We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction of 2020

by C.L. Clark (Editor), Charles Payseur (Series Editor), Charlie Jane Anders

We’re Here 2020 includes the following stories from 2020:

"If You Take My Meaning" by Charlie Jane Anders (Tordotcom, February 26, 2020)

"A Voyage to Queensthroat" by Anya Johanna DeNiro (Strange Horizons, August 2020)

“Rat and Finch are Friends” by Innocent Chizaram Ilo (Strange Horizons, March 2020)

“Salt and Iron” by Gem Isherwood (Podcastle, May 2020)

"The Currant Dumas" by L.D. Lewis (Glitter + Ashes, edited by dave ring)

“Everquest” by Naomi Kanakia (Lightspeed, October 2020)

"Portrait of Three Women with an Owl" by Gwen C. Katz (The Future Fire, February 2020)

“The Ashes of Vivian Firestrike” by Kristen Koopman (Glittership, May 2020)

“To Balance the Weight of Khalem” by RB Lemberg (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, March 2020)

“Thin Red Jellies” by Lina Rather (Gigonotosaurus, February 2020)

“Body, Remember” by Nicasio Andres Reed (Fireside, November 2020)

“Escaping Dr. Markoff” by Gabriela Santiago (The Dark, March 2020)

"The Last Good Time to Be Alive" by Waverly SM (Reckoning 4, edited by Danika Dinsmore and Arkady Martine)

“Monsters Never Leave You” by Carlie St. George (Strange Horizons, June 2020)

"The Wedding After The Bomb" by Brendan Williams-Childs (Catapult, April 2020)

"8-Bit Free Will" by John Wiswell (Podcastle, November 2020)

Our incredible cover is by Sajan Rai.

Genres: Fantasy, Queer, Short Stories, Science Fiction, LGBT, Fiction, Anthologies

Paperback

First published August 1, 2021

About the author

C. L. Clark is a BFA award-winning editor and Ignyte award-winning author of several books, including The Unbroken (Magic of the Lost trilogy), Fate's Bane (a novella), and Ambessa: Chosen of the Wolf (an Arcane novel). When she’s not writing, she’s trying not to throw her kettlebells through the wall. Her work has appeared in various SFF venues, including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Tor.com, Uncanny, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Sign up to her newsletter for updates and bonus materials.

Reviews

[Charlie Anders · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been wanting to read more short fiction lately, after a long hiatus in my short story-reading. So when I received two contributor copies of this anthology, I decided that I would keep one in perfect condition and read the other one — which turned out to be a great decision. This book does include a story of mine, "If You Take My Meaning," but for the purposes of this review, I'm just going to talk about the rest of the book. Which is amazing. This is one of those anthologies where each story is strong and heartfelt and unforgettable on its own, but together they add up to something even more miraculous. We're Here is a terrific look at the state of queer SFF right now, and it'll spark tons of incredible ideas about the kinds of narratives we can have about LGBTQIA+ folks. I can't wait to read the stories that these stories inspire.

One of the cool things about this book is the way that it groups stories together, to set up more resonances. There are two stories in a row that come in the form of "found documents" (a true crime podcast transcript in "The Ashes of Vivian Firestrike" by Kristen Koopman and art criticism in "Portrait of Three Women with an Owl" by Gwen C. Katz) and they both feature surprising, hopeful endings that turn everything on its head. Later, two stories in a row ("Everquest" by Naomi Kanaki and "8-Bit Free Will" by John Wiswell) feature video game/RPG settings in which avatars and NPCs find a queer life of their own. Two of my favorite stories, "A Voyage to Queensthroat" by Anya Johanna DeNiro and "To Balance the Weight of Khalem" by R.B. Lemberg, feature trans/NB characters who are exiled or refugees, dealing with the weight of history and their own identities. (And both of those stories feature strange produce, white plums in one case and magical onions in the other.) Another story with an indelible portrayal of a trans character is "Body, Remember" by Nicasio Andres Reed.

Every story in here surprised and delighted me in some way. "The Currant Dumas" by L.D. Lewis was one of my favorites, in part because it depicted an inclusive community thriving and being generous in what most of us would consider a post-apocalyptic world — and I loved the relationship between Sam and Layla. (Honestly, I would have happily read a whole novel about that world and those characters.) Another great disaster romance is "The Last Good Time to Be Alive" by Waverly SM, and "The Wedding After the Bomb" by Brendan Williams-Childs also moved me a lot.

