Tag Archives: LGBT

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Liked About Asexual Characters


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A photograph of 18 heart-shaped sugar cookies. They are frosted with various combinations of green, yellow, orange, purple, white, and blue frostings as well as thinner frostings that have written X’s and O’s on them or left romantic messages like “hugs and kisses” or “forever” on them. Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone celebrating it!

For today’s Valentine’s Day freebie, I’ll be sharing a list of books I’ve read and enjoyed about asexual characters.

I’m actually on the asexual spectrum myself, so it’s been wonderful to see such an explosion of stories about people who are like me or similar to me.

This is a complex topic that could easily take up its own blog post, but go to this link if you’re curious about the wide variety of identities that exist within the asexual spectrum.

In the meantime, here’s my list.

Book cover for “Loveless” by Alice Oseman. It is a warm purple colour and has a black and white drawing of a slim person who has straight shoulder-length hair and is wearing jeans, a sweater, and a pair of sneakers. They are standing up but their neck and head are bent over as they look at a large heart they are holding in their hands. The heart is steadily releasing dozens of tiny little hearts into the air, and the little hearts are floating up and away from the person.

1. Loveless by Alice Oseman

 

Book cover for Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann. The image on the cover shows a radiant dark-skinned black woman with an Afro. She’s wearing a sleeveless white blouse with ruffles near her neck and his holding both arms up in a triumphant pose as she grins and closes her eyes.

2. Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

 

Book cover for Finding Your Feet (Toronto Connections, #2) by Cass Lennox. Image on the cover shows a background drawing of the famous outline of Toronto that includes the CN tower. In the foreground, you can see a drawing of two people’s legs as they dance together. One has light skin and appears to be Caucasian while the other has dark skin and appears to be African.

3. Finding Your Feet (Toronto Connections, #2) by Cass Lennox

 

The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz book cover. Image on cover shows a steaming cup of tea in a white mug that has fancy ridges and floral patterns on it.

 

4. The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz (My Review)

 

If you’ve read any other good books about asexual characters, I’d love to hear your suggestions.

A Review of The Cybernetic Tea Shop

The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz book cover. Image on cover shows a steaming cup of tea in a white mug that has fancy ridges and floral patterns on it. Title: The Cybernetic Tea Shop

Author: Meredith Katz

Publisher: Soft Cryptid (Self-Published)

Publication Date: July 30, 2019

Genres: Science Fiction, LGBTQ, Romance

Length: 118 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library. Thank you to Berthold Gambrel for reviewing it and bringing it to my attention!

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

Clara Gutierrez is an AI repair technician and a wanderer. Her childhood with her migrant worker family has left her uncomfortable with lingering for too long, so she moves from place to place across retro-futuristic America.

Sal is a fully autonomous robot. Older than the law declaring her kind illegal due to ethical concerns, she is at best out of place in society and at worst vilified. She continues to run the tea shop previously owned by her long-dead master, lost in memories of the past, struggling to fulfill her master’s dream for the shop while slowly breaking down.

They meet by chance, but as they begin to spend time together, they both start to wrestle with the concept of moving on…

A F/F retro-future sci-fi asexual romance. A story about artificial intelligence and real kindness, about love, and the feeling of watching steam rising softly from a teacup on a bright and quiet morning.

Review:

Content Warning: Arson.

It’s never too late to try again.

Some of my favourite scenes were the ones that explored how Sal’s programming nudged her to make decisions that many humans would not. For example, her idea of terms like lifespan or forever were not the same as they were for Clara. The author did an excellent job of digging deeply into the psychology of artificial intelligence and showing the audience how a robot might really think about and interact with those around them.

I did find myself wishing for more world building in this story. This was set at least three hundred years in the future, yet most of the technology and culture was fairly similar to what we have today. That struck me as odd and pulled me out of the plot. It would have been helpful to either have a good explanation for why things had advanced so slowly or to see more examples of how their world was different from ours.

This was such a refreshing take on the romance genre. Whether you read a ton of romance novels or tend to avoid that genre altogether, I suggest going into this one without any assumptions about what’s going to happen next. It broke so many of the rules about how falling in love is supposed to look that I honestly couldn’t say for sure what would happen from one scene to the next. That’s the sort of thing I love to discover when trying out new authors, so I will definitely be keeping an eye out for what Ms. Katz comes up with next.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop was a cozy and romantic read.

