Sci-Fi/Fantasy: Gay characters?

[HareBrain]

From this thread so far, it seems most gay male characters in SFF are in books written by women. Are there any in books written by gay men? (Actually, how many out gay male SFF authors are there?)

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I've run into female writers who write a lot of gay men because either (a) porn or (b) gay men are just inherently adorable. Unfortunately, as with anything a writer finds adorable, they have to work very hard to convince readers who don't start reading with exactly the same opinion as them.

Also whilst seen by some as stereotype an awful lot of gay men have female bestfriends. As one of those females I find writing gay men a lot of fun and have a variety of them in my stories. Despite spending my teen years living with a pair of lesbians I find them harder to write in the main character slot for some reason.

They are not going to be universally liked not even by people who fall into the LGBTQ band because some will see them as 'camp' or 'stereotyped' as they have all been based off real people, so some are more 'camp' than others. They do tend to be more rounded than that.

 

[Colbey Frost]

Mine isn't camp, or stereotyped in anyway. He just likes men, well one man. He falls in love with him, but you wouldn't know him as gay, he is just normal, with normal feelings he cannot control.

 

[Kissmequick]

From this thread so far, it seems most gay male characters in SFF are in books written by women. Are there any in books written by gay men? (Actually, how many out gay male SFF authors are there?)

Difficult to tell, unless they say what their preference is. It's not like male/female, where it's usually quite easy to tell.

I don't see many men in general in SFF writing gay characters, though there are notable exceptions.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Doesn't Orson Scott Card have a gay character in the Songmaster? - although OSC isn't gay he is male.

 

[Colbey Frost]

Wasn't Dumbledore supposed to be gay? One of my kids just told me that

 

[Abernovo]

From this thread so far, it seems most gay male characters in SFF are in books written by women. Are there any in books written by gay men? (Actually, how many out gay male SFF authors are there?)

Gay male SFF authors include Samuel R Delany and Arthur C Clarke (whose characters tended to be almost asexual). I'm sure there are others and I'll probably kick myself for not thinking of them if someone subsequently mentions names.

Robert Silverberg, had a gay POV character, one of four, in The Book of Skulls, one of my favourite books, actually.


Anya, I'm don't know about Orson Scott Card having gay characters, as I've yet to read his work. His comments haven't always been very kind, though, and yes, that's me being politic about it.

Christian, JK Rowling said in an interview that she always saw Dumbledore as being gay (and thus kicked off another litany of complaints from the intolerant religious types).

 

[alchemist]

Christian, JK Rowling said in an interview that she always saw Dumbledore as being gay (and thus kicked off another litany of complaints from the religious types).

I've always had my doubts about that. He didn't appear to be written as gay and it was quite easy to say it afterwards, when the books were finished and she didn't have to write in a love interest for him.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Although it would've made more sense of his relationship with Snape in my opinion.

 

[Anne Lyle]

From this thread so far, it seems most gay male characters in SFF are in books written by women. Are there any in books written by gay men? (Actually, how many out gay male SFF authors are there?)

I know a number of gay men in the SFF community, but commercially published authors? None spring to mind, though that might be because of my limited knowledge of their personal lives

I wonder if gay writers are tending to gravitate towards small/specialist presses who are more open to works with overt LGBTQ themes? Apart from Richard Morgan's fantasy novels, the gay characters in most commercially published SFF tend to be presented in a fairly low-key manner and in fantasy in particular the books tend not be "about" being gay.

 

[Montero]

SPOILER (small) on Cordelia's Honour

Bisexual was mentioned earlier - Aral Vorkosigan (Lois McMaster Bujold) is bisexual. Or as his wife puts it in Cordelia's Honour when someone tries to blow up her marriage by telling her that her husband has had a relationship with a man and so is gay.
(Not exact quote) "I judge him to be bisexual, but now he is monogamous."

 

[allmywires]

Because two hot guys are better than one?

Well, gee....

See this (frankly hilarious) review of my book on Goodreads - and honestly, it doesn't contain any plot spoilers, contrary to what the reviewer states:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/351091721

I think someone might have, just might have missed the point there... (I certainly don't think you dealt with it in a 'hamfisted' way!)

At the moment I'm thinking about making one of my (male) characters bisexual, and have a story where a boy falls in love with him, and he falls in love with a girl. Whatever I do, there would be people who would say it's wish-fulfilment from a straight girl wanting a gay man to fall in love with her, yadda, yadda, ya...

 

[Anne Lyle]

I think someone might have, just might have missed the point there... (I certainly don't think you dealt with it in a 'hamfisted' way!)

I think that review says far more about the reviewer's attitudes than my own

At the moment I'm thinking about making one of my (male) characters bisexual, and have a story where a boy falls in love with him, and he falls in love with a girl. Whatever I do, there would be people who would say it's wish-fulfilment from a straight girl wanting a gay man to fall in love with her, yadda, yadda, ya...

Yeah, you can't stop people reading their own agenda into your work. Unless you don't publish it, of course!