Queer and Cold Reads

Francis. Reviewer of books and comics, with a focus on Speculative, Queer and Romance fiction. 30s, European, queer. #ColdReads - #ColdMemes

[queercoldreviews]

Welcome, welcome!

SO! I have ofc decided to create a book tw account when tw has become a dumpster fire.. so I have also decided to create a book tumblr account, just in case tw collapses for good. I will try to upload the same content on here and there, so we’ll see how it goes!

I will be using a couple of tags: #ColdReads for comments about books I am currently reading/listening to, and #ColdMemes for.. well. Memes. So mute away if you don’t want to see them! But then.. why would you be following me then..?

Anyway! Welcome!

[hellenhighwater]

This is the process of doing an edgepainting! It's easier to do than you'd think. Cat breaks are necessary.

[xserpx]

And finally . . . eternal and undying thanks to Terry Pratchett. I never got to meet him, and that breaks my heart to this day. His books taught me so much about comedy and about how devastatingly, breathtakingly kind it is to be able to openly love the messy, beautiful, deeply imperfect, and yet deeply human experience of being alive, and trying your best, and sort of just doing an okay job at it along the way. His books taught me even more about anger and justice and the grim necessity of engaging in a scrungly, undignified mud-wrestling match against Entropy just for the sake of wresting from its jaws one single scrap of fairness that’s gotten a bit raggedy and smells rank (but take it to a good dry cleaner and maybe they can work a miracle or two for ya). Injustice abounds—the injustice of institutions, of entrenched systems of hegemony, of capitalism itself. Terry Pratchett’s works (and mine, I hope) serve as a reminder of the single most important lesson we have in resisting oppression: The best comedy comes from a place of deep, righteous anger—and as long as you can laugh, there’s still a part of you that’s free.

— Alexandra Rowland, in the acknowledgements of Running Close to the Wind

[raggedclawsscuttling]

I've been thinking about this book a lot since I read it. And what I decided (in my head, based on never having met him) is that it isn't a book Terry Pratchett could have written (I think it's just a little too horny) but it's definitely a book that he would take pride in when folks compared it to his work. Because it has the exact combination of anger and comedy, and the same striving for a better world.

[ariaste]

That is the greatest possible compliment I could receive. Thank you. I have to go cry a bit now.

[bobellafofella]

He said lamely, "She is very beautiful." "And she has the sense not to frighten you," Dach'osmin Ceredin said, and Maia took a step back, wanting to protest her deduction, but unable to deny its truth. "We should take lessons from her, we see."

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is one of my favorite books of all time, and within it, one of my favorite scenes is Maia and Csethiro's first real interaction at Nurevis' party! so i drew it. their slow romance is so delicious.

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

op 爆燥的老baby shares story about dragon-li, the neiborhood king cat, helped him find his missing cat

[nothwell]

On today's episode of Right Here, Write Queer, we ask the question: What is Cozy Fantasy? Six authors attempt to define the genre. Featuring an extremely scientific hurt/comfort formula, manual labor, found family, connecting to nature, and an unforgivable betrayal.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts!

Our panel: • R.K. Ashwick (she/her) @ashen-crest, author of A Rival Most Vial: Potioneering for Love and Profit and The Stray Spirit. • Noah Hawthorne (he/they) @noahhawthorneauthor, (also writing as Aelina Isaacs), author of Phantom and Rook: When An Immortal Falls In Love With A Witch and Matsdotter and Adrastus. • Sarah Wallace (they/she), author of Letters to Half Moon Street and co-author of Breeze Spells and Bridegrooms. • S.O. Callahan (she/her), author of Fella Enchanted and co-author of Breeze Spells and Bridegrooms. • Tess Carletta (she/her) @tesscarletta, author of Kit & Basie and Patchwork. • Sebastian Nothwell (he/him), author of Oak King Holly King and Fiorenzo.

[enigmaticpink]

I think some people forget that some literature and some media is meant to be deeply uncomfortable and unsettling. It's meant to make you have a very visceral reaction to it. If you genuinely can't handle these stories then you are under no obligation to consume them but acting as if they have no purpose or as if people don't have a right to tell these stories, stories that often relate to the darkest or most disturbing parts of life, then you should do some introspection.

