Monday, June 3, 2019

Outstanding LGBT Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2018

June is Pride Month, and here are 33 outstanding stories with LGBT characters from 2018 that were either finalists for major SF/F awards πŸ†, included in "year's best" SF/F anthologies πŸ“™, or recommended by prolific reviewers πŸ‘ in short fiction (see Q&A).

This list could be useful for making nominations for the 2019 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards for Best Short Fiction (published in 2010-2018). Anyone can nominate through June 30, 2019. Stories from 2018 are below. For earlier stories, see Outstanding LGBT Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2017 and 2015-2016.

As always, our focus is on the stories, not the authors. These are stories with memorable LGBT characters—not necessarily stories by noted LGBT authors. These include stories in which a key character merely happens to be an LGBT person as well as stories where the LGBT angle is crucial to the plot.

Note that we can only list a story under one category due to a current limitation of our database schema and dynamic table script. If a story could fall under more than one category, we try to choose the one that's most important to the story.

If you see any mistakes (even if you're an author), please let us know in the comments. Thank you.

1. Observations


2. Background


RSR co-editors Greg and Eric have been a couple for 23 years, and Greg was an activist from 1979 to 2007 or so (GLAAD/SFBA in 1993). While representing LGBT employees at Microsoft, Greg’s biggest achievement as an activist was influencing Microsoft during 2005-2006 to add “gender identity” to its nondiscrimination policy and to amend its employee handbook to give HR sensible directions on helping employees who transition.

2 comments (may contain spoilers):

  1. Thanks for this list! I've downloaded several in audio that intrigued me and bookmarked several others that didn't have audio. When/how I'll fit them in between Hugo reading/listening is anyone's guess, but I appreciate this. :-)

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    1. Glad you like the list. It's always fun to put it together each year.

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