My own story features altered bodies and shared consciousnesses, and that's a theme in a lot of these works, not surprisingly. "Thin Red Jellies" by Lina Rather finds a new and fascinating for the often-used trope of someone's consciousness being recorded or saved after death. (Like in the recent TV show Upload) The first story, "Escaping Dr. Markoff" by Gabriela Santiago, also features creepy experiments with bodies, minds and narrative itself.

I have read a decent number of fantasy stories that play with the Hansel-and-Gretel fairytale, but "Monsters Never Leave You" by Carlie St. George was easily the best I've found. "Salt and Iron" by Gemma Isherwood is another gorgeous fairytale-inspired story, and then there's the sad-but-bittersweet The Wind in the Willows-influenced "Rat and Finch are Friends" by Innocent Chizaram Ilo.

Honestly, I could go on and on about each of these stories, but basically this book reminded me of the awesome power of short fiction, and of the still-untapped potential in queer speculative fiction. Indispensible.

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rarely dull.
Faves in order:
'A Voyage to Queensthroat' by Anya Johanna DeNiro -- felt like a blend of ancient queerly-gendered courtly cultures and space opera, gorgeously imagined.
'To Balance the Weight of Khalem' by RB Lemberg -- I'm slightly at sea but a treasure chest of imagery and delish sentences.
'The Last Good Time to Be Alive' by Waverly SM -- clinging to each other in the climate catastrophe. Close to home.

[Ed Erwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I am not really in the mood for another short-story collection, I picked this up solely to read 2 stories.

I read “Rat and Finch are Friends” by Innocent Chizaram Ilo because it won a Nommo Award. It is nice. Nothing special for me, but for a gay Nigerian reader, it may be nice to see themselves represented.

http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/ra...

I read the story by Anya Johanna DeNiro because I greatly enjoyed her collection Tyrannia. Her story "A Voyage to Queensthroat" is a fantasy/SF hybrid dealing with a woman who has to flee a society set on killing her because she "used to be a man" and thus defiles the pure laws.

http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/a-...

(Rating based only on those two stories.)

[Katherine Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun anthology! I’m fairly new to speculative fiction and this definitely solidified my appreciation of it. My favorite stories were: The Current Dumas, Rat and Finch are Friends, Thin Red Jellies, Salt and Iron and Monsters Never Leave You. Love that I found some new-to-me authors, an independent publisher to buy from, and some online publications to read and support!

[Preston · Rating 4 out of 5]

As it says on the tin, this is a curated collection of queer speculative short fiction written in 2020. I’ve been wanting to get more into short fiction in general, and this was a good opportunity to blend it with my journey of reading more LGBTQ+ fiction this year.

Like with any anthology, there are hits and misses, but unlike most anthologies I’ve read, there weren’t any true train wrecks. Just mild disappointments. Travel was a prominent motif in many stories, as were post-apocalyptic stories that showed an interest in acknowledging how social dynamics change after an apocalypse. There were also a few who played with form in interesting ways: one was a podcast transcript tracing conspiracy theories of a dead celebrity mage, and another was an art history/museum exhibit review.

For me, the highlights of this volume were
- Escaping Dr. Markoff, a truly mind bendy story about a melodrama where the main character is a character in the film, and editor of the film, and an audience member at the same time. It’s hard to describe, but it was the standout of this book, and did a great job of playing with structure.
- Rat and Finch are Friends: was a great, but bittersweet, story about two shapeshifter kids at a boarding school who were discovered by staff. It did a good job of establishing a lot of elements in a really compact way, and executed its vision very well.
- Thin Red Jellies was a really interesting story about a couple who ended up sharing a body after one was injured in an accident. Healthcare and insurance struggles were a strong theme here, but the exploration of how the relationship changed by sharing a body was really thought provoking. Not a happy story, and a very good one.
- Monsters Never Leave You was an interesting take on the aftermath of Hansel and Gretel, taking the idea of ‘what if Gretel never left’ and worked with the nonbinary candy house to run a way station. After two kids, one alive and one undead, end up on their doorstep, she’s forced to face some parts of her past. Forgiveness was a prominent motif in this one.