[xphaiea]

The other world; or, Glimpses of the supernatural. Being facts, records, and traditions relating to dreams, omens, miraculous occurrences, apparitions, wraiths, warnings, second-sight, witchcraft, necromancy, etc, Frederick George Lee, 1875

[tenowls]

SecUnit is looking down at her. “You can hug me if you need to.” “No. No, that’s all right. I know you don’t care for it.” She wipes her face. There are tears in her eyes, because she’s an idiot. “It’s not terrible.” She can hear the irony under its even tone. “Nevertheless.”  She can’t do this. She can’t lean on a being that doesn’t want to be leaned on. Of all the things SecUnit needs, the only ones she can give it are room and time in a relatively safe space to make decisions for itself. Becoming a prop for her failing emotional stability won’t do either one of them any good.

a little scene from the home short story

[wornoutspines]

Frat boys and rivalries? I'm down for that and this book doesn't disappoint.

We're basically Romeo and Juliet. But Dudes. And without all the dying.

Full Review |

[sbbarnes]

Do you love a good friends to lovers story? What about a bi awakening? What about both? Check out my latest blog post for some thoughts on the trope as well as a reclist featuring bi awakenings as well as specifically acespec books in the genre!

Friends to lovers meets bi awakening: an M/M subgenre

The subject of today’s blog post is pretty specific. Like, so specific, you’d think there would only be a handful of books that fit it. You’

[remnantglow]

classic scifi novels by men r always like. page 1 here’s a cool scifi idea i had. page 2 i hate women so much it’s unreal

[remnantglow]

ALT

ALT

ALT

guys if one more person leaves a tag like this on my post im gonna lose my mind. There Are Science Fiction Authors Who Are Not Misogynistic Men

[remnantglow]

ok i’ve gotten one too many ‘this is why i don’t read sci-fi’ comments so here’s a rec list for the people convinced all science fiction is bad and misogynistic (with something for everyone, hopefully!):

(also, btw, the book links are to the Storygraph, which includes content warnings for each one!)

smth funny and lighthearted about a security robot who’d rather watch TV then do its job? all systems red by martha wells (first novella in the The Murderbot Diaries series, 6 books, ongoing)

a complex, intricate political space opera following a warship AI who’s lost (almost) everything? ancillary justice by ann leckie (first in the Imperial Radch trilogy) (fun fact! bc of space linguistics reasons, all characters in this series are referred to with she/her pronouns, making gender a non-factor - it’s really cool!)

a dark story about travelling between parallel universes and a woman who is dead in almost every single one? the space between worlds by micaiah johnson (standalone) (SO good, i don’t get to recommend it often enough!!!)

a story about grief and letting go, and a unique take on alien invasion? the seep by chana porter (standalone novella)

hey, how abt some dystopian YA, for old times sake? specifically, one with sapphics and sick mechas? try gearbreakers by zoe hana mikuta (first in duology)

or, if you’d prefer something a bit less angsty, YA about a ragtag group of teens and a space heist? the disasters by m. k. england (standalone)

alternate history steampunk that blurs the line btwn science fiction and fantasy? the black god’s drums by p. djeli clark (standalone, novella)

a dark gone girl-esque thriller about clones? the echo wife by sarah gailey (standalone)

poetic sapphic romance and time travel? this is how you lose the time war by max gladstone and amal el-mohtar (standalone)

a hopeful utopian future and a human-robot friendship? a psalm for the wild-built by becky chambers (novella, first out of two) (this author’s got a whole bunch of hopepunk sci-fi novels in general, if that’s smth you’re looking for!)

africanfuturism, coming-of-age, and cool jellyfish aliens? binti by nnedi okorafor (novella, first in trilogy)

spicy lesbian cyborgs? and shall machines surrender my benjanun sriduangkaew (novella, first in the Machine Mandate series, 6 books)

cosmic horror with an autistic scientist, cyborg angels and AI gods? the outside by ada hoffmann (first in trilogy, 2 books are out)

also, if you’re a fan of Janelle Monáe, may i draw your attention to the fact that they’ve recently come out with a Dirty Computer short story collection, each story co-written with a diff writer?

