A Battle of Wizardy From a History Not Quite Our Own... GOD SAVE THE KING OF SCOTLAND The heavy summer air of 1593 is full of portents for Elizabeth, England's Queen, and James VI, King of Scotland. A coven of witches secretly controlled by the Wizard Earl of Bothwell has summoned a storm to sink the ship that bears James' bride to Scotland. Though the ship made port, the success of their summoning has emboldened them; the coven is now launching wizardly attacks on the King himself — and James is terrified. FROM SATAN'S WIZARD EARL The King has protectors — not least the Queen of England herself — but not even Elizabeth's secret service and her champion, the redoubtable Sir Philip Sidney, can be on watch every instant. Eventually a trap is sprung, and King James is at the mercy of the satanic Bothwell's deadly spells...

Queer protagonists

Scott tells a passionate, colorful tale of love and death, her best yet. Setting her tale on the free-port planet of Burning Bright, nexus of trade, politically balanced between the human and Hsai empires in space, and center of virtual-reality-gaming for all of civilization, Scott weaves a network of intrigue and suspense. When spacepilot and ambitious young game designer Quinn Lioe gets shore leave on Burning Bright, determined to play the game at its brilliant center, she becomes enmeshed in the conflict between two great empires, a key figure upon whom the fates of fortunes turn. Once again, Scott constructs a brilliantly complex future society and tells a story that involves the mind and the heart. This is science fiction adventure at its classic best.

Lesbian characters

What might have happened had Alexander not marched into India, but turned back west? This is the question posed in Ms. Scott's alternate history. Yet another revolt in Greece (even more serious than the historical revolt of King Agis of Sparta) forces Alexander to turn around and march back home. Having been thwarted then in his bid for India, he turns his interest west instead, to Rome and Carthage.

Queer protagonist

In a space-faring civilization where a single woman is increasingly disenfranchised, the star pilot Silence Leigh is defrauded from her inheritance by a greedy competitor. Forced to ally with two men, Silence is dragged into a deadly political struggle, and is tantalized by the hints of the legendary Earth, as well as the dread and the glory of Magi's power. Her dreams of having her own ship and of escape from the Hegemony's oppressions take on new direction and focus when she joins the crew of "The Sun-Treader"

Poly relationship

Orestes was a cruel world, cold and inhospitable. Its first colonists were castaways from a crash landing, clinging to survival through the institution of strict socio-political controls. Over the generations life grew somewhat easier, but the code of honor remained. Misdeeds, and errors, were paid for with blood. At one time all miscreants were executed. Now, a social death is imposed. Every Oreseian city has a colony of "ghosts": ostracized citizens who must survive, somehow, without help from the living. But galactic civilization is spreading - and Orestes is in its path. The old ways are under scrutiny. And though the Oresteian aristocracy will fight for the status quo, they have not reckoned on the power of a thousands ghosts...

Many queer characters, one who is never identified by a gender

Melissa Scott's award-winning work is known for its vividly imagined settings that explore humanity's far future. IN NIGHT SKY MINE, young Ista Kelly is a foundling, the only survivor of a pirate raid on an asteroid mine. In a future where one cannot live without an official identity, this is the story of Ista's harrowing journey back to the asteroid to find her true identity.

Normalized queer and racially diverse world. Main characters are lesbian and gay.

Five human sexual identities are spread throughout the galaxy, and humanity has adjusted to this new culture. Except on Hara--there everyone must choose to be a man or a woman and that decision is final. Warreven, a Haran man, could have married the son of the ruler of the planet--if he had chosen to be a woman. The result of the conflict is one of the most bizarre identity crises in science fiction.

Future culture with five genders, use of nb pronouns, other cultures and systems of gender

Less than a hundred years from now, the forces of law and order crack down on the world of the computer nets. The hip, noir adventurers who get by on wit, bravado, and drugs, and haunt the virtual worlds of the Shadows of cyberspace, are up against the encroachments of civilization. It's time to adapt or die. India Carless, alias Trouble, got out ahead of the feds and settled down to run a small network for an artist's co-op. Now someone has taken her name and begun to use it for criminal hacking. So Trouble returns. Once the fastest gun on the electronic frontier, she had tried to retire-but has been called out for one last fight. And it's a killer.

Lesbians, queer culture

Nicholas Rathe is a pointsman, a watchman in the great city of Astreiant, the capital of the Kingdom of Chenedolle. It is the time of the annual trade fair, and the city is filled with travelers, and someone is stealing children. The populace is getting angry and frightened and is looking for someone to blame, especially some foreigner. Nicholas, in the midst of all this, must find the children and save the city.

gay characters

The city of Astreiant has gone crazy with enthusiasm for a new play, The Drowned Island, a lurid farrago of melodrama and innuendo. Pointsman Nicolas Rathe is not amused, however, at a real dead body on stage and must investigate. A string of murders follow, perhaps related to the politically important masque that is to play on that same stage. Rathe must once again recruit the help of his soldier lover, Philip Eslingen, whose knowledge of actors and the stage, and of the depths of human perversity and violence, blends well with Rathe's own hard-won experience with human greed and magical mayhem. Their task is complicated by the season, for it is the time of year when the spirits of the dead haunt the city and influence everyone, and also by the change in their relationship when the loss of Philip's job forces him to move in with Nicolas. Mystery, political intrigue, floral magic, astrology, and romance--both theatrical and personal-- combine to make this a compelling read.

Gay characters

During Dog Moon, the chief entertainment in the great city of Astreiant, for nobles and commons alike, is the basket-terrier races at New Fair. This year, with spectacularly bad timing, the massive and suspicious bankruptcy of a young nobleman has convulsed the city, leading to suicides, widespread loss of employment, and inconvenient new laws around the universal practice of betting on the races. As well, a rash of mysterious burglaries seems to suggest a magistical conspiracy. Pointsman Nicolas Rathe is naturally in the midst of all these disturbances—as is his lover, foreign former mercenary Philip Eslingen. When Eslingen receives a basket-terrier puppy in the redistribution of the bankrupt’s household goods, he makes the best of it by having the pup trained for the races, an action that draws him and Rathe deeper into the coils of a mystery somehow involving New Fair’s dog races, bookies and bettors, the bankruptcy and its causes and fallout, burglaries, and a new uncanny form of murder.

Gay characters