There were also some clunkers, mostly stories that tried to pack too much into too small of a space without giving anything in particular room to shine. The Currant Dumas is a good example: a food blogger in a post-apocalyptic world boards a food train with a circus attached. It tries to introduce food blogging elements as a structure at times, but never commits. It pays lip service to acknowledging diverse food cultures (including indigenous ones) but never goes deep with it. The romance is flirty, but the characters don’t get enough time to be fleshed out, and the supernatural element went for the ‘experiencing wonder at something we didn’t know existed angle’ but felt more like an afterthought. I enjoyed it, but wish the author would have picked two of these elements to really push.

I think my other gripe (wish? Not sure) is around the distribution of representation in the book. At sixteen stories, there’s room to explore different angles of a lot of different queer identities. However, eight of the sixteen stories featured lesbian protagonists, which overwhelmed representation for other groups. Asexual and Aromantic folks didn’t have any representation at all, gay men had one story. Of course, the editors didn’t control what was written this year, and I certainly am not familiar enough with the short fiction publishing landscape to know whether it really was a dearth of stories featuring other identities, or if this was author bias creeping in. Perhaps this wouldn’t bother me as much, except that I feel like I’m seeing a similar phenomenon in queer speculative fiction novels as well: the majority of the queer writing that’s pushing the genre features lesbian characters, so perhaps this is just a continued disappointment that is tinging my views on this topic. As I said, there were no truly bad stories, and two of my four favorites featured lesbian leads. I just wish I’d seen a little more of myself in this collection.

[mouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Escaping Dr Markoff by Gabriela Santiago 2*
The Currant Dumas by LD Lewis 4*
The Ashes of Vivian Firestrike by Kristen Koopman 4*
Portrait of Three Women with an Owl by Gwen C Katz 5*
If You Take My Meaning by Charlie Jane Anders 4*
A Voyage to Queensthroat by Anya Johanna DeNiro 2*
Body, Remember by Nicasio Andres Reed 4*
Rat and Finch are Friends by Innocent Chizaram Ilo 5*
The Last Good Time to Be Alive by Waverly SM 4*
Everquest by Naomi Kanaki 3*
8-Bit Free Will by John Wiswell 4*
The Wedding After the Bomb by Brendan Williams-Childs 4*
Thin Red Jellies by Lina Rather 4*
Salt and Iron by Gemma Isherwood 5*
Monsters Never Leave You by Carlie St George 5*
To Balance the Weight of Khalem by RB Lemberg 5*

[Sabrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an excellent book! Best read of 2021! This quenched my thirst for all things sci-fi, fantasy, and queer and filled spaces in my heart that I didn’t know were there. I recommend this to anyone and everyone. The writing is truly spectacular, and I thank each of the authors for the gifts they have given me w/ these stories.

[jamison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great collection of short stories! All were so good!

My favorites:

"If You Take My Meaning" by Charlie Jane Anders

"A Voyage to Queensthroat" by Anya Johanna DeNiro

“Rat and Finch are Friends” by Innocent Chizaram

“Salt and Iron” by Gem Isherwood

“Everquest” by Naomi Kanakia

“Monsters Never Leave You” by Carlie St. George

"8-Bit Free Will" by John Wiswell

[Josephine McCormick · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're judging this one by its cover, as I did: just read it. Not a story was unskilled or unimpressive! The more fantasy tales were less my jam this time...perhaps I'm exiting my winter phase. Nearly all wlw, all had heart, some quite creative, only a few I'd want stretched into a full book. Excellent!

[Rach · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fantastic little collection full of a variety of speculative themes and elements that are heightened by this anthology’s focus on queer identities! I found myself enjoying more stories than not and I think any reader will find at least one thing they jive with.

Hollow says, “You have your own form and function, and it is beautiful.”
— “8-Bit Free Will”

This collection is full of queer love, queer struggles, and was resoundingly compelling. Relatable and chock full of so many fun elements!! Being able to point at some pages and say “this is me” is always a wonderful feeling, and it’s similarly wonderful to point at other pages with underrepresented identities and say “and there they are!”

