Book picks similar to
The Stark Divide by J. Scott Coatsworth
science-fiction
sci-fi
lgbt
fantasy
Annihilation Aria
Michael R. Underwood - 2020
A man who can out-think any problem. A pilot who can outmaneuver the best of them. Lahra, Max, and Wheel live and work aboard the Kettle, salvaging artifacts from dangerous galactic ruins to keep scraping by.But those artifacts can unlock an ancient power which threatens the iron-fisted rule of the galaxy’s imperialist overlords, the Vsenk. To protect their dominion, the Vsenk have humbled entire civilizations. They eat ships like the Kettle and her found family for breakfast.Lahra, Max, and Wheel are each just trying to get home to the lives they lost, but they’ll have to evade space fascists, kick-start a rebellion, and save the galaxy first to do it.Board the Kettle for a space opera like none you’ve ever read before; an adventure of galactic subterfuge, ancient alien lore, a secret resistance force, lost civilizations, and giant space turtles.
A Little Familiar
R. Cooper - 2015
Generations of Russells have lived and died with only their familiars at their side. The presence of a friendly familiar is enough to keep even the loneliest witch sane, and yet Piotr deliberately hasn’t chosen one. He forces himself to keep busy instead, but the emptiness of his house haunts him even more the spirit of Great-Great-Aunt Elysia in the parlor. With Samhain and Halloween approaching, he’ll have much to do, and knowing that, his concerned coven seizes the chance to intervene and sends help to his door in the form of Bartleby Dorchester. The rarest of rare jewels, Bartleby is a human familiar: a witch with no magic of his own, and a desire to find a strong witch to help and serve. In particular, he desires to help and serve Piotr, and everything in Piotr wants to let him. Bartleby was meant to be his familiar; Piotr knows it as surely as he knows when it will rain or when the apples in his garden will ripen. But what Piotr wants from Bartleby, all he’s ever wanted, is for Bartleby to love him, something he thinks is impossible. Russells live and die unloved, and he won’t allow Bartleby to feel obligated to spend his life with him as his familiar if he could be happy in love with someone else. But Samhain is a time for change, when walls come down and borders grow thin, and Bartleby isn’t going to waste what might be his last chance to convince Piotr that they were meant to be. He might have no magic, but love is a power all its own.
An Uncommon Whore
Belinda McBride - 2010
He has no memory, no future of his own, yet deep inside Pasha knows that that he is meant for better things. The day that Pasha spots the dangerous pirate in the bar, he knows that he mustn't let the stranger slip away, regardless of what he must do to attract his attention.Captain Griffin Hawke spent the greater part of a decade searching for his lost king, only to find Helios Dayspring crouched between his knees, swathed in the robes and shackles of a whore. Though he is appalled by the downfall of his king, the hardened officer finds himself falling for the allure of the sensual creature who has taken his place. Returning Helios to his position on the throne is the only right thing to do, yet Griffin knows that in doing so, he risks losing his lover forever."A whore is a whore is a whore, unless he's something else completely. I guess I must be an uncommon whore." -- Helios Dayspring
And All the Stars
Andrea K. Höst - 2012
Her elusive cousin Tyler is the perfect subject: androgynous, beautiful, and famous. All she needs to do is pin him down for the sittings.None of her plans factored in the Spires: featureless, impossible, spearing into the hearts of cities across the world - and spraying clouds of sparkling dust into the wind.Is it an alien invasion? Germ warfare? They are questions everyone on Earth would like answered, but Madeleine has a more immediate problem. At Ground Zero of the Sydney Spire, beneath the collapsed ruin of St James Station, she must make it to the surface before she can hope to find out if the world is ending.