A Review of The Future Is Female! Volume Two, the 1970s

Vintage Science Fiction month takes place every January, and has a few guidelines:

 – read, watch, listen to, or experience something science fiction / fantasy that was created in 1979 or earlier

 – talk about it online sometime in January

 – have fun

If any of my readers are interested in participating\ use the hashtag #VintageSciFiMonth or tag @VintageSciFi_ or @redhead5318 on Twitter if you’d like your posts to be included in the official retweets and roundups.  


Drawing of white woman wearing a spacesuit and walking on the surface of a red alien planet. Title
: The Future Is Female! Volume Two, the 1970s – More Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women

Author: Lisa Yaszek (editor)

Publisher: Library of America

Publication Date: 1971 – 1979 for the original publication dates. October 11, 2022 for this specific compilation.

Genres: Science Fiction, LGBTQ, Historical

Length: 548 pages (including author biographies, etc).

Source: I borrowed it from the library.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

n the 1970s, feminist authors created a new mode of science fiction in defiance of the “baboon patriarchy”—Ursula Le Guin’s words—that had long dominated the genre, imagining futures that are still visionary. In this sequel to her groundbreaking 2018 anthology The Future is Female!: 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women from Pulp Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin, SF-expert Lisa Yaszek offers a time machine back to the decade when far-sighted rebels changed science fiction forever with stories that made female community, agency, and sexuality central to the American future. 

Here are twenty-three wild, witty, and wonderful classics that dramatize the liberating energies of the 1970s:

  • Sonya Dorman, “Bitching It” (1971) 
  • Kate Wilhelm, “The Funeral” (1972)
  • Joanna Russ, “When It Changed” (1972) NEBULA AWARD 
  • Miriam Allen deFord, “A Way Out”(1973)
  • Vonda N. McIntyre,  “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand” (1973) NEBULA 
  • James Tiptree, Jr., “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” (1973) HUGO AWARD 
  • Kathleen Sky, “Lament of the Keeku Bird” (1973)
  • Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Day Before the Revolution” (1974) NEBULA & LOCUS AWARD 
  • Eleanor Arnason, “The Warlord of Saturn’s Moons” (1974)
  • Kathleen M. Sidney, “The Anthropologist” (1975)
  • Marta Randall, “A Scarab in the City of Time” (1975) 
  • Elinor Busby, “A Time to Kill” (1977)
  • Raccoona Sheldon, “The Screwfly Solution” (1977) NEBULA AWARD 
  • Pamela Sargent, “If Ever I Should Leave You” (1974)
  • Joan D. Vinge, “View from a Height” (1978)
  • M. Lucie Chin, “The Best Is Yet to Be” (1978)
  • Lisa Tuttle, “Wives” (1979) 
  • Connie Willis, “Daisy, In the Sun” (1979)

Review:

Content warning: Starvation, dehydration, cancer, attempted murder, murder, zombies, and snakes. I will not discus these topics in my review.

There’s nothing like being introduced to so many fantastic science fiction authors at once.

I’ve never been interested in hunting frogs, but I did like the conversational style of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s “Frog Pond.” Althea was such a sweet and innocent person that I wondered why she kept disobeying her parents orders to avoid the creek and the mysterious pink and green patches that sometimes appeared in the water there. Surely there had to be something more than frogs to pique her curiosity. There were several wonderful layers to this story that I don’t want to spoil for everyone. What I can say is that the world building was fantastic and Althea was full of surprises for me. I’d love to visit her and her unusual little town again someday.

Vintage Science Fiction Blog Challenge badge. It shows a rocket ship against a red background. There is a bubble city in the background.  The sudden appearance of old age and impending death in “If Ever I Should Leave You” by Pamela Sargent piqued my curiosity. These things obviously worked different in this world than they do in our own, and it was interesting to slowly figure out what the rules were there. I also appreciated what this tale had to say about aging and grief. There were layers of meaning to it that I slowly unwrapped as I kept reading, although I should leave the details of that for other readers to discover for themselves.

