Queer – Page 3 – Marked for Plot

Novella Readathon #13: Cinder House

I have a soft spot for Cinderella. I wouldn’t describe it as my favorite Fairy Tale, but somehow pieces of it keep capturing my imagination. As a child, I watched the VHS for Ever After so much we had to buy a new copy – I still love it, corny dialogue and all. My teenage self enjoyed the goriness of the Grimm Fairy Tale. As an adult, The Magic Fish became my all-time favorite graphic novel (though that goes far beyond Cinderella). Cinder House enters in the long line of Cinderella tales I adore. In classic Marske fashion, it weaves together the fantastic and romantic elements to find a really excellent balance

The Premise:
Ella died shortly after her father, killed by a combination of poison from her stepmother and falling down the stairs (but really it was the poison). Now a ghost posessing the house owned by the woman who killed her, Ella cleans and cooks for her stepfamily, unable to live a life apart from the building that has become her body. Cue some classic Cinderella elements, such as the Prince holding a ball to find a wife, which has a lot of the traditional trappings of Cinderella. For the most part, this book is Cinderella + the main character is a ghost who feels the house as her new body.

Read If Looking For: chronic illness coding, the sensuality of bare feet on carpet, a friendly bit of correspondence, your body is a temple

Avoid If Looking For: fairy tales that invert the original, Cinderella that eschews insta-love, criticisms of monarchies

Novella Readathon #12: A Necessary Chaos

I have not yet read a proper Romance for this project, though plenty of the novellas feature romantic subplots. A Necessary Chaos entered my TBR when it was described as ‘Mr. and Ms. Smith, but Fantasy and Gay.’ This pitch combines three of my favorite things – I don’t know why I love that movie so much, sue me – and I hoped it would be a nice tonal change after The Lathe of Heaven. The two had a pretty stark contrast; as A Necessary Chaos is, quite frankly, a bit of a mess. It was a mess that worked for me however, because it was so tailored to the things that I enjoy. As it stands though, I can only recommend this for people for whom the premise is immediately exciting.

The Premise:
Vade is a Whisper, a member of the Empire’s magical secret police, seeking revenge on the rebels who killed his sister. Althus is an anarchist in the Phantom Dragon, hoping to bring the system crashing down. The two have been lovers for years, meeting up to spy on each other. Just as they start thinking that their feelings are too serious for a fake relationship, however, they each receive the needed push to finally commit to killing the other. Perhaps them being honest with each other about who they are was the key to unlocking a true relationship all along, and it will bring an Empire to its knees.

Read If You Like: steamy action romance, cool magic powers, torture demons, love was the real magic all along

Avoid If You Dislike: unredeemably evil villains, abrupt changes in allegiance, typos

Novella Readathon #10: North Continent Ribbon by Ursula Witcher

North Continent Ribbon went on my reading list after it got shortlisted for the Ursula Le Guin prize. Those books tend to be hit or miss, but always have a strong sense of identity and something new to bring to the genre. Ribbon was no exception; I’m sure the structure of this novella has been done before, but I haven’t read one like it. It lives in an in-between space between a short fiction/mosaic novel and a more cohesive novella, which was a really cool experience. This story isn’t the densest thing I’ve read, nor the most profound. It has lingered with me, however, and I think that’s the sign of something really special. I think I’d have picked it to win over Rakesfall, which won that year.

The Premise:
North Continent Ribbon covers ~450 years of a far flung planet, initially settled as a location to build faster-than-light ships. Each story is a discrete piece of short fiction, focusing on its own characters and conflicts. However, they layer on top of each other to tell a larger story of cultural formation and change.

Read If Looking For: unique worldbuilding that doesn’t feel gimmicky, nuanced anticapitalist themes, interpersonal conflicts framed through systemic pressures, collective bargaining

Avoid If Looking For: the protagonists always winning, traditional story structures, conflict resolution via combat, romance-free books

Novella Readathon #8: Party of Fools

When I saw that one of the bingo squares for this year’s bingo focused on food, I knew that I would be reading Party of Fools for this readathon. What a better choice for the Feast Your Eyes on This than a series called Empire of Eats? This book is marketed as a comedy, but come expecting silly rather than a full-on comedy. It had a surprising amount of anti-imperialist content than I was expecting. This is not a farce with food; it’s something more akin to how Discworld uses comedy to explore real issues – though stylistically the two are different styles of comedic fantasy. The blurb says ‘Make sure you have some good food on hand, because you’re bound to get hungry along the way‘ and truer words have never been written.

I came looking for a light read after Autobiography of Red, and I left with some of the most fun I’ve had in ages.

