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spoltz

Posted 2016-01-02 8:39 AM (#12247)
Subject: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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Welcome to the forum for the 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge. This year we have our new list to use as a resource for this challenge. Of course, people can read any books they find that meet the requirements, but I hope our list makes an easy starting point for participants.

Let us know when you join the challenge and about some of your favorite books you find for it.

Administrator

Posted 2016-01-02 1:47 PM (#12252 - in reply to #12247)
Subject: RE: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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spoltz - 2016-01-02 8:39 AM Welcome to the forum for the 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge. This year we have our new list to use as a resource for this challenge. Of course, people can read any books they find that meet the requirements, but I hope our list makes an easy starting point for participants. Let us know when you join the challenge and about some of your favorite books you find for it.

I hope the new LGBTQ list makes this challenge grow this year!

Sable Aradia

Posted 2016-01-04 7:21 PM (#12283 - in reply to #12247)
Subject: Re: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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Hey there, thanks for creating this challenge! I got involved on the site too late to do this last year and I'm excited about 2016!

Kudos to the people who assembled the resource list; that's great. I will be encouraging a few friends of mine to join the site just because I know they'd love this list.

I have a couple of questions. The first is: do re-reads count? I have read Mercedes Lackey's wonderful series The Last Herald-Mage of Valdemar before, but I tend to do a biannual re-read and I'm about due. If not that's fine; I'm sure I can find enough to keep me busy anyway. Looking forward to Lois McMaster Bujold's new book . . .

The second question: will this be an annual tradition? I see that a lot of the SF Masterworks books are also part of this collection but I'm not planning on reading them for a while; that challenge is reading them in order, one per month. (Of course there's no reason I can't read them ahead of time and then read them again, but it's been kind of fun to do them in order; it requires you to read things that might not otherwise appeal to you and then you learn things.)

Thanks!

Administrator

Posted 2016-01-04 11:19 PM (#12289 - in reply to #12283)
Subject: Re: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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Sable Aradia - 2016-01-04 7:21 PM Hey there, thanks for creating this challenge! I got involved on the site too late to do this last year and I'm excited about 2016! Kudos to the people who assembled the resource list; that's great. I will be encouraging a few friends of mine to join the site just because I know they'd love this list. I have a couple of questions. The first is: do re-reads count? I have read Mercedes Lackey's wonderful series The Last Herald-Mage of Valdemar before, but I tend to do a biannual re-read and I'm about due. If not that's fine; I'm sure I can find enough to keep me busy anyway. Looking forward to Lois McMaster Bujold's new book . . . The second question: will this be an annual tradition? I see that a lot of the SF Masterworks books are also part of this collection but I'm not planning on reading them for a while; that challenge is reading them in order, one per month. (Of course there's no reason I can't read them ahead of time and then read them again, but it's been kind of fun to do them in order; it requires you to read things that might not otherwise appeal to you and then you learn things.) Thanks!

Glad to hear you like the LGBTQ challenge and thanks for spreading the word! Spoltz did all the heavy lifting on the new list though he did have some help from our other Ubers. It was a great job by all.

I'll let Steve weight in on the rules issue - he's the challenge host this year.

I think you can count on this being an annual tradition. The popular challenges tend to repeat if there is enough interest. If the original challenge host does not want to host again anyone else can jump in and host for the next year. This is the 3rd year for the LGBT - we added the Q this year - and it's had 3 different hosts passing the torch.

spoltz

Posted 2016-01-05 9:58 AM (#12293 - in reply to #12247)
Subject: Re: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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Hi Sable! Thanks for joining. Since I didn't specify, I'll allow rereads, but I encourage you to write reviews for WWEnd for them. These books don't have reviews in the database yet and it would be great to get something in there, particularly since Magic's Price is on the LGBTQ list. Remember, reviews can be as long or short as you want.

I hope this remains an annual tradition. I jumped in to host it this year since the last hosts hadn't been online for a little while. I wanted to make sure it started as close to the 1st of the year as possible.

As for the Q, I'm glad we added it because I read Venus Plus X by Sturgeon in December which really fits into what today we call gender queer.

Enjoy the challenge!

Sable Aradia

Posted 2016-01-05 11:02 AM (#12294 - in reply to #12247)
Subject: Re: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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Thanks for getting back to me so quickly Steve! No worries, I review everything I read these days because it's good blog material, so I'm sure that won't be a problem.

If you didn't intent for re-reads to count, don't worry, I'm a pretty prolific reader and I don't mind just doing the reviews without counting them towards the challenge. Good excuse to expand my horizons.

I have not read Venus Plus X. Sounds like I'll have to look for it . . .

Thanks for stepping up to take the torch!

spoltz

Posted 2016-04-30 9:28 AM (#13416 - in reply to #12247)
Subject: Re: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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Hi everyone! Well we're about a third of the way through the year and we have 19 participants. Congrats to the couple of folks who have finished their challenges already. I'm about 3/4 of the way through mine. One book that stands out for me is Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo. It's a Finnish work that was really creative. It reminded me of how I felt reading The Golum and the Jinni last year. Great prose, great characters, and a very different love story. I also wanted to note I've some very old works, like "An Anglo-American Alliance" which io9 hailed as the first ever lesbian SF novel. It might also be considered a transgender SF novel as well. It's very dated and has some racially offensive language and illustrations, but was still an interesting read from an historical standpoint. I'm currently reading Carmilla, which is hailed as the first lesbian vamire novel. I'm still in the middle of it and it is pretty creepy. We'll see how that one stands up.