As soon as I realized that the main character of “Hey, Lilith” by Gayle N. Netzer was a middle-aged woman who befriends someone much older than herself, I couldn’t stop reading. So many science fiction books are about teenagers and people in their early 20s that it’s a thrill to see other age groups represented. I appreciated the protagonist’s wry approach to suddenly finding herself in a post-apocalyptic storyline. Honestly, I’d react the same way, and her previous knowledge of how dangerous these settings can be made her refreshingly cautious about her predicament.

This is the second anthology in a series that does not need to be read in order.

The Future Is Female! Volume Two, the 1970s – More Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women was even better than the first volume of The Future Is Female. I’d wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who loves vintage science fiction.

A Review of In a Glass Darkly

Vintage Science Fiction month takes place every January, and has a few guidelines:

 – read, watch, listen to, or experience something science fiction / fantasy that was created in 1979 or earlier

 – talk about it online sometime in January

 – have fun

If any of my readers are interested in participating\ use the hashtag #VintageSciFiMonth or tag @VintageSciFi_ or @redhead5318 on Twitter if you’d like your posts to be included in the official retweets and roundups.  

Thank you to Berthold Gambrel for recommending this book to me


In a Glass Darkly by J. Sheridan Le Fanu book cover. Image on cover shows a ghostly figure reaching out to someone who is sleeping peacefully in a bed. The sketch is done in black and white and looks like it’s from the 1870s based on hairstyles, clothing, bedding, etc. Title
: In a Glass Darkly

Author: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Publisher: Richard Bentley & Son (original publisher) and Duke Classics (the publisher of the reprinted volume I read).

Publication Date: 1872

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, LGBTQ, Historical

Length: 169 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

In a Glass Darkly collects together five short stories from gothic horror and mystery writer Sheridan Le Fanu. The book, published in 1872 a year before Le Fanu’s death, is named from a passage in Corinthians which speaks of humankind perceiving the world “through a glass darkly.” The stories are told from the posthumous writings of an occult detective named Dr Martin Hesselius. In Green Tea a clergyman is being driven mad by an evil demon that takes the ephemeral form of a monkey, but is unseen by others as it burdens the victim’s mind with psychological torment. In The Familiar, revised from Le Fanu’s The Watcher of 1851, a sea captain is stalked by a dwarf, “The Watcher.” Is this strange character from captain’s past? In Mr Justice Harbottle a merciless court judge is attacked by vengeful spirits, dreaming he is sentenced to death by a horrific version of himself. The story was revised from 1853’s An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street. In The Room in the Dragon Volant, a notable mystery which includes a premature burial theme, an innocent young Englishman in France tries to rescue a mysterious countess from her unbearable situation. Lastly, Carmilla tells the tale of a lesbian vampire. It was a huge influence on Bram Stoker’s writing of Dracula and the basis for the films Vampyr in 1932 and The Vampire Lovers in 1970.

Review:

Content warning: demonic possession, stalking, murder, beheading (of a monster), minor drug use, and a few brief references to blood.  I will briefly discuss the demonic possession and stalking in my review.

If you like genre mash-ups that defy the reader’s expectations, keep reading.

The blurb gave a great overview of each of the five stories in this collection, so I’m going to use my review space to share my impressions of them a bit more casually than I would generally do. Somehow that feels right for this book.

I was a preacher’s kid growing up, so “Green Tea” grabbed my attention immediately. Clergymen and their families are exposed to portions of other people’s lives that the general public often knows little to nothing about. No, my family was never haunted by a monkey-shaped demon like the poor Reverend Jennings was, but I was intrigued by the difference between what people want others to think their lives are like versus what’s actually going on behind closed doors. This tale captured the sometimes jarring experience of moving back and forth between the two quite well. I thought it also well at explaining why secrets can be so corrosive for a person’s mental wellbeing, especially when they’ve convinced themselves that they will be rejected, or worse, if anyone finds out the truth about them.

One of the things I mulled about while reading ”The Familiar” was how blurry the lines were between science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other speculative fiction genres in the 1800s. This collection fit into all of those categories simultaneously in ways that are unusual when compared to how a similar story about a dwarf stalking a sea captain would probably be written and marketed today. I like stories that blur these lines, but this particular one was hard to get into because of how much time was spent discussing everything other than the sea captain’s adventures. If only there had been more details about the dwarf and why he was following the captain around.

