"The Rylerran Gateway" (see three posts before)by Mark Ian Kendrick is what I expect by a good GLBT science fiction of fantasy yarn: good science, original ideas, good character development.Unfortunately in many GLBT science fiction and fantasy yarns, the characters are political statements, and the story becomes over-ponderous to read.
however, there is very good GLBT Science Fiction which I enjoyed:
"Venus plus X" by Theodore Sturgeon: a man is projected through time in a future where an hermaphroditic race supplanted humans. Very interesting
"The robots of dawn", by Isaac Asimov: what do you know? Eljiah Baley and R.Daneel Oliaw behave sometimes like a gay couple.
"Trouble on Triton" and "Dhalgren" by Samuel Delany, a very learned gay Science Fictin author
"Q-FAQ" by Tom Bacchus: a very poignant dystopian future, here, but very well written
"The God Eaters", by Jesse Hajichek: sort of a "prison break2 story in a western alternate reality, with a fantasy story on the background, Very sexy and intriguing.
And obviously there are the Wraeththu by Storm Constantine
In an alternate reality, something has happened to humanity. Nuclear war,pollution, degradation...and amid the waste a new mysterious terrific mutation:the Wraeththu. Pell has heard terrible things about them, but he doubts they'll come to his farm to take him away.
Then, the unknown arrives, a traveler:"I am Cal", he says.
So begins one of the most original, intriguing and fascinating fantasy series of all-times. Humanity evolves in the Wraeththu race, hermaphroditic beings of intriguing beauty, some cruel and savage, some enlightened and righteous. Storm Constantine unravel magnificently the history and the personalities of the main charachters (Pell the innocent whose inception has been pre-ordained by higher powers, Cal the har whit a past,fascinating trickster whit which everyone falls in love, Cobweb the strange intriguing sorcerous beauty married to the tyrant Terzian,Swift their ambiguous son) while describing the evolution of Wraeththu society from caos to civilization. Uncannily magic, the story revolves essentially around the love of Calanthe and Pell, separated dramatically to fulfill the plans of the shamanic Thiede.Cal shall return to Pell, after an initiatic voyage that will bring him in contact whit many Wraeththu tribes whose bizarre and diverse costumes and cities Storm describes whit the skill of a Jack Vance.Fantastic that his story is, there is in some moments an uncannily resemblance to recent
history. The Hegemony of Immanion debating whether the righteous Gelaming should attack the cruel Varrs will ring some bell...
In conclusion, this is one of the best literary achievement of the fantastic genre. It is at the same level of Asimov's Foundation (and the skirmish between Pellaz and Ashmael and the political debates have some Asimovian flavor), Tolkien's Lord of The Ring (the evil Ponclast's city Fulminir recalls vaguely Mordor, The Gelaming recall the High Elves) and Clive Barker's Imajica (where there is an androgyne tribe, the Eurhetemec, and their mystif Pie oh-Pah seems a Nahir-Nuri Wraeththu)
Read it, it's worth it!
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