The Premise:
Reed and Gladys are retired from their day jobs. Now the Bard and Barbarian moonlight as members of the Resistance, which makes it quite the coincidence when the Immortal Emperor walks into the bar that Gladys’ son runs. Vallora is looking for a break from the life of nobility and to try good food, her chief guard Andromeda is frantically searching the city for her, and the two rebels see an opportunity to strike a blow against the empire. But first, we must eat!

Read If Looking For: charcuterie boards, autistic viewpoint characters, breezy prose, D&D misadventure vibes

Avoid If Looking For: books that demand attention to understand, trope-free stories, realistic dialogue

Novella Readathon #7: Autobiography of Red

Two weeks ago, if you asked me the novella I was most excited to read, I’d have responded Autobiography of Red. It’s got several ardent supporters whose taste I trust, it tackles an obscure figure from Greek mythology, a creature whom exists only for Herakles to kill, and it deals in thorny and tragic gay relationships. Unfortunately, what should have been catnip for me ended up as a frustrating reminder of why I tend to avoid Literature. While I’ve enjoyed several novellas with a more Literary bent (most recently On the Calculation of Volume), this one ended up feeling more like work than enjoyment. I do plan to eventually reread it, and I’m hopeful that I’ll get more out of it on a second look, because the bits I liked were really quite phenomenal.

The Premise:
While there are some introductory materials and extra bits, most of this story is the autobiography of Geryon: a boy and man in the mid-1900s who is red and has wings. This goes largely unremarked in the story. It traces his troubled childhood and teenage affair with Herakles, his listlessness in adult life, and a chance reunion with Herakles that is perhaps not everything Geryon wanted it to be. This is … a poor description, I will admit. I’m not sure how to give a better one though. Mostly it asks you to crawl inside Geyron’s head as he floats through different portions of his childhood and young adult life.

Read If Looking For: Literature with a capital L, tortured souls, photography motifs, blank verse, books that feel like Indie Films

Avoid If Looking For: straightforward narratives, clear happy endings, adventure and thrills, Romance beats

Novella Readathon #5: If Found Return to Hell

I didn’t know a ton about If Found Return to Hell coming into the first page, but I had assumed it would be a fairly standard horror story featuring a possession. Look at the cover! It’s actually a lot more like Penric’s Demon, though a bit goofier: this book is a big marshmallow with a gooey center. It finds a better balance in tone than a lot of cozy fantasy does, however, which made me like it a lot more than one of the many Legends and Lattes clones. However, I was kind of hoping this would be a nice accompaniment to The Haunting of Hill House, which my partner forced me to watch (though I’m now largely a fan). The second book of this readathon to underdeliver horror yet provide great cozy vibes, which is odd considering this is only the fifth book I’ve read for the challenge.

The Premise:
Wen works for One Wizard, a megacorporation to solve all of your wizarding needs! Unfortunately, they mostly answer phones, listen to complaints, and transfer customers to other departments. When a young man calls in with a massive sigil on his wall and no memories of what happens, Wen gets clearance to investigate. Soon, they end up playing host to a man possessed by a Prince of Hell, and Wen doesn’t know what to do about that.

Read If You Like: found family, late stage capitalism + magic, cozy fantasy that doesn’t overplay itself, developed platonic relationships

Avoid If You Dislike: second person narration, asshole parents, stories with relatively low stake

Comparable Media: House on the Cerulean Sea, Penric’s Demon

Novella Readathon #4: A Taste of Honey

There’s a special kind of magic when stories commit to telling the story of a person, following them throughout their lives. It was one of the reasons I enjoyed Sign of the Dragon so much last year! A Taste of Honey is a story that asks you to step back from your own life and settle into the skin of another. It asks you to reflect on your life, on your choices, and whether you can stand by the paths you chose not to take. It is a piece of unvarnished reality, even though it occurs in a setting somewhere between the Sparticus and The Expanse. It eschews grand epics in favor of the life of a man, and not a man who had a particularly large impact on his world. It also has cheetahs, and who doesn’t love a big cat?

Note: this is technically part 2 of a duology. My understanding is that both books share a world, but otherwise do not overlap terribly much. I’ve read the first book (several years ago), and didn’t see any connections; certainly my fuzzy memory about Sorcerer of the Wilddeeps was not a hindrance to enjoying this novella.

The Premise
Aqib is the son of The Master of Beasts, and has an affinity for working with animals. He has a chance encounter with a visiting soldier, whose nation’s gods are negotiating with Aqib’s nation’s gods. The two have an immediate spark, despite Aqib’s culture forbidding men from laying with other men. This story interweaves their ten day affair with the days, years, and decades that follow Aqib’s separation from Lucrio. Is the life Aqib gained, a wife and child and comfortable life amongst the high nobility, worth the loss of the love of his life?