I hope everyone is enjoying the books they've picked for the challenge. Remember we have the LGBTQ list to choose books from. I also find it helpful to look at what other people are reading for inspiration on what to read. Feel free to post here and let us know how you're doing.

Edited by spoltz 2016-04-30 9:29 AM

Sable Aradia

Posted 2016-05-13 12:13 PM (#13562 - in reply to #12247)
Subject: Re: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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Yeah, this has been pretty fun so far! I might pick up Carmilla; I've been meaning to read that since my adolescent vampire obsession. Which reminds me, the Vampire Chronicles would fit this challenge, especially the four originals, if anyone's looking for ideas.

I do reviews for all the books I read so if you want a summary of what I thought of each book. I chose two of the classics -- Orlando and The Picture of Dorian Gray -- and of course I thought they were amazing. I love how Woolf is so keenly aware of how much of gendered behaviour is due to societal expectations, and how much is assumed merely because of societal expectations. Many of the books I chose were also suited to other challenges, and that's where I found A Companion to Wolves and A Handmaid's Tale. Of course, Handmaid's story of the subjugation of women, especially feminist and lesbian women, is well on its way to being a classic already. I liked Wolves but it's clearly not for everyone; it's got a lot of explicit sex and as other reviewers have pointed out, it's got some serious consent issues.

I'm only including stuff from the SF Masterworks list if it happens to synchronize with the SF Masterworks Challenge, in which we're reading one of the books per month in order of publication. So nothing on the recommended list made it this year, though there will be some that will synchronize next year. However, I included Gateway by Frederik Pohl for this challenge because the protagonist is bisexual, something he's struggling with in therapy along with severe PTSD and survivor's guilt. The book is problematic in that it's full of a lot of dated theories grounded in prejudice (the therapist treats his sexuality like a character flaw, makes comments about his relationship with his mother, and all the old garbage that used to be part of the psychiatric profession's rhetoric on the subject.) I included it anyway because it's important, I think, not to forget that this was what the professionals used to think and it is still a part of common belief for many people today.

I ordered Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen from the library when I heard of its imminent release because I'm a huge Vorkosigan Saga fan! I loved it but it's definitely more of Bujold's planetary romances than space opera. It centered around a three-person relationship between Cordelia and Aral Vorkosigan, and Oscar Jole. I love how blindsided some people seem to be that Aral was bisexual, considering that Bujold made that clear in the very first book. Only goes to show that people see what they want to see and don't see what they don't want to see. And I'm glad that Bujold gave him a healthy, if unconventional, same-sex relationship, to go with the disastrous same-sex affair that has always been part of his back story.

Most of the rest of the stuff in my queue is stuff I have had sitting on the bookshelf for a while but not gotten around to reading yet, so this gives me a good opportunity. I requested All the Birds in the Sky from the library because it's award-worthy and suits both this and the Apocalypse Now challenge (I am given to understand) but I may not get it before the end of the year, since I am #20 in the queue to read it!

Sable Aradia

Posted 2016-09-29 3:30 AM (#14358 - in reply to #12247)
Subject: Re: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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Hey all, just wanted to pass on the info that books by C.J. Cherryh and Jane Fancher are eligible for the challenge, since they are married to each other. And you really should discover Cherryh's books if you haven't already. I feel like she's been given a cold shoulder by the establishment. She's been nominated for many awards but only won a Hugo and a Locus, both for Cyteen, and she's clearly one of the most original and influential writers in the field. I wonder why she's been so overlooked? But at any rate, I highly recommend her work.

Edited by Sable Aradia 2016-09-29 3:34 AM

spoltz

Posted 2016-09-30 8:08 PM (#14363 - in reply to #12247)
Subject: Re: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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Thanks for the info Sable. Note that Cherryh also won the Hugo and Locus for Downbelow Station.

Sable Aradia

Posted 2016-10-02 1:37 AM (#14377 - in reply to #14363)
Subject: Re: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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spoltz - 2016-09-30 6:08 PM

Thanks for the info Sable. Note that Cherryh also won the Hugo and Locus for Downbelow Station.

Right! Thank you, I had forgotten that because it's on an older list. (Going to read it in the very near future though! I've been looking for it for literally years and finally found it!)

Dlw28

Posted 2016-12-27 6:41 AM (#14788 - in reply to #12247)
Subject: Re: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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Finished. Thank you for hosting this challenge. Always good to find new books like these!

spoltz

Posted 2016-12-29 12:19 PM (#14816 - in reply to #14788)
Subject: Re: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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You're welcome! I'll be hosting it again next year because there are still so many on the LGBTQ list that I haven't read and that my libraries have.

spoltz

Posted 2016-12-29 4:12 PM (#14820 - in reply to #12247)
Subject: Re: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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Great job everyone! We had some finishers, and some who didn't quite make it. But overall there were a lot of good books read. I'm hosting the challenge again in 2017, so come back and join me again. There are still so many great LGBTQ books to read out there...

Engelbrecht

Posted 2016-12-30 6:36 AM (#14825 - in reply to #12247)
Subject: RE: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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I hadn't planned on pursuing this challenge, but in looking through my books read this year, it turns out that I finished it with books to spare. My LGBTQ discovery was Kallocain, written by the lesbian Swedish author Karin Boye in 1940. It's an interesting take on totalitarianism, and is apparently something of a minor classic.

spoltz

Posted 2016-12-30 8:30 PM (#14827 - in reply to #12247)
Subject: Re: 2016 LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge

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