For me it was the more magical-fantasy and technology focused stories that I loved the most. Like “The Currant Dumas” with its dystopia filled with little technological choices and a hint of magic. Or “Rat and Finch Are Friends” which perfectly captures that young-love dynamic while imbuing it with shape-shifting. “The Last Good Time to Be Alive” decimated me with its tension and use of the internet as a vehicle for hope.

Surprisingly, it was some of the last stories in this that made a giant impression on me. “Salt and Iron” was a wonderful tale focusing on how we as individuals are whole and worthy just by existing, and nothing can take that away.

“Monsters Never Leave You” by Carlie St. George is my favorite, I think. It was the perfect length, covering some amazing themes around family acceptance and how children should be given free choice about how they will live. Its focus on two different sibling pairs made it right up my alley. That being said, this story does discuss familial abuse and I’d recommend looking for a content warning list if you know you may have some sensitivities before reading this anthology.

Overall, super pleased that I’ve been able to go back to my library recently and start picking up things that spark my interest, like this collection! This was a great read full of authors I plan to keep my eye out for as time goes on.

[M. K. French · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of sixteen stories written by queer authors in sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres in 2020. Various tropes are taken on and given a twist, focusing on queer characters and themes.

We open with Gabriela Santiago's "Escaping Dr. Markoff," told in second person and start/stop film terms. Second person is tricky to get right, but this works well because of the nonlinear format. The only constant is "you," with the love interest changing in the context of which scene is going forward or backward, the story written and rewritten back and forth. This is certainly reflected in the queer experience, with learning and relearning the self, and changing the traditional story. This is reflected in further stories, where the apocalypse is the backdrop for change, a magic and true crime podcast debates the reality of an internet phenomenon's death, a museum describes an art movement cut short by the Nazi occupation of France, or excavating at an archaeological site also excavates memories pre-transition.

With these stories, it's a question of connection with others, finding the self, and making positive changes for the future. Whether it's a fantasy setting, a sci-fi one on a distant moon, or a watery apocalypse, it's the connection between people that saves them from disasters. It doesn't even have to be romantic love, but it's reaching out and recognizing that other people, regardless of their situation, are still human and in need of help. I really like that message, especially in the context of the pandemic and the literal rage that often gets thrown at queer people. Even if a world is ending, there is still hope in these stories, and I really appreciate that.

[Sydney Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology is well-curated. There are tales involving a video game, movie, monsters, witches, a plum farmer, immigration, hiking, trains, the apocalypse, AI, joy, love, self-doubt, fury, and more. The through line of the stories is obviously being queer and being speculative, but they are very diverse in focus. This made the collection engaging and avoided unnecessary redundancy. I would have preferred some of the stories in a different order during my reading experience, but I am sure every reader may feel that way. Some of these stories stood out as favorites and I would reread them in lieu of having a full book to pick up with the characters and story.

Listed below is my star rating, story title, author, and (the order I would've liked them in).

*3.5* "Escaping Dr. Markoff" by Gabriela Santiago (16)
*4* "The Currant Dumas" by L.D. Lewis (11)
*4* "The Ashes of Vivian Firestrike" by Kristen Koopman (6)
*3.5* "Portrait of Three Women with an Owl" by Gwen C. Katz (3)
*4* "If You Take My Meaning" by Charlie Jane Anders (9)
*3.5* "A Voyage to Queensthroat" by Anya Johanna DeNiro (13)
*3* "Body, Remember" by Nicasio Andres Reed (7)
*3* "Rat and Finch Are Friends" by Innocent Chizaram Ilo (1)
*4* "The Last Good Time to Be Alive" by Waverly SM (4)
*2.5* "Everquest" by Naomi Kanaki (2)
*2* "8-Bit Free Will" by John Wiswell (8)
*5* "The Wedding After the Bomb" by Brendan Williams-Childs (15)
*5* "Thin Red Jellies" by Lina Rather (10)
*3.5* "Salt and Iron" by Gemma Isherwood (5)
*5* "Monsters Never Leave you" by Carlie St. George (14)
*2* "To Balance the Weight of Khalem" by R.B. Lemberg (12)

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every so often I try to read an anthology again, which usually ends with me feeling vaguely disappointed. Luckily, this one didn't disappoint, which means I need to find better anthologies because this one was amazing.

