Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Where to find interesting book recommendations

I was looking up a favourite website to point a friend toward it and realised I had never put it on my blog. How could I not direct you towards the website that that put me onto Tanya Huff? Well, here it is.

GLBT Fantasy Fiction Resources

This website reviews science fiction and fantasy books that have a gay-friendly perspective, from the well-known to the obscure. There are also a number of articles about related topics. Readers are invited to submit their own reviews but there is a level of editorial input ensuring that the quality of the reviews is maintained.

The books reviewed include The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, Orlando: A Biography by Virgina Woolf, and The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin. I read this last book a very long time ago and it seems to me that it does what good science fiction should do: it makes a wonderful story of a distant world, while questioning the way this world is.

Really intelligent science fiction these days surely has to include an openness to the various forms that human sexuality takes. There is not just a clear male/female divide; intersex conditions are unusual but they exist. And people are not swans. Although some of us make a lasting relationship with one person of the opposite sex others do not and prefer our own sex or multiple relationships or both.

Even if you don't usually read fantasy or sci fi, I would head over and have a look. It's a great place to broaden your horizons.

11 COMMENTS:

Bevie said...

Just got back from visiting the site. I've read a couple of the articles, including "GLBT, or What's in a Name?" Very helpful for a couple of things I'm working on now. Just wish there had been more to read on it.

I'll be revisiting it, I'm sure.

Thanks, Fairy.

fairyhedgehog said...

I'm glad you like it, Bevie.

writtenwyrdd said...

Sounds like a good link. Thanks for sharing.

Richard N said...

That's an interesting site FH, thanks for the link.

As the medication begins to work it's way out of my system my creative juices are beginning to rise, so there may soon be some writing of my own done for the first time in what feels like ages.

Robin B. said...

it makes a wonderful story of a distant world, while questioning the way this world is.

I like this definition, FH. And I think if the word 'distant' wasn't in the definition, it's a good way to define all good fiction.

The authors you mentioned are so good - they are genre-free excellent.

Kevin Musgrove said...

Ta for the link. Useful.

fairyhedgehog said...

writtenwyrdd and Kevin: glad you liked it.

Richard: How about joining in with Nanowrimo then?

Robin: I'd only thought of the definition in relation to speculative fiction but you're right. I think that some of the best sci fi gets classed as "mainstream", which is a shame.

Sarah Laurenson said...

Awesome. Thanks, FH!

Will explore more when I have a bit of time. Which will be, um, 2012? ;-)

fairyhedgehog said...

Unfortunately, that tends to be the way it is!

Richard N said...

Nanowrimo?

Am I allowed an 'eek'?

I've never attempted a novel before, let alone against the calender - I've always been more the poetically-inclined type.

fairyhedgehog said...

Richard, you don't have to do it but it might be fun. You only have to write 1667 words a day. (snigger)

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