sci fi – lgbtq+

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Summary: A young man sold into servitude has his loyalties tested in ways he never imagined. Raised in an orphanage in Dickens, Daniel doesn't know who his parents were, where he comes from, or even his last name. Like all orphans, on his 16th birthday, he's sold to the highest bidder. Not knowing where he's going, who's bought him, or what they even want with him, Daniel embarks on an adventure he never thought he'd take. He finds love, a family, and a secure future - yet in a split second, makes a decision he ends up regretting the rest of his life. Brothers begins fifteen years before the Red Dog Conspiracy series. Warning: Language, smoking, use of alcohol and drugs, attempted suicide by hanging, M/M underage sexuality with consent issues, forced servitude, blood, gun violence, a man being beaten by a horsewhip, murder, discussion of child prostitution, underage M/F sexuality with age gap (female older).

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Summary: A werewolf and seven vampires are all that stand between the world and complete annihilation. When Kai Richter and Ori Bier met, sparks flew. Then a train blew up. Tracking an organism deadly to not only humans, but vampires and werewolves alike, brings Kai and Ori into the Vampire Guard. Decades later, they, along with Operative Team Jack Rabbit, come face to face with the horrors that same virus produces. Dead bodies are coming back to life, and rational people are becoming violent and brutal killers. A massacre is taking place nearly a mile under the Atlantic Ocean. Two teams of The Vampire Guard are in the thick of it, fighting to survive.

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Summary:

A secret revealed. A plot within a plot. A battle to reunite.

Word Count: Click here to reveal56000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: This time, the universe puts the cat in catastrophe. Plucked from her home on Earth and ending up aboard a strange spaceship in an even stranger universe, Lem and the misfit crew of the Teapot have more than enough trouble on their hands… and then they receive an urgent last-minute call to save a race of cat-people from certain destruction. Stuck with a disaster-platypus of a project manager and an entire race of people seemingly determined to thwart their own rescue, the Teapot’s crew face the impossible job of herding cats and helping evacuate the planet before it’s blown to smithereens. Can Lem and the gang avert disaster and save this race of infuriating cat-people? Perfect for fans of wacky and imaginative sci-fi stories, this satirical space opera is a ridiculous adventure that will delight readers of John Scalzi’s take on Fuzzy Nation or TJ Berry’s Space Unicorn Blues.

Word Count: Click here to reveal132,220 (Click here to hide)

Summary: Bobby Gene is a man who stands out even among his people. Guided by the knowledge of his heritage as a backwoods shaman and more perceptive than many, he's grown to be a valuable asset to those he knows. While he isn't surprised to be the first to know when the woods around him begin to show clues that something isn't right, he doesn't expect just how much these omens and signs will prove to foretell something far more sinister to come. Soon strange dreams and inexplicable encounters have him questioning everything he knows- and then the people who live in his woodland Appalachian community begin to disappear. It's his job to protect and guide the others, what will he do when he's the only thing between them and the end of life as they know it?

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Summary: Can they catch hold of happiness before it floats away? Space station school teacher Ada Solomon spends her free time drinking coffee with her best friend and people watching. When she catches sight of a gorgeous stranger Ada is immediately intrigued, and once they meet a flirtation quickly grows. If only they could move past friendship... Vivienne Lambert is looking forward to a quiet life on Belco-Psyche station. She misses Paris, but not her old life as a crime syndicate lawyer. An attractive new friend saves her from loneliness, but her secrets stop her from pursuing her desire... Fly away for the holidays with this short, romantic read with plenty of spice!

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Summary: Tangents & Tachyons is Scott's second anthology - six sci fi and sci-fantasy shorts that run the gamut from time travel to hopepunk and retro spec fic: Eventide: Tanner Black awakes to find himself in his own study, staring out the window at the end of the Universe. But who brought him there, and why? Chinatown: Deryn lives in an old San Francisco department store with his girlfriend Gracie, and scrapes by with his talent as a dreamcaster for the Chinese overlords. But what if a dream could change the world? Across the Transom: What if someone or something took over your body on an urgent mission to save your world? Pareidolia: Simon's not like other college kids. His mind can rearrange random patterns to reveal the images lurking inside. But where did his strange gift come from? And what if there are others like him out there too? Lamplighter: Fen has a crush on his friend Lewin, who's in a competing guild. But when the world goes dark, only a little illumination can save it. And only Fen, Lewin and their friend Alissa can light the spark. A Liminal Sky short. Prolepsis: Sean is the closeted twenty-five-year-old editor of an 80's sci-fi 'zine called Prolepsis. When an unabashedly queer story arrives from a mysterious writer, it blows open Sean's closet door, and offers him the chance to change the world - and the future. Plus two flash fiction stories – The System and The Frog Prince, never before published. This is the first time all of these stories have all been collected in one place.

