Gay – Page 6 – Marked for Plot

The Enchanter

I was a Harry Potter kid growing up, and despite falling out of love with the series for a wide variety of reasons, magic schools will always hold a special place in my heart. I also loved Shoenn Manga, and remember buying the newest Naruto books released to see what was happening during the Chūnin Exams. This has since transformed into an adult love of the Progression Fantasy genre, featuring readable prose, fun battles, and lots of power ups. There’ve been a couple good marriages between these two elements, and even a few with lots of queer rep (Arcane Ascension and Mage Errant both get a big shout out for this!), but Journals of Evander Tailor is by far my favorite. The Enchanter is the first book in the journey, and I’ll keep singing its praises as long as I can.

Read If Looking For: breezy reading, detailed magic systems, supportive relationships, consequences for actions, a thoughtful and pragmatic lead character

Avoid if Looking For: beautiful prose, queer-friendly worlds, magic that remains mystic and unexplained

The Witness for the Dead

The Goblin Emperor won me over with its baroque tangle of royal ettiquette, its optimistic worldview, and a wonderful inversion of typical portrayals of monarchies. It’s sibling series is none of those things, and presents a story that feels very familiar in style, yet the polar opposite in tone. A subdued noir novella, Witness For the Dead does not require reading The Goblin Emperor to enjoy; it follows a side character far from the action and events of the previous story. In fact, there were surprisingly few easter eggs connecting the two.

Read If Looking For: gloomy priests, representations of internalized homophobia, simple and careful prose

Avoid if Looking For: upbeat stories, highly structured mysteries

The Last Sun

Historically, Urban Fantasy hasn’t been a genre that I’ve found particularly compelling. As a kid, I was looking for more grand adventures; and as an adult, werewolves and vampires just didn’t call my name unless they were doing something interesting and creative with them. The Last Sun was a book I gave a shot while looking for queer leads in fantasy, and while it wasn’t a perfect book, it’s certainly one that I’ll be reading more of in the future.

Read If Looking For: punchy mysteries, fun action sequences, underdog stories

Avoid if Looking For: books without graphic sexual assault, books that resolve every mystery in one book

The Darkness Outside Us

I intended for this book to be a light, fluffy read. Picked up in an airport bookshop as something to occupy me as I headed out to a summer teaching gig in Boston, I thought I was going to read a cute (and possibly spicy) romance set in a spaceship. I did not expect the emotional rollercoaster of stress, excitement, and sheer existential dread this book would pull out of me. It’s stood the test of time and is just as good on a reread as that first experience.

Read If Looking For: space thrillers, emotional romantic connections, looming dread

Avoid if Looking For: straightforward romances, thorough worldbuilding

Wolf of Withervale

I was drawn to Wolf of Withervale because I’ve been looking for good Epic Fantasy with Gay leads for a while. I’ve found bundles of romantasy, some more experimental stuff, but precious little in the classic older style … but gay. And Wolf of Withervale was exactly that. Massive world about to be thrust into turmoil, magical relics of ancient civilizations, young kid finding himself in the limelight through merest chance. It’s got a lot of what epic fantasy looks for, and it filled the itch I’d been looking for.

Read If Looking For: grand stakes, imposing villains, ancient magical artifacts, queer cultural references

Avoid if Looking For: books that start in the middle of the action, deep nuanced characterization

Evocation

Evocation immediately caught my eye with its cover. While I’m not a someone who subscribes to Tarot in my personal life, I greatly enjoy how it can be used as a symbolic component in stories, especially fantasy ones where its easy for me to suspend disbelief and enjoy fortune telling. That, plus a queer cast made it an easy choice for me to read.

Read If Looking For: poly romance, dynamic narration, occultism

Avoid if Looking For: flesheshed out magic systems, mystery/thriller plotlines that satisfy

The Woods All Black

Horror, especially queer horror, is something that I’ve been dipping my toes in more and more as I get older. I’m a squeamish person; during medical shows I look away during surgery scenes, and I despise jump scares. But I find both elements much more manageable in book form. And The Woods All Black was a wonderful marriage of queer history and queer horror. At 150 pages, it was an easy choice to pick up.

Read If Looking For: Appalachian settings, queer history, religious horror

Avoid if Looking For: engaging romances, lots of supernatural content

The Emperor and the Endless Palace

Reincarnation and recursive gay romance books seem to be a running theme of 2024 releases. I didn’t read all of them, but The Emperor and the Endless Palace seemed like the type of gay romance that was going to push past the cliches plaguing gay romances both in and out of fantasy spaces at the moment. And despite some classic debut-novel issues, it was exactly what I was looking for.

Read If Looking For: romances that aren’t quite Romances, looping narratives, lustful gay men, historical queer representation

Avoid if Looking For: saccharine queer stories, or books that aren’t romance heavy

A Conspiracy of Truths

My love for framing narratives will likely become a running theme on this blog. When executed well, I find they make stories come to life, and they inherently channel the oral storytelling traditions that the fantasy genre calls home. A Conspiracy of Truths is one of the best of them. This book was an impulse purchase from Half Priced Books, and it gave me not only one of my favorite books of all time, but an author whose catalog blows me away.

Read If Looking For: unique protagonists, political manipulation, the power of storytelling

Avoid if Looking For: stories where the main character can leave a prison cell to actually take part in what’s traditionally the ‘plot’ of a book

Jade City

When I heard about Jade City, the things people told me about were great fight scenes and cool magic systems. I picked it up because I love these things. Instead what I got was an intensely character focused family drama with organized crime (kind of) as a backdrop. Plus some cool fight scenes, of course.

Read If Looking For: morally grey leads, deep themes, character focused writing

Avoid if Looking For: lots of fight scenes