I'm definitely using this as book recs having just finished The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet- thanks for the list!
What time is it? It’s ✨ lizard talks about queer sci-fi ✨ time
My family don’t understand how much joy I get from queer stories, and none of my close friend really read space operas (at least not with the same voracity that I do), so I’m appearing here to pass my knowledge on to you, the void that is my blog.
I read a lot of space operas, and I’ve had the incredible luck that the last handful I’ve picked up have been joyfully queer (or maybe we’re just seeing a shift in the sci-fi publishing world. I love it.). This isn’t a comprehensive list or anything, and this isn’t limited to pure space operas, but they are some of my favorites. Hope I can convince some of you to read a couple (and if you do or have read any, please come and shout at me! I want to talk about them! Always!)
I originally wrote these out for my Instagram, and I can’t really be bothered to retype it all so below the cut are my quick descriptions/thoughts on each of the books, but I’ll chuck the list here too
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin
Machine, Elizabeth Bear
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
Winter’s Orbit, Everina Maxwell
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers
A Matter Of Oaths, Helen S. Wright
A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine
The Collapsing Empire, John Scalzi
These are just books that I’ve read in the last year or so, and if you have any more recs please tell me!
A couple additions that didn't make it to Instagram:
If you like graphic novels, please give On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden a shot, it's really lovely and quiet and feels like a big warm space hug.
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado is a collection of horror short stories, some of which border on scifi, which is why it didn't make it into the main list, but I highly recommend it. My copy was given to me by the lovely @markcampbells
I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter has a bit of a history due to its presentation of gender, and the author actually asked for it to be removed from the Clarkesworld magazine due to the hate comments she was receiving. Still, if you can find it I highly recommend it, as it is genuinely very good.
The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer is. Wow it sure is a book that emotionally damaged me. It's about two boys (men? they're 17 but it doesn't feel like a YA book, except int he good ways) who are on a spaceship heading out to Titan to attempt a rescue mission on Earth's first extraterrestrial colony. There are a lot of feels and ouch.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North. This book isn't a space opera, but it is somewhat sci-fi? anyway, Harry August is one of my favourite books of all time, and it explores a man trapped in what is almost a timeloop, except that time-loop is his whole life. each time he dies he's reborn right back where he started, and it's only through his and the other people like him's actions that the world is ever changed in each repeat.
The Culture series, Iain M Banks. I put this one on the list with a good bit of trepidation and the warning of: these books were written by a (supposedly) cishet white man, and almost all of his protagonists are…nearly cishet white men (with a couple women thrown in in later books). The same can not be said for literally every other character, who are almost entirely trans and bisexual. These books really gave me my love for space operas and if you're a fan of the genre I recommend. Also, the AIs here are amazing. Let us not forget the Ship "Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Mere Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath". They're great.
(I’m also going to add, I would not recommend his normal fiction. I’ve read two, The Wasp Factory which kind of scarred and disturbed me, and Transitions which was just plain bad. Maybe I picked a bad selection, but I can only in good conscience recommend his sci-fi.)
And that's it my dudes! go forth! read queer space operas!
crazyheadcomics who you can find and follow on Instagram created this artwork. (They clearly state that they allow reposts to other sites as long as proper credit is included.)
Aka Captain Jack Harkness, or Deadpool (although both like girls too).
lets make a new trope: gay characters who are actually seemingly impossible to kill to the point that all of their enemies are comically frustrated. functionally immortal gay characters. being gay making you immortal. unkillable gay trope.
A surreal yet natural image.
This Lion’s Mane mushroom growing in a swamp 😰
This is my favourite headcannon in ages!
based on a headcanon I have that he probably told Shiro at some point and Krolia might have seen it during the trip and yeAh
Random Headcanon: That Federation vessels in Star Trek seem to experience bizarre malfunctions with such overwhelming frequency isn’t just an artefact of the television serial format. Rather, it’s because the Federation as a culture are a bunch of deranged hyper-neophiles, tooling around in ships packed full of beyond-cutting-edge tech they don’t really understand. Endlessly frustrating if you have to fight them, because they can pull an effectively unlimited number of bullshit space-magic countermeasures out of their arses - but they’re as likely as not to give themselves a lethal five-dimensional wedgie in the process. All those rampant holograms and warp core malfunctions and accidentally-traveling-back-in-time incidents? That doesn’t actually happen to anyone else; it’s literally just Federation vessels that go off the rails like that. And they do so on a fairly regular basis.
The ineffable husbands as "Couple Dancing" by Leyendecker
Painting this was difficult but really fun and rewarding, I love the result!
(I'm @/noixtky on Instagram!)
EDIT: thank you soooo much for the support to this painting ❤️ I've gotten a few comments about getting this as a print so if you're interested in that please read this ^^
Some very interesting writing tips, taken from a beloved studio. Less telling than I’d have thought about the studio itself though.
These rules were originally tweeted by Emma Coats, Pixar’s Story Artist.
You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.
Sources: [1] [2]
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