Laser Visions
Kaje Harper - 2014
And now… now he’s wandering in the dark, in the blue, floating, disembodied, and confused. There has to be a good explanation, if he can just find someone, anyone, he can actually talk to about it.Xavier Faulkner is intelligent, creative, and made millions when he sold his tech-security company. But all his wealth and skills couldn’t keep his sister Tam from being poisoned by food contamination. She lived, but her health was damaged, and her job as a cop is gone. In the antebellum house he moved them to, Xavier hopes to find both a distraction and maybe a purpose for their lives. But the old house seems to come with strange noises, and odd blue lights, and maybe― if Xavier isn’t just going crazy― a naked guy, walking away into the blue…This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Love’s Landscapes" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story. Dear Author,I just moved into this old antebellum home I bought with the intentions of restoring. I often find myself awoken in the night by strange noises I cannot identify or hear during the day. At first, I think it’s just a dream… this seemingly phantom always walking away. Who is he and how can I get him to finally turn around and see me?Photo Description: Light streams into a narrow, old-fashioned hallway from the open door at the end. Framed in the brightness, back-lit to blurred outlines and shadows, is the silhouette of a man, walking away. He’s tall, lean but well-built, with faint tan lines across his lower back and thighs. He’s also completely naked. His curved ass and broad shoulders are the most solid things about him. He strides off into the blue, head slightly tilted, not looking back.This story may contain sexually explicit content and is intended for adult readers. It may contain content that is disagreeable or distressing to some readers. The M/M Romance Group strongly recommends that each reader review the General Information section before each story for story tags as well as for content warnings.
A Matter of Disagreement
E.E. Ottoman - 2014
A noted scholar of ancient literature and spellcraft, Lord Ashcroft "Andrea" de Bourbon, finds his world shaken when the new science of mechanical animation becomes the talk of high society. In response, Andrea takes to the presses gaining notoriety for his scathing critiques of mechanical animation and its founder the Marquis de la Marche. Then one night Andrea comes face to face with the Marquis de la Marche and discovers he is nothing like Andrea expected. Leon Gregory de la Marche VI, Marquis de la Marche is handsome, brilliant, and charming. While their clashes on paper have become legendary in person they are even more explosive. As passions rise Andrea knows there is no backing down ...
Dreadnought
April Daniels - 2017
But before he expired, Dreadnought passed his mantle to her, and those secondhand superpowers transformed Danny’s body into what she’s always thought it should be. Now there’s no hiding that she’s a girl. It should be the happiest time of her life, but Danny’s first weeks finally living in a body that fits her are more difficult and complicated than she could have imagined. Between her father’s dangerous obsession with “curing” her girlhood, her best friend suddenly acting like he’s entitled to date her, and her fellow superheroes arguing over her place in their ranks, Danny feels like she’s in over her head.She doesn’t have much time to adjust. Dreadnought’s murderer—a cyborg named Utopia—still haunts the streets of New Port City, threatening destruction. If Danny can’t sort through the confusion of coming out, master her powers, and stop Utopia in time, humanity faces extinction.
Into the Wastelands
Gwynn Marssen - 2014
It would be so easy to let the sun make my decision for me, and truly, that’s what I should do. But there’s something about him… I find I cannot turn my back on him.Photo Description: A simple sepia drawing of a lean man lying naked and unconscious on a sand colored background. He has one hand curled up next to his head, one leg bent.This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Love’s Landscapes" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story. This story may contain sexually explicit content and is intended for adult readers. It may contain content that is disagreeable or distressing to some readers. The M/M Romance Group strongly recommends that each reader review the General Information section before each story for story tags as well as for content warnings.
