Hear me out. I'm a gay man and my best friend is a lesbian who keeps recommending me these great fantasy series with lesbian protagonists. I read The Locked Tomb and absolutely loved it. Now they're suggesting that I read The Traitor Baru Cormorant. But I'm wondering if there are any series like this with queer male protagonists (gay, bisexual, or trans). Ideally it would be explicitly queer, not just subtext. Doesn't have to be romance heavy or have a happy ending. I just want some epic and intense stories about guys like me.
by Aggressive_Chart4995
18 Comments
Not a series (it was planned to be a diptych but then the relationship that was inspiring it fell apart and the author was too sad to finish it) but Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel Delany is excellent! It does feel like a complete story even if there are some unresolved threads at the end, so don’t be scared off by its “incompleteness.”
Also Theodore McCombs Uranians is a really great novella, sorta about queerness generally but plenty of gay guys too (and the rest of the short stories in that collection are pretty good n gay iirc).
Here are some that you may like:
* Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman
* The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
* The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
* The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
* A Country of Ghosts by Margaret Killjoy
* Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White
* Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
* Winter’s Orbit and Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell
* The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia
Honorable mention: not sci fi, fantasy, or horror, but I really enjoyed this series. Lavender House by Lev A. C. Rosen
Imajica and Sacrament by Clive Barker
The protagonist of Imajica is a bisexual (or maybe pansexual?) art forger and he goes traveling through magical worlds with a character who I guess could be described as gender fluid.
The protagonist of Sacrament is a gay wildlife photographer who specializes in capturing images of species that are on the verge of extinction. He survives a polar bear attack but is left in a coma-like state where he recalls his youth in England and the two strange beings who came into his life.
Sorry to disappoint but the lesbian MCs are the thriving one in sci-fi books than gay MCs.
I had this exact crisis. It’s like how gay MCs-led media is thriving in TV shows & movies but with books, it’s the lesbian MCs.
With the examples you mentioned and with lesbian MCs stories in general, I noticed that they tend to have more complex tone, worldbuilding, characters and queerness feel that isn’t token bs. So I just go with quality and most of the time it’s the lesbian MCs. They just rock.
MM romance genre might be the culprit for this. They’re like 99% fast fashion of gay MCs, contributing to the lack of in sci-fi.
Many of Samuel R Delany’s books have gay protagonists. Scifi and fantasy.
You were not meant to be human has a trans male MC. I can not stress the importance of looking into trigger warnings for this one though.
A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows
Confounding Oaths by Alexis Hall
You might also want to check out r/QueerSFF or r/MM_RomanceBooks for more recs
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. The main character is bi but most of his relationships in the series (A Drop of Corruption is the sequel, and I believe a third book is dropping later this year) seem to be with other men.
Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin.
This suggestion might be met with some “Ackshually”s, but I stand by it.
Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle was a pretty fun horror novel that has a lot of commentary about LGBTQIA+ portrayal in media because it’s about a screenwriter.
It’s not particularly scary, but more of a fun romp.
Devil’s Chew Toy by Rob Osler is a good mystery novel with a gay main character, it’s not really in your genres but you might enjoy it
Dreamboy
Caravan
Land’s End
People have already mentioned the authors I came here to recommend (Clive Barker, Samuel R Delany). There is also The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold, though I haven’t read it myself (space opera, openly gay MC from what I gather).
I just wanted to chime in and say that Baru Cormorant is among the best things I’ve read in the genre. The second book dips a little in quality, but push through – the third one really picks it up again, I promise!
In The Dispossessed, Shevek is straight, but he still has gay sex with his roommate. Just like, to show him he cares about him as a friend
A Marvellous Light and A Power Unbound by Freya Marske.
Thousand Autumns by Meng Xi Shi about morality in wuxia settings. Series, mature, older characters. (One is bi, second is asexual priest)
Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez standalone but good one.
There’s one In trying to remember the title of, I think it’s Black Leopard Red Spots? A very literary standalone fantasy novel with a gay protagonist. I’ll comment back if I remember the proper title.
The Moon and the Other by John Kessel
Time Was by Ian McDonald