reviews, releases and recommendations of LGBT media
…or urbanish, since most of these turned out to be historical fantasies. But that still counts, in my opinion.
But anyway! Today’s rec list is a continuation of a previous one, because I’ve done high fantasy, I did adult fantasy, and Anna did (some) YA fantasy. So where else to turn to next, but (back) to urban fantasy. So. Without further ado, let’s start!
P.S. you can see what I recced in the first of these posts here.
After going slightly rogue last month and picking three books of the month, for September we’re back to usual, with just a single book. We had no trouble looking through our releases list and choosing this one because, in all honesty, it’s one we’re incredibly excited for.
But anyway, read on to find out more!
A little while back, I touted the possibility on twitter of doing a rec list of Arthurian retellings, but gay (obviously). Now, I thought this would be a pretty niche rec list, but apparently not, which is why I’m here today with 10 gay retellings of Arthurian legend.
First things first, I haven’t read any of these myself, and a fair few are upcoming because, as it turns out, gay Arthurian retellings aren’t that big a market (shamefully, let’s be real). So I have dispensed “why should I read it” sections, since all I can really say is it’s gay, it’s Arthuriana, why aren’t you as excited as I am already.
One last thing before we start though. You will probably notice one book in particular missing and I just want to say, before people start mentioning it in the comments, I do know about it. I didn’t get along with it. That’s why it’s not on this list.
P.S. if you want more than this post, I made a list on Goodreads of everything I could find.
When I wrote up the schedule for this month’s posts, I was initially planning for this rec list to be a continuation of that sapphic series. But, at the eleventh hour, I changed my mind, and went with adult sci fi recs.
Sci fi is, in all honesty, one of my favourite genres. And particularly sci fi that leans towards being hard rather than soft (as such, if you don’t like hard sci fi, you may not find a whole lot on this list for you, for which I apologise). And when that sci fi is gay? It just makes it all the better.
So, here are ten of my absolute faves.
Full disclosure, this year has been bad for me in terms of reading and loving YA fantasy. Yes, I have loved some, but also I’ve been bored as anything by others. So I’ve turned a fair bit to adult fantasy — mostly avoiding all the white cishet men writing it, of course.
This is not a definitive list of all the LGBT adult fantasy novels I have loved, of course. I went to write down possible entries to this list and ended up with about twice as many that I loved, and maybe three or four times as many that I would rec. But these are ten of my favourites.
So, dive in, and I hope you find something to enjoy here!
This month’s feature is a little different, in that, both me and Anna looked at our releases list, and couldn’t decide which book to pick, since there were three books we thought, hey we’ve not seen that talked about very much. And we definitely hadn’t seen them being talked about as being gay.
Hence why this post contains not one but three books.
Something a bit different for you today, with a series of reviews of books that have been published recently (and a little less recently) that you might have missed out on. A little disclaimer first up, though: copies of these books were kindly provided us by the authors, but these are my unbiased reviews.
So dive in! And I hope you find something here that interests you.
A bit of a different post for you today in that it’s not really got a theme as such. Instead I went for books that I’d rec that have fewer than 400 ratings (criminally) on Goodreads (as voted for on twitter, actually).
There is a somewhat…eclectic mix here, for sure. But I hope it’s such that you will be able to find something you’re interested in, no matter what you’re looking for.
Oh, and I tried my best to include books that didn’t have so few ratings just because they had only recently been released.
So check it out!
About, oh a month or two back, I asked a question on twitter. Namely, if you had to rec a single LGBT book (cruel I know), what would it be.
Well, these are the results — 50+ books recommended by 50+ folks!
Even when you’re an adult, sometimes what you really wanna do is watch teens being dramatic. There’s something very soothing about it. And it’s great to see them finally figure their life out and be at peace, so you can feel like a proud parent for a moment.
With that in mind, I compiled a list of ten TV shows about teenagers. There are quite a few genres here, so you should be able to choose something for yourself. Have fun!
At the beginning of the month, I got really into podcasts, because they gave me something to listen to while I was playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Or rather, one podcast. Because this list was initially supposed to be only podcasts, with a few webseries thrown in.
Instead… Well, you can see what it is instead.
But anyway. Sometimes you just need an easily and rapidly consumable shot of LGBT media, hence why on this post you can find recs for podcasts, webseries and webcomics. And this will be an ongoing series too.
If you enjoyed any of these recs, please do support the creators however you can (Patreon, Tapas, etc — there should be links on websites, hopefully, or at least links to the creators’ pages).
So, pick your content and let’s go!
A long promised continuation to my first rec list of LGBT period dramas. Definitely check out that post for more recommendations!
Like in that previous post, I’d like to say that I’m aware there are barely any movies with trans rep on the list. I did my best. All the other period dramas featuring trans characters that I know of, gave those roles to cis actors & I’m not about to recommend that here.
I accidentally made about half of this rec list about titles based on real stories & people, it wasn’t a conscious choice. But it does mean that not all of the movies listed are exactly super happy & gracious to the LGBT characters.
I’m a simple reader: give me a good mystery and I will be satisfied. Make it gay and I will be over the freaking moon. And I’ve finally read enough excellent mysteries that I can make a rec list of them!
I have fairly high standards for mysteries, I’ll admit. I mean, I want something where I could potentially guess the culprit myself for a start. But not too easily. Basically I have to be able to follow along but also have some element of actual mysteriousness. I told you it was high standards.
But that, of course, means that all the books on this list are especially excellent (not that they wouldn’t be otherwise but. Stringent criteria and all).
So, onwards.
At the beginning of December, I decided (foolishly) to aim to have read 400 books in 2019 (being, at the time, only on about 325). I made it, exhaustedly sure, but I made it. And I did so by reading a lot of novellas on tor.com.
So, obviously, armed with that knowledge, I had to make a rec list. There are only my favourite 10 on here, but I also made a longer thread on twitter, with every single one I read over that time.
So enjoy!
This winter both Charlotte and I wanted to rec you some holiday stories. Charlotte went for novellas and you can find her post here. I decided to rec you Christmas movies. Only… I knew there aren’t many, but I didn’t realise there are actually three and two of them are unwatchable…
If you’re looking for a list of those netflix-like movies of switched princesses and time-travelling knights and princes falling for regular people, but Make It Gay… If you’re hoping for that, this list isn’t for you, because movies like that still don’t exist for us.
But if you’re looking for some pretty cool movies with a christmasy theme in one way or another, you may just find something for yourself here. At the very least, you’ll find canon rep.