Viscera
Gabrielle Squailia - 2016
But they’re long dead now, buried in the catacombs beneath the city of Eth, where their calcified organs radiate an eldritch power that calls out to anyone hardy enough to live in this cut-throat, war-torn land. Some survivors are human, while others are close enough, but all are struggling to carve out their lives in a world both unforgiving and wondrous. Darkly comic and viciously original, Viscera is an unforgettable journey through swords-and-sorcery fantasy where strangeness gleams from every nook and cranny.“Exquisitely imagined, deeply insightful yet scathingly witty, Viscera barrels along at a scorching pace after vividly realized characters whose separate quests—for identity, for revenge, for release—find themselves on a collision course in a world that's simultaneously both grimdark and surreal. Lusciously weird and utterly unique.” —Nicole Kornher-Stace, author of Archivist Wasp“Viscera is a work of gleeful weirdness, set in a world that calls to mind China Miéville's Bas-Lag novels, and full of characters fighting to reshape themselves and their destinies, in search of deep and resonant truth.” —Kat Howard, author of Roses and Rot
The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper
A.J. Fitzwater - 2020
Lesbian. Capybara. Pirate. Cinrak the Dapper is a keeper of secrets, a righter of wrongs, the saltiest capybara on the sea and a rider of both falling stars and a great glass whale. Join her, her beloveds, the rat Queen Orvilia and the marmot diva Loquolchi, lead soprano of the Theatre Rat-oyal, her loyal cabin kit, Benj the chinchilla, and Agnes, last of the great krakens, as they hunt for treasures of all kinds and find adventures beyond their wildest dreams. Let Sir Julius Vogel Award-winning storyteller A.J. Fitzwater take you on a glorious journey about finding yourself, discovering true love and found family, and exploring the greatest secrets of the deep. Also, dapperness. The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper includes seven stories about Cinrak and her crew: • “Young Cinrak” • “Perfidy at the Felidae Isles • “The Wild Ride of the Untamed Stars” • “Search for the Heart of the Ocean” • “The Hirsute Pursuit” • “Cetaceous Secrets of the Jewelled Nadit” • “Flight of the Hydro Chorus”
The Prince and the Program
Aldous Mercer - 2012
Exiled to Canada for seven years, he has to find a job to pay his bills. For reasons he refuses to reveal, Mordred decides “Software Engineer” has a nice ring to it. And though experience with “killing the Once and Future King, my father” and “that time in feudal Japan” makes for a poor résumé, he is hired by a small tech startup in Toronto.In the midst of dealing with a crippling caffeine addiction and learning C++, Mordred thinks he has finally found someone to anchor him to the world of the living: Alan, the company’s offsite lead developer. Except that Alan might not be a "living" entity at all—he may, in fact, be the world's first strong AI. Or a demon that mistook a Windows install for the highway to Hell. Or, just maybe, the ghost of Alan Turing, currently inhabiting a laptop.Mordred's attempts to figure out his love life are hampered by constant interference from the Inquisitors of the Securitates Arcanarum, corporate espionage, real espionage, a sysadmin bent on enslaving the world, and Marketing's demands that Mordred ship software to the Russian Federation. Then Alan gets himself kidnapped. To save him, Mordred must ally himself with the company’s CEO, who will stop at nothing to rescue her lead developer so he can get back to work. But the Prince doesn’t just want to rescue Alan, he wants a Happily Ever After—and he will travel beyond Death itself to get one.Too bad Alan is perfectly happy as a computer.
Saviors: Duty and Sacrifice 1
Devon Vesper - 2017
His uncle wants to use him as a magical battery and sex slave. All Valis wants is to live in peace, without fear of constant abuse. When he escapes his father’s sacrificial knife and runs away, he lands in the camp of his two saviors, Kerac and Darolen, holy Aesriphos warriors powerful enough to put his family in their place.But trusting anyone could be fatal, and the warriors ask the impossible: to sell his father’s farmstead and abandon his old life to join their monastery.They’re his only hope and when he learns to trust them, they’re the father figures he always wanted, but Valis isn’t sure he’s strong enough to put aside his fear and start over.The God Jars Saga is a nine book slow burn medieval M/M fantasy romance.
In Heaven or Earth
Amy Rae Durreson - 2015
The only survivor is a cyborg gardener, Vairya, who has been left amnesiac and terrified, barely able to choke out a few words: “It could happen again.” As ex-military doctor Reuben Cooper explores the illusory rose garden of Vairya’s memory, where Vairya himself flirts and hides among the flowers, he discovers a terrible threat, not just to the crew of the Juniper but to all humanity. Can four doctors and a cyborg fight a merciless enemy that can kill with a touch?
We Are Satellites
Sarah Pinsker - 2021
Everybody's getting one.
Val and Julie just want what's best for their kids, David and Sophie. So when teenage son David comes home one day asking for a Pilot, a new brain implant to help with school, they reluctantly agree. This is the future, after all.Soon, Julie feels mounting pressure at work to get a Pilot to keep pace with her colleagues, leaving Val and Sophie part of the shrinking minority of people without the device.Before long, the implications are clear, for the family and society: get a Pilot or get left behind. With government subsidies and no downside, why would anyone refuse? And how do you stop a technology once it's everywhere? Those are the questions Sophie and her anti-Pilot movement rise up to answer, even if it puts them up against the Pilot's powerful manufacturer and pits Sophie against the people she loves most.