3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
These Queer Fantasy Novels Make TJ Klune Feel Seen
There is something uniquely magical about being able to see yourself in a book — not necessarily your entire existence, but bits and pieces that make up the whole of a person. For queer readers, science fiction and fantasy have long been a refuge, even when the stories weren't about us. We could imagine universes filled with magic and adventure, swords and shields, dragons and other beasties that let us escape the real world, at least for a little while.
As a child, I was a voracious reader, inhaling anything and everything I could get my hands on. It didn't matter if it was fiction or nonfiction, or if it was technically too advanced for me. All I knew was that, by putting certain words in a certain order, authors could make me feel some kind of way and to me, that was (and still is) magic. I told myself that if I grew up to do what those authors did — transport readers, make them laugh and cry and cheer and lament — I would do it with people like me front and center. I'm very lucky that I became an adult who does just that.
Even better? I'm not the only one. There are so many wonderful fantasy authors who've written queer people as the heroes, as the villains and as everything in between. Here are a few of my favorites — some from decades past, and others much more recent.
Luck in the Shadows
Imagine, if you will: You're a teenager in the 1990s, and the idea of seeing queer characters in any sort of book where they aren't there to teach their straight counterparts a Very Valuable Lesson is unheard-of. Then, in 1996, Lynn Flewelling writes a fantasy novel where the two main characters — both male — find adventure and love? With each other?!
'Luck in the Shadows' was that book, and it broke my brain.
The Nightrunner series includes seven novels and some short stories, but this first book is nestled most deeply in my heart. While imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, Alec meets a roguish thief named Seregil and agrees to become his apprentice, in exchange for help escaping. Their adventures that follow are top-tier fantasy, with immaculate world-building, magic and intrigue. But what makes the book — and the series — so special is the slow, gorgeous development of the relationship between the two men.
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