this list is long enough, but have some more authors (who are not cis men) also worth checking out: rivers solomon, yoon ha lee, charlie jane anders, aliette de bodard, xiran jay zhao, mary robinette kowal, corinne duyvis

and finally, not all older/classic scifi is written by crusty old white guys who hate women!!! some iconic authors i’d particularly recommend looking into are ursula k. le guin, octavia e. butler, samuel r. delany and vonda n. mcintyre 🥰

[cinematicnomad]

(tweet 1) (tweet 2) (article)

[wintermutaldeactivated5062024-d]

still reading frankenstein and i completely forgot that theres a part where victors wrapping up doing devious deeds on a sparsely inhabited island off the shore of england and he loads all his mad scientist shit into a rowboat and pushes off into the water and then fucking falls asleep with no navigational tools and when he wakes up hes like, adrift with no land in sight and hes like ‘FUCK my creation!!!!!’ even though the monster had absolutely nothing to do with getting him lost in the middle of the fucking english channel and he starts lamenting about how hes going to die and his family is never going to see him again and hes going to go to davey jones locker or whatever because hes been without potable water in a rowboat for like 4 hours and then he sees land and hes like ‘oh thank god im saved!!!’ and he gets to shore and is met with an angry mob who thinks he murdered someone and hes like ‘but where is english hospitality?????’ and theyre like ‘this is ireland you dumb slut’ and as theyre marching him to the magistrate hes like ‘i was still thirsty but did not want to show my weakness……’ like could you even imagine

[downtroddendeity]

Frankenstein is an unflinchingly realistic portrayal of the highly specialized form of stupid that comes from being told for your entire childhood that you’re a world-changing genius who can solve every problem because you’re so smart, but now you’re in college and you have depression and you keep fucking everything up because being good at reading science books when you were 12 doesn’t actually translate into making smart life choices and you’re constantly beating yourself up about your horrible failures but you couldn’t possibly ask anyone for help, and in fact the idea doesn’t even cross your mind because obviously you will be able to handle it this time because you’re a world-changing genius who can solve every problem, and consequently you keep right on catastrophically fucking everything up, and I don’t think it gets enough credit for that.

[amuseoffyre]

Byron: Where did you find the inspiration to create such a wretched man?

Mary, who has been stuck in a house with him for weeks: No idea, mate 😑

[alostcuttlefish]

I think what I love about the Murderbot Diaries

(aside from, you know Murderbot who I love and cherish)

It that it’s a very grim-dark distopian corporate hellscape setting, told through the perspective of someone who has seen some of the worst that world has to offer, who’s existence is part of the worst that world has to offer, and yet-

And yet it’s so full of hope.

Everywhere you look, there’s underground shipping routes to get refugees out from contract labour, there’s universities forging documents to get abandoned colonies out from corporate ownership, there’s people buying a secunit so the company don’t realise it’s hacked itself and has free will. A Tlacy employee smuggles out copies of the files to give them back to their owners, a human officer on HaveRatton station opens the security barrier to let Ayda Mensah escape. There’s a planet that took the promise of somewhere safe to live, of food and medical care, and kept that promise for generations.

And for all it can’t even see the hope yet, can’t even really believe it might be there yet (because trauma will fuck you up), Secunit keeps being that hope for other people.

Not just the lives it saves, not just all the times it shows up out of nowhere like a social anxious guardian angel with energy weapons in it’s arms and several lifetimes worth of soap operas in it’s storage.

When it talks to Dr Volescu all the way up the side of the crater, to keep him moving. When it sticks with the scientists on RaviHyral. When Tapan sneaks onto it’s sleeping mat, because she’s scared, and it ups it’s body temperature to keep her warm. When it keeps Amena safe from a predatory partner, when it tells her to go rest. When it hacks the Comfort Unit’s governor module. When it-version-2.0 gives Three the codes to hack itself.

Imagine being on RaviHyral. Imagine meeting a security consultant who you shouldn’t be able to afford, who goes above and beyond and doesn’t even check the payment card at the end, who tells you that sometimes people do things to you that you can’t do anything about, that all you can do is learn to live with them, who’s clearly been through some shit but came out of it with so much compassion. Imagine the hope in that.