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Summary: Tucker has spent his entire life as an interstellar trash man. But ever since his mother died, he’s been alone, and certainly lonely. So when he discovers the derelict ship he scooped up has an occupant—a beautiful young man named Ronan—Tucker is thrilled. Ronan is royalty and running from his tyrannical mother, determined to keep a powerful object out of her hands. But when he strikes a deal with the adorable Tucker, he wonders if it’s time to stop running.

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Summary: Once upon a time, it was a tough world for a young princess. What happens to the world when the princess decides to get even? Aeryn Stonebreaker is the Princess of Shadows, second in line to the throne of the Light, Shadows, and Dark. The singsong her nursemaids give her is, “Gimlé is wide and bleak, Aeryn is small and weak.” It’s a hard life on Gimlé, a strange world with a red sun that does not move in the sky. Generations before, Aeryn’s warrior-king ancestor, Arthur the Hammer, unified the land and established a detailed Code of governance and behavior. But while Aeryn is a child, obedience to Arthur’s Code is fraying and the kingdom is ripped apart by rebellion and war. She grows up amid the ebb and flow of fighting and the losses it causes. What is the fate of a young girl in a patriarchal world where a princess is nothing more than a token on the game boards of powerful men? However, this is a princess who stops playing by the rules and picks up her own weapons. What happens then?

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Summary: The Fantastical Romances You’ve Been Craving Hugo Finalist Janice L. Newman presents a touching trio of romances in a speculative vein. From the edge of space, to the shadows of the paranormal, to the marvels of the mystic: At First Contact: A germaphobe and an android are assigned a mission to survey a planet together. Will they discover new life or a new love? Ghosted: Leo is searching for the soul that used to haunt his grandmother’s house. Did Will ghost him? A Touch of Magic: What if love could alter the fabric of existence? A fraught romance between two teachers just might be helped along by a touch of magic.

Word Count: Click here to reveal109000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: It appears out of nowhere—one moment the sky is empty, the next, there’s a rent in the fabric of space itself. And nothing in the system will ever be the same.  In the far reaches of the Rim Mountains, itinerant field-scientist Aran Romeu is searching desperately for the cure to an incurable disease—one that’s slowly killing his best friend. He’s sworn to do whatever it takes to find it. But when the portal opens, and something comes through, he realizes that ‘whatever it takes’ will involve travelling into the uncharted space beyond the portal. And he’s not the only one after the cure, and willing to do whatever it takes to get to it first … In the weighty halls of government, Chief Justice Alba Espina is preparing a political gamble that could change the shape of the system itself. The appearance of the portal shatters her carefully-laid plans and hands her political rival a weapon he could use destroy her—unless she can delay him with the promise of a diplomatic mission through the portal. But the stakes of the mission are higher than just her personal ambition. If her diplomatic mission doesn’t succeed, it might just spell the end of humanity itself. In a remote spaceport, Savina Moya, the system's most talented assassin-for-hire, is on the run again after her latest murder. But when a deadly government agent is sent after her, with instructions to bring her back dead or alive, the diplomatic mission heading into the portal may hold the key to Savina’s survival—if she’s brave enough, or desperate enough, to take it. No one knows what’s beyond the portal. And as the three of them are drawn inexorably together in uncharted space, with no idea who is an ally and who is an enemy—it’s an open question if any of them will live long enough to find out. 

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Summary: Wilderness tour guide, Patrick Morgan, wakes to discover Harlan Quinn—the man he’d invited home for the night—has left, with no traces of his presence. Disconcerting as that might be, Patrick is shocked when the police turn up a week later, demanding to know Harlan’s whereabouts. He’s an ex-patrol officer, accused of manslaughter. Harlan Quinn is desperate. Not only has he been dismissed from the Space Patrol, on a charge he strongly denies, but now he is on the run.   He can’t find a legitimate job. With no money and no prospects, what’s left? When Patrick’s tour group is caught up in a kidnapping plot, the last person he expects to run into is Harlan. With everything he knows, can Patrick dare to trust him?

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Summary: As a private eye closes in on her city's secrets, there are those who will go to any lengths to stop her. After the horrific events of our last chapter, Jacqui's in a medical predicament. If she wants to stay free from the Spadros crime syndicate, she has to find the cure for her condition - and time's running out. But just when Jacqui thinks she's found what she's after, she finds herself instead in a much bigger - and deadlier - situation. She's getting closer to discovering what mechanisms really lie beneath the city. And the Red Dog Gang isn't the only one who wants her stopped. Warning: on-screen death, captivity, child murder, terror, blood, bad language, smoking.  

