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Does anyone have recommendations for good LGBTQ speculative fiction, especially horror? I'm always on the hunt for stuff with magic, space, and ghosts that's not just about cishet people, but the few things I come across tend to be both rare and rather pretentious.

It's not horror, and it's not strictly about LGBTQ issues, but ya might wanna check out Sense8 if you haven't already.

"The Left Hand of Darkness"?

Yeah, I'm sorry to say I'm drawing a blank for the most part. Torchwood, I suppose (Captain Jack is bisexual), though I've never watched it much and can't speak as to its quality, and if I stretch things their's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course, those its gay characters are secondary (though still important) characters. But those are fairly high profile shows, so you're probably already aware of them.

Wasn't their a report a while back that the lead of Star Trek: Discovery would be lesbian? If so, then while not horror, that might give us another example when and if Discovery ever gets finished.

It doesn't have a heavy focus on LGBTQ issues, but have you tried Marvel's 'Young Avengers' series; two of the main characters are gay and dating each other. Not sure if it's what you're after though as them being gay isn't a major focus of it, but on the other hand it's not a big in your face getting shoved down your throats thing and is pretty much treated as no different to if they were a straight couple.

Both Marvel and DC have other LGBTQ characters, so maybe try series with those characters in (fairly sure both wikis have a disambiguation page for LGBTQ characters that you can use to look up suitable characters and then go on to those characters' pages to see what series they feature in).

Fuzzy Necromancer wrote:Does anyone have recommendations for good LGBTQ speculative fiction, especially horror? I'm always on the hunt for stuff with magic, space, and ghosts that's not just about cishet people, but the few things I come across tend to be both rare and rather pretentious.

I've usually been of the mind this stuff works better when its not the focus of the narrative - Try my comic or if you're in the mood for an adventure game R.O.M 2064 is pretty good.

Low hanging fruit (insert avocado joke here), but since horror is one of the things you're after: Clive Barker is gay, and gay/bi characters (both protagonist and otherwise) show up in his work semi-frequently.

Fair thee warned though: he likes psychological unpleasantness, so his protagonists are emphatically not role model examples of anything. Though pop culture likes to think of his horror as being made of blood and monsters, that stuff is actually just plot devices: the depressing stuff inside his character's minds is kind of both the point and the atmospheric background of his stories. Occasionally this bleeds over to imply uncomfortable things about his own personal history and worldview (lookin' at you, Imajica).

So if you want well-developed LGBQT characters, you'll find them there... but they won't be characters you will like or agree with. You have to steel yourself going in the same way you would with, like, a Lars Von Trier or Catherine Breillat film.

Hmm, okay, I'll rattle off a few:

Movies:
Gay Fantasy: Were the World Mine. Musical about a love potion flower made from a magic spell hidden in the works of Shakespeare.
Gay Scifi:
Kaboom. A bi-sexual teen in college tries to navigate the campus while mysterious people in masks, psychic powers, conspiracies, etc. all come into play.
Judas Kiss. A gay filmmaker sort of time travels to his college years, and meets with his past self.
Fan Film Category: Star Trek: Hidden Frontier, infamous for being the first Trek production, even a fan one, to have gay characters and a gay plotline.
Gay Horror: Hellbent. A by the books slasher movie. Only, all the victims are gay dudes.

Literature:
Hero by Perry Moore. Thom is the teenage son of a retired non-powered superhero. Thom both has powers and is gay. He has to deal with both.

Webcomic:
The Young Protectors: Come for the young coming of age teen superhero who is afraid to come out of the closet, stay for the epic superhero vs supervillain battle over the fate of the world itself.

Thanks for the leads. I read Left Hand of Darkness, tried Torchwood and Buffy, and I'm following one or two DC titles with LGBTQ characters (like Secret Six and The Movement).

I tried Clive Barker's "The Hellbound Heart" but it didn't work for me. Weaveworld was okay though. Does he have a squick content level that's as high as Octavia Butler, or is he a bit more restrained generally?

A very special thank you to FaxModem. You've given me a lot of good leads.

It's mostly subtext, but I'm currently reading "Friendship of Mortals" by Audrey Driscoll. It's an expansion of the Herbert West: Re-Animator short stories and it all but states West is gay and there's at least two very homoerotic moments between the narrator and West, but I'm almost at the end and it didn't go any further than that so I am not sure if that's what you're looking for. But it's certainly nice and morbid.