician – please somebody tell my why this is such a huge thing. I could do without the repetitiveness and the everything while just enjoying parts of the setting.

Peter Darling

by Austin Chant · published 2017 · read 2021-06-12

Peter Pan returns to Neverland, coming to terms with being a trans boy in bad old England. He starts out as a cruel boy and experiences some character growth … through the magic of Hook's pretty eyes? I don't know, y'all.

The Black Tides of Heaven

by J.Y. Yang · published 2017 · read 2021-06-10

Asian-inspired genderfun fantasy. Didn't compel me at all: the plot wasn't as focused as the short length warranted, and the characters didn't stand out to me at all. The plot was compressed and considering the high odds and tragedy, didn't make me care at all.

Widdershins

by Jordan L. Hawk · published 2012 · read 2022-01-13

Popcorn read: Victorian encounters with the paranormal continue, but this time it's in the US. A timid philologist from a wealthy family (have to do without nobility in the US, after all) meets a Dresden-style magician for hire. They need to solve a mystery that has its solution foreshadowed so strongly, I nearly couldn't see the text under all the shadow.

Empress of Forever

by Max Gladstone · published 2019 · read 2021-09-24

Max Gladstone is an author I like a lot. He's half of the brilliance of Time War, and his Craft Sequence is amazing second-world urban fantasy. I went into this book curious how Gladstone would approach Space Opera, but confident I would like it – boy, was I disappointed. It took me the better part of a month to dig through this book, and it ust dragged on.

Confessions of the Fox

by Jordy Rosenberg · published 2018 · read 2020-10-08

Apparently my reading choices are now powered by spite: I'm reading Confessions of the Fox that I partially picked up because a negative review complained about a) the amount of dirty Elizabethan English ("many crude terms appeared only once, so the author apparently just wanted to show off his research") and b) "If you like to constantly check footnotes whilst reading a novel, some of which are pages long, you might enjoy this book."

Flight of Magpies

by K.J. Charles · published 2014 · read 2022-01-23

by K.M. Szpara · published 2018 · read 2019-01-23

You can make a dinosaur, but you can’t help me