“Mr. Justice Harbottle” made me think of the people in this world who have purposefully harmed others and never faced the consequences of those actions. Sometimes it can feel like justice will never be served in those cases. That made this an even more satisfying read. It was interesting to me to compare this  storyline to what happened in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” If you haven’t read that particular Dickens’ tale yet, definitely do check it out before reading this book. There’s not much else I can say about this one without giving away spoilers as the plot was pretty quickly paced and straightforward for this era.

Vintage Science Fiction Blog Challenge badge. It shows a rocket ship against a red background. There is a bubble city in the background. Pinning down the genre of ‘The Room in the Dragon Volant” was tricky. It dabbled in the mystery, adventure, horror,  thriller, and science fiction genres without ever fully committing to any of them. This is one of the reasons why I like reading speculative fiction from the 1800s so much. Just about anything could and often did pop up in a “science fiction” story back then. Authors didn’t seem to be as concerned with following the rules of their genre back then as many of them are today. With that being said, I struggled to get into this particular tale because of how much more time it spent jumping around from one idea to the next instead of focusing on character development. I never reached the point where I’d feel comfortable describing the personalities of the main characters in anything but the simplest details like what their professions were.

My favorite instalment in this book was ”Carmilla,” which, according to Wikipedia, was Bram Stoker’s inspiration for writing “Dracula.” The main character, Laura, was a young woman whose loving father had given her a safe but extremely sheltered life in a rural setting up until this point. She was naive about the outside world and incredibly excited to meet anyone new who crossed her path. When she reacted romantically to another woman, she didn’t have a word to describe her feelings. I thought it was fascinating to see how she handled these moments and what she thought was happening during them. Her father’s reactions to the rumours that were spreading around about various young women in the community who were suddenly dropping dead one after the next also piqued my interest. He blamed the fear surrounding those bizarre deaths on superstition and was far less interested in seeing if there were any specks of truth to the wild stories being passed around than I would have been. It made me wonder if he was in some ways even more sheltered than Laura was given how much faster she was to accept that something odd was happening.

In a Glass Darkly was a thought-provoking read. I’m glad I gave it a try for Vintage Science Fiction Month.

Looking Back, Moving Forward: A Review of Ghost Stories for Christmas

Ghost Stories for Christmas by Shane Brown Book cover. image on cover shows a painting of a small, rural community in the 1800s. There is a thick layer of snow on the dirt road with two brown tracks through it. A church and some houses in the distance are snow-covered, too, and people are walking on the snowy sidewalk all bundled up as well. Title: Ghost Stories for Christmas

Author: Shane Brown

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: December 3, 2021

Genres: Paranormal, Holiday, Historical, Contemporary

Length: 105 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

Five ghost stories set during the Christmas period to add an extra chill to the festive season! In “Houses Never Forget,” a man returns to the village he grew up in, only to find that a house hasn’t forgiven him for something he did as a boy. “The Philatelist” tells the story of two brothers, one good and one bad – but even the good might want revenge from beyond the grave. “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” is the tale of a man who is forced to repeat a tragic evening from his student days every year, but what happens when he tries to break the cycle? A university professor rents a remote cottage on the grounds of a former school in order to write up his research in “The Stranger in the Snow,” but, when the snow falls, he finds he’s not alone. Finally, “The Gift” is the heart-warming tale of an old man who is given an unusual gift by a department store Father Christmas. From the author of “The Pied Piper,” “The School Bell,” and “The Successor.” 

Review:

Content Warning: arson, death of parents, hypothermia, possession, grief, widowerhood, infertility, homophobia, mental illness, someone getting beat up, car accident, murder, and references to the Covid-19 pandemic. One minor character died of Covid-19 before the tale they were in began. I will not discuss these topics in my review.

Christmas is the perfect time to reflect on the past for the living and the dead alike.

Here’s an interesting tidbit of information for you as I get this review started: all of these stories are set in the same village, Brandley. Keep that in mind as you read them.

The unnamed protagonist in “Houses Never Forget” was someone who rarely thought about his rash childhood decision that that angered the house in his village so much. I can’t go into a lot of detail about what he did without giving away spoilers, but I thought this was an intelligent sketch of a character who would be easy to villanize but whose decision was also one that many other folks make every single day without realizing just how corrosive small town gossip can be.