[typhlonectes]

[sarahreesbrennan]

Are all the themes in “in other lands” supposed to be a commentary on something? Or do you just like writing sex scenes between minors, age gaps, and reverse misogyny?

Genuine question.

Ohhh, my dear anon, I don't believe this is a genuine question.

But it does bring up something I've been meaning to talk about. So I'll take the bait.

Firstly. Yes, my work contains a commentary on the world around us. I wonder what I could be doing with the child soldiers being sexually active in their teens (people hook up right after battles), and the age gap relationship ending in the younger one being too mature for the elder. What could I possibly have been attempting when I said 'how absurd gender roles are, when projected onto people we haven't been accustomed by our own society to see that way'? I wasn't being subtle, that's for sure.

Secondly. Yes I do enjoy writing! I think I should, it's my life's work. Am I titillated by my own writing, no - though I think it's fine to be. The sex scenes of In Other Lands aren't especially titillating, to be honest. It is interesting to me how often people sneer at women for writing romance and sex scenes, having 'book boyfriends,' insinuating women writers fancy their own characters. Women having too much immoral fun! Whereas men clearly write about sex for high literary purposes.

… I have to say from my experience of women and men's writing, I haven't found that to be true.

I’m not in this to have an internet argument. I prefer to leave my anons open since not everyone has a tumblr, as @neil-gaiman says it’s an internet backwater, but a lovely one for those like myself who enjoy an essay about fictional characters! Still I will close my inbox to anons if I must. Mostly people use bad faith takes to poke at others from the other side of a screen for kicks. But I do know some truly internalise the attitude that writing certain things is wrong, that anyone who makes mistakes must be shunned as impure, and that is a deeply Victorian and restrictive attitude that guarantees unhappiness.

I've become increasingly troubled by the very binary and extreme ways of thinking I see arising on the internet. They come naturally from people being in echo chambers, becoming hostile to differing opinions, and the age-old conundrum of wanting to be good, fearing you aren't, and making the futile effort to be free of sin. It makes me think of Tennyson, who when travelling through Ireland at the time of the Great Famine, said nobody should talk about the 'Irish distress' to him and insisted the window shades of his carriage be shut as he went from castle to castle. So he wouldn't see the bodies. But that didn't make the bodies cease to be.

In Les Mis, Victor Hugo explores why someone might steal, what that means about them and their circumstances, and who they might be - and explores why someone else is made terribly unhappy, and endangers others, through their own too rigid adherence to judgement and condemnation without pity. The story understands both Jean Valjean the thief and Javert the policeman. Javert’s way of thinking is the one that inevitably leads to tragedy.

Depiction isn't endorsement. Depiction is discussion.

Many of my loved ones have had widely varying relationships to and experience of sex (including 'none'). They've felt all different types of ways about it. If writing about them is not permissible, I close them out. I'd much rather a dialogue be open than closed.

I do understand the urge to write what seems right to others. I've been brain-poisoned that way myself. I used to worry so much about my female characters doing the wrong things, because then they'd be justly hated! Then I noted which of my writer friends had people love their female characters the most - and it was the one who wrote their female characters as screwing up massively, making rash and sometimes wrong decisions. Who wrote them as people. Because that's what people do. That's what feels true to readers.

I want my characters to feel true to readers. I want my characters to react in messy ways to imperfect situations. I love fantasy, I love wild action and I love deep thought, and I want to engage. That's what In Other Lands is about. That's even more what Long Live Evil is about. That sexy lady who sashays in to have sexy sex with the hero - what is her deal? Someone who tricks and lies to others - why are they doing that, how did they get so skilled at it? What makes one person cruelly judgemental, and another ignore all boundaries? What makes Carmen Maria Machado describe ‘fictional queer villains’ as ‘by far the most interesting characters’? What irritates people about women having a great time? What attracts us to power, to fiction, and to transgression?

I don’t know the answers to all those questions, but I know I want to explore them. And I know one more thing.

If the moral thing to do is shut people out and shut people up? Count me among the villains.