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Angel’s Bits – SF covers retrospective

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We were talking about covers the other day – the good, the bad, and the merely horrendous – which made me think of SF covers and how you can often pinpoint an edition’s decade by the cover art. Early SF cover art was largely the realm of pulp magazines, which then became pulp novels. Cheap art in a time when jobs were scarce and money tight. Oh, the places we’ve been since then… The 1930’s see the beginning of pulp art – flashy, colorful, eye-catching sometimes to the point of being lurid. Thoughts about space travel and vehicles were sketchy … Read more

We Already Have the Wheel: Werewolves and Toxic Masculinity

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John Allenson

We Already Have the Wheel. Werewolves and Toxic Masculinity.  Growing Hair in Funny Places. The western werewolf myth has been incredibly stable for most of its history up until the turn of the last millennia.  Most of the stories, legends, and court cases reflect the same understanding of what it means to be a werewolf going back to the Greek legends of King Lycaon. The main stream of the King Lycaon story, with many regional differences is this:  Zeus (sometimes with Hermes) appears in the city of King Lycaon.  The king doubts that the person claiming to be Zeus is … Read more

Dispatches from Hogwarts G.S.A.: When is queer tragedy cliché?

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Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian

We were recently drawn into pondering this question while reading Kai Ashante Wilson’s The Sorcerer of Wildeeps and looking at the book’s Goodreads reviews. One review stood out because it gushed about the book, but the reader said the tragic ending kept her from giving it five stars because (paraphrased) hasn’t gay tragedy been done enough already? Spoilers: One interpretation is that the main character Demane’s love interest dies at the end, though our take was the story left a sliver of hope he could have survived. Reviews of course are subjective, every reader is entitled to her opinion, and … Read more

Ayres & Graces: Queer Author Ryan Vance

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Writing and getting published is hard for every writer, but queer writers face unique challenges in the publishing industry. Ryan Vance, editor of the e-zine The Queen’s Head and The Island Review, is here today to discuss some of the challenges he’s faced as a gay man in the writing community. What challenges have you personally faced as a queer writer? I’m queer. It informs my experience of the world, and the stories I go on to tell, and those stories have as much worth as any pre-existing norm I might have unintentionally adopted. It’s worth stating from the outset … Read more

Angel’s Bits – Those check boxes on the contract

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Hi all! For today’s Bits, I wanted to talk a teensy bit about book formats and media. In the past couple of years, I’ve seen more publishers going for a “check box” type of contract where the formats are listed and the ones included in the specific contract are checked off. So what are all these things? eBook Self explanatory, up to a point, but you should know what formats your publisher offers and where they distribute. PDF, epub, mobi and html are the most common (mobi is the Kindle format, though most Kindles now can handle multiple formats with … Read more

Sources of Inspiration: Caravaggio’s ‘John the Baptist’

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I just got a real treat last month. I went to Rome and saw my favorite Caravaggio painting in person; ‘John the Baptist’. This playful, ethereal boy is so different than the martyr, the severed head in other versions of John the Baptist. This is also very different from the two other paintings Caravaggio has done of ‘John the Baptist’, which are also in Rome. No shadow of death or despair touches this boy. He teases playfully, as he smiles coyly at us from a veneer of cloth, which enhances his nudity rather than concealing it. What is he subtly … Read more

We Already Invented the Wheel. Where the Boys Aren’t Part 2. After Stonewall

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John Allenson

The first part of discussing the herstory of all women cultures went from the early 20th century up to 1970.  Several people remarked that there hadn’t been queer-positive stories.  We’ve forgotten that part of our heritage when it was virtually impossible to publish positive images of Queer lives.  Many countries had (and still have) laws that forbid positive depictions of so-called alternative lifestyles.  To have any depiction of Lesbian lives it was necessary to have a tragic ending.  It was shocking to have a Lesbian still alive at the end of a story as in The Killing of Sister George.  … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Sun Synchronous

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My all time favorite trope of fiction is the Grand Quest. Always has been, always will be. Oddly enough, it’s a hard to find the Grand Quest in its true form when it comes to science fiction. Part of the reason for that is, usually, authors come at disasters in science fiction as either a race against time to fix what’s happening, or attempting to find a solution to the new reality in a way that makes life closer to the old reality. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great reading and I have a great time doing so. But there … Read more

Angel’s Bits – Sites for SF Writers?

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Hi all! This is going to be a short one because…you’ll see. Someone raised the question this week (forgive me, I don’t remember if it was on QSF or out in the FB-galaxy or how exactly the question was worded) about the best websites for science fiction writers. As so often happens when faced with such a broad question, my forehead kinda crinkled and I said to the screen: It depends. Scott hates when I say that. But it really does. When we write science fiction, we should be, in one respect or another, concerned about the science. That could … Read more

Asta’s Annotations: How to Make Your Editor (and Yourself) Happy

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Asta's AnnotationsGreetings! My name is Asta, and welcome to my new column Asta’s Annotations.

Since this is my first time posting, allow me to introduce my column and myself. I am a published author of both mainstream (Nicki J. Markus) and LGBT (Asta Idonea) fiction. I am also a qualified freelance editor, working mainly on LGBT manuscripts. I’ll be posting a monthly column at Queer Sci-Fi in which I’ll cover a range of topics. However, my primary focus will be on tips and tricks for writers and style discussions. Wearing my editor hat, I’ll also offer some advice on preparing your manuscript/submission, and that’s where I thought I’d start today. All my posts will draw on my personal experience. It may be that my tips won’t suit everyone, but even if they aren’t for you, I hope they’ll offer a springboard to help you find your personal style and preference. So, without further ado….

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