Read If Looking For: the joy of young (and forbidden) love, the pride a parent feels in their child, second guessing the choices which form the fulcrum of your life

Avoid If Looking For: clear and conventional worldbuilding, invisible prose, Genre Romance

Comparable Media: Sign of the Dragon, Call me By Your Name, The Empress of Salt and Fortune

Novella Readathon #3: The Flesh of the Sea

The best book I read last year was How to Survive this Fairytale by SM Hallow. It was by a new indie publishing house, so I decided to pick up a few other of their titles. Unfortunately, Hedone Books has gone under, because I very much would have been interested in more of books they put out. Currently, you can only read The Flesh of the Sea via Audible; I was lucky enough to have purchased my physical copy before the publisher went under. This won’t be my favorite read of the year (or even this project), but it was very enjoyable. It’s a quick read – even in the context of novellas – and I think it would be a fairly good palette cleanser, especially when paired with other weird-nautical series like Tide child.

The Premise:
Wilford is a natural scientist who, after getting rejected by the Royal Society in London, ends up on a really weird pirate ship. He sends letters of his misadventures to a fellow naturalist, Jean Baptiste, whom he had been avoiding after a drunken kiss. On his travels, Wilford encounters all sorts of disturbing and disgusting creatures, befriends his crewmates, and generally tries to prove his worth to himself, Jean Baptiste, and the Society. Meanwhile, Jean Baptiste’s journal shows his life feels empty without Wilford in it, and he gets very upset about an overprotective pirate who has been making moves on Wilford.

Read If Looking For: weird travelogues, disaster academics, yearning and pining, epistolary novels, quirky pirate crews

Avoid If Looking For: intense horror and gore, bespoke prose, Romantasy

Comparable Media: Tide Child, Memoirs of Lady Trent, Someone to Build a Nest In

The Disco at the End of the World – Too Much Boogie!

Nathan Tavares has more or less cemented himself as an instabuy author for me, and Disco at the End of the World continues placing him near the top of my favorite author’s list. The early reviews for Disco had me hesitant: several readers I trust DNFd, and a 3.5 rating on Goodreads typically indicates that a book has some fairly major flaws. Like with most of Tavares work, I think my love for it is going to be higher than most people’s. He speaks to my soul in a way that few authors do. This book has some significant rough patches, but it also filled a void that I’ve been searching for: speculative fiction that seriously engages with historical underground queer spaces in America. If that isn’t something that immediately gets you excited though, there probably isn’t enough here for me to recommend it to the average reader.

The Premise:
Mitch is a member of the Spaceguard, which has replaced Nasa in this version of the Cold War with more of a military emphasis than exploratory. He works on the moon base, where he’s known as a queer who doesn’t get a hard time only because he also smuggles contraband in for everybody else. He gets reported for morality breaches and is sent back to Earth, where he and his fellow servicewoman Gloria (not that most soldiers used that name for her) helped open an underground Disco outside Hollywood. Strange things are happening to Mitch however, and he ends up being a contact point for Aliens who are threatening to destroy Earth, unless he, Gloria, and his new family can bougie hard enough to change history.

Read If You Like: portrayals of underground gay culture, alternate space-race history, queer acid trips, disco ball spaceships

Avoid If You Dislike: characters facing homophobia, long stretches without speculative elements, the power of LOVE, intense tonal shifts

Comparable Media: Welcome to Forever, Exit Stage Left: Snagglepuss Chronicles, Disco Witches of Fire Island

Divinity 36 – Intergalactic Idol Boot Camp

I am a sucker for watching competition TV shows. Survivor was a family staple growing up, and Top Chef has gotten me through many marathon grading sessions. Divinity 36 felt a lot like that, both in content and style; it isn’t going to satisfy anyone looking for deep commentary on the human condition or societal power structures. However, it was a fun ‘idol training program’ story with a Sci Fi veneer and some interesting takes on what alien music might look like. It isn’t the fastest-paced story in the world, closer to something slice of life, and it was a phenomenal book to listen to over an 8 hour drive.

The Premise:
Phex grew up in The Wheel; a violent and xenophobic space station who genetically and cybernetically modifies their babies. Phex’s body rejects cybernetic implants, forcing him into non-human societal status. When he escapes, he gets a job as a child refugee at a coffee shop that hosts Dome shows, where Pantheons perform Godsong. He gets recruited by a scout and finds himself on Divinity 36, training to become a god himself. For most, this is a path to fame and glory. For Phex, he’s just happy he got a pay raise. However, the grumpy singer grows more and more enamored with the music he can create, and finds himself with friends for the first time in his life.

Read If You Like: slowwwww burn romances, idol training camps, barista tips, grumpy/sunshine friendships

Avoid If You Dislike: ‘special’ protagonists, vague alien worldbuilding, extended rehearsal/performance descriptions