Joshua, the bad son in ”The Philatelist,” was a violent troublemaker who never showed signs of empathy for anyone. I was intrigued by how the adults around him reacted to him when he destroyed property and physically harmed others. He was the sort of person I’d never want to cross paths with, and yet I couldn’t help but to wonder what had made him behave the way he did and why he enjoyed bullying his younger brother so much. It would have been helpful if the narrator had explained the origins of his behaviour because of how erratic and violent he was, but I also recognize that there are people like him walking around in real life whose decisions are just as difficult to understand. The plot of this one was straightforward, so I was glad to have some character development to ponder while I read.

After the heaviness of the previous story, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” was a nice change of pace. I think we all probably have at least one thing in our pasts we wish we could go back and change. When that isn’t possible and there’s a ghost involved who insists on repeating the same evening over again on the anniversary of her death every December, what’s the next best option? Other readers should discover the answer to that question for themselves, but I thought this was a thought-provoking look at the unhelpful patterns people can find themselves in when they’re unwilling to face their pasts. If only the narrator had dove more deeply into the topic. There seemed even more that could have been said about it, and I would have gone for a full five-star rating if a few minor things like this had been adjusted in this collection.  The final scene made me wish for a sequel, too, given all of the hints in it about what was about to happen to the main character next.

Everyone needs peace and quiet sometimes. Paul thought he’d found it in “The Stranger in the Snow” until the snowstorm hit. His compassionate response to the visitor who appeared after it had been snowing for a while told me everything I needed to know about him. I enjoyed seeing how they interacted and quietly waited for an explanation of why someone would be out in a snowstorm alone without enough layers to keep them warm. The ending, too, was my favourite of all of the endings in this collection. I held my breath as it was announced and wished I could dive back into the opening scene to warn Paul about what was to come.

”The Gift“ had such a cynical beginning that I honesty wasn’t sure what to think of that protagonist. Was Arnold this grumpy about everything, or was it only Christmas that he thought had been irrevocably ruined? Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long to get my answer, and when it arrived it softened my opinion of him immediately.  One never knows what others are quietly struggling with, and I wiped away a few tears as Arnold slowly shared more of his past with the audience. This was such a beautiful and heartwarming way to close off this collection.

Ghost Stories for Christmas made me smile.

A Review of Judith – A Triorion Universe Story

Title: Judith – A Triorion Universe Story Author: L.J. Hachmeister Publisher: Source 7 Productions (Self-Published) Publication Date: February 1, 2020 Genres: Science Fiction, Contemporary Length: 19 Pages Source: I received a free copy from the author. Rating: 3.5 Stars Blurb: With a broken heart and the resurgence of cancer, Judith Derns’ life comes to a… Read More

Cottagecore Horror: A Review of On Sundays She Picked Flowers

Title: On Sundays She Picked Flowers Author: Yah Yah Scholfield Publisher: Oni House Press Corp Publication Date: February 20, 2022 Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, Historical Length: 142 pages Source: I borrowed it from my local library. Rating: 3 Stars Blurb: “It took Judith thirty-four years to realize that if she wanted to be free of… Read More

Mending Fences: A Review of A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

Title: A Prayer for the Crown-Shy Author: Becky Chambers Publisher: Tor Books Publication Date: July 12, 2022 Genres: Science Fiction, Utopia Length: 160 pages Source: I borrowed it from my local library. Rating: 5 Stars Blurb: After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot… Read More

Gentle Science Fiction: A Review of A Psalm for the Wild-Built

Note: I’m (finally) reviewing the first book in the Monk & Robot series today and will review the sequel next week. Stay tuned!  Title: A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot #1) Author: Becky Chambers Publisher: Tor Books Publication Date: July 13, 2021 Genres: Science Fiction, Utopia Length: 160 pages Source: I borrowed it… Read More

A Review of Dare vs. The Doll

Title: Dare vs. The Doll – A not-actually-scary horror short story Author: Si Clarke Publisher: White Hart Fiction Publication Date: March 30, 2021 Genres:  Horror, Parody, Humour, Romance, Contemporary Length: 31 pages Source: I received a free copy from the author. Rating: 3 Stars Blurb: Who expects a haunted doll to be such a nuisance?… Read More