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Summary: Conundrum is a guilty pleasure, M/M fantasy novel that asks what you would sacrifice to save your family and closest friends. That’s the question Takoda Freeman, a young Native American witch, faces. Takoda puts his complete trust in Russell Sands, a werewolf, who says he can help save his loved ones, ignoring that fact that Russell was his father’s nemesis. Takoda risks it all to save his friend and mentor, Jared Mason, from two vengeful Puritans from the past. The ordeal left Jared with the singular longing to change his past. Jared vowed to make it so that he and his father never went to the 17th century when he was a teenager. If Jared successfully changed that event, a new reality would emerge, and Takoda would cease to exist. That sends Takoda on a frightening philosophical journey where he must ultimately decide whether saving his own life is greater than the lives of his friends and family.

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Summary: Home, a place where we belong and are safe and loved. Home, the house in which we grew up, a neighborhood, a culture, even a country. Home is a state of mind, it is a place of the heart, and in the heart. Finding home, coming home, and bringing home the one we love is a journey, a journey that can be a dangerous adventure. For the lovers in these stories, adventures can include quests and fighting dragons and demons, past and present, physical as well as mental and emotional. Rocket launchers need to be dodged, the Wild Hunt needs to be outrun. For some of the lovers here, home has been lost, or they have been forced to leave, as is too common for LGBT+ youth. In this collection queer positive speculative fiction stories, explore the idea of what and where home is in the lives of these lovers. Will they survive their quests, defeat their monsters? Will they find a place to call home?  

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Summary: One starship, six friends, 10,000 lives in the balance. Hugo Award Finalist Gideon Marcus has done it again with this second installment in The Kitra Saga. Sirena is a thrilling YA space adventure, unusually hopeful and optimistic in a sea of grimdark, dystopian releases. Enhanced with beautiful illustrations, fans of Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers and Emily Skrutskie’s Bonds of Brass will adore Sirena. Young captain-for-hire Kitra Yilmaz has gotten her first contract: escort the mysterious Princess of Atlántida beyond the Frontier and find her a new world. It’s a risky job, fraught with the threat of pirates, dangerous squatters, and rising romantic tensions. Still, Kitra and her crew are up for anything – until they find a lush world, perfect for settlement…with an enormous ghost ship already in orbit. What secret does the crippled vessel hide? And is Kitra ready to take responsibility for its precious cargo? With illustrations by Hugo Finalist Lorelei Esther.

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Summary: Escaping intergalactic kidnappers has never been quite so ridiculous. When Lem and her faithful dog, Spock, retreat from the city for a few days of hiking in Algonquin Park, the last thing they expect is to be kidnapped by aliens. No, scratch that. The last thing they expect is to be kidnapped by a bunch of strangely adorable intergalactic bounty hunters aboard a ship called the Teapot. After Lem falls in with an unlikely group of allies – including a talking horse, a sarcastic robot, an overly anxious giant parrot, and a cloud of sentient glitter gas – the gang must devise a cunning plan to escape their captors and make it back home safely. But things won’t be as easy as they first seem. Lost in deep space and running out of fuel, this chaotic crew are faced with the daunting task of navigating an alien planet, breaking into a space station, and discovering the real reason they’re all there… Packed with preposterous scenarios, quirky characters, and oodles of humour, The Left Hand of Dog tackles complex subjects such as gender, the need to belong, and the importance of honest communication. Perfect for fans of Charlie Jane Anders’ Victories Greater than Death – especially ones who enjoy endless references to Red Dwarf, Star Trek, and Doctor Who. This book will show you that the universe is a very strange place indeed. Scroll up and grab your copy now!

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Summary: INK (NOUN) Five definitions to inspire writers around the world and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell: 1) A colored fluid used for writing 2) The action of signing a deal 3) A black liquid ejected by squid 4) Publicity in the written media 5) A slang word for tattoos Ink features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

Word Count: Click here to reveal10,000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: The job seemed simple enough: collect the package and deliver it to Europa within two days' time, no questions asked. If only the client hadn't lied about there being no catch... A tale from the Jovian Empire.

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Summary: Rules were made to be broken. From terraformed outposts to magical realms, journey to worlds where deadly plants, rampant biodiversity, or failed colonies have created irresistible opportunities for those brave enough to seize them. New worlds, found family, mystical secrets, and deadly science weave together in this lesbian-centric anthology focusing on a very different kind of first time—a first encounter with a world, or being, entirely unlike our own. If you like diverse stories with lesbian heroines practicing science, magic, and seduction, buy Distant Gardens today!