My top three from this collection are The Ashes of Vivian Firestrike, Portrait of Three Women with an Owl, and 8-Bit Free Will, with an extremely close honorable mention from Monsters Never Leave You. All in all a very powerful collection full of some very thought-provoking stories.

[Cèilidh Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Escaping Dr. Markoff - ⭐⭐⭐
The Currant Dumas - ⭐⭐
The Ashes of Vivian Firestrike - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Portrait of Three Women with an Owl - ⭐⭐⭐
If You Take My Meaning - ⭐⭐⭐
Voyage to Queensthroat - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Body, Remember - ⭐⭐⭐
Rat and Finch Are Friends - ⭐⭐⭐1/2
The Last Good Time to Be Alive - ⭐
Everquest - ⭐
8-Bit Free Will - ⭐⭐1/2
The Wedding After the Bomb - ⭐⭐
Thin Red Jellies - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Salt and Iron - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Monsters Never Leave You - ⭐⭐⭐
To Balance the Weight of Khalem - ⭐

Average rating = 2.75

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

very enjoyable reading, subtle and nuanced storytelling from most of these entries.

"Breathe. Focus. Alyssa imagined Hope's scary vision, as if it was a clear liquid inside a little ball of glass, cupped in her palms. Separated from all her own thoughts, clean and delicate. She gave that glass ball to Jeremy in her mind as their tendrils made contact, and felt Hope's dream flow out of her." (p. 88)

"When she was brand new, the other Gelet had made a wish for her that boiled down to "Find reasons for hope, even in the midst of death." (p. 83)

"Assuming we reached Queensthroat, she had no idea about the superblood tinctures, the long nights of pledges and submission to Seax-of-Marigold's manifestations, the pilgrimage to the cave at the heart of Queensthroat, shorn from the molten core, where she would find her name inside the shadow, as I found mine." (p. 102)

"Here is what is true about the woods: You won't be the same person you were before you went into them. Here is what is true about the woods that people who love the woods and know the woods won't tell you: This is true of everywhere you go." (p. 176)

"He is a person behind the light.... He is the jeweler of the market of shadows, when all the sirens are resting and all the people have left. He is the inheritor of crevasses into which gold has spilled and stilled, the magic of the fissures of the world. So am I, I think, and wonder if it's true." (p. 235)

[Kris Sellgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I was underwhelmed by this collection of queer speculative fiction. The first few stories did nothing for me, and usually collections put their strongest stories at the beginning. But then the stories improved, and my overall impression is favorable. I particularly liked the stories about the onion, the gingerbread house, grafting tentacles, and the non-player characters in a video game.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I usually end up feeling kind of meh about short story collections, because by nature I think that it's always going to be a situation where some things work for you and some things don't, but almost all of these worked for me, which felt a little miraculous honestly. more review to come but for now: 4.5 rounded up.

[Henry Hales · Rating 4 out of 5]

We're Here is a fun little collection of queer sci-fi. The tone ranges from complete absurdity to sincere emotion, and it's a great ride all the way down. It's a quick read, but I thought it was pretty entertaining. There were a handful of stories that I went back to read a couple times, or to show others as excerpts from the whole collection.

[Molly (MoMo) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really sure how to rate this as it’s a bunch of different stories, some I really enjoyed and others I did not. Overall, it was interesting and a different read for me. I think I prefer long-form stories.

[Lezzle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each story has a different author so you get a mix of writing styles and abilities. Some stories are better than others. Some I skipped.

[Cynthia Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommended

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spectacular collection of Queer science fiction short stories, I enjoyed them all.

[Jaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought about these for weeks. I especially loved "Everquest," "Voyage to Queensthroat," and "To Balance the Weight of Khalem"

[Kel · Rating 5 out of 5]

dnf because it was due back to the library, but what I read was excellent. Will check out again sometime.
I particularly enjoyed Monsters Never Leave You by Varlie St. George.

[Starkast · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3,5

[Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

some hits, some misses. my two favorites were body, remember, and rat and finch are friends. honorable mention is going to everquest which was thissss 🤏 close to getting me.

[alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good collection of queer speculative short fiction. In particular, my favorites were “Everquest,” “Thin Red Jellies,” and “Salt and Iron”; strong second favorites were “The Currant Dumas,” “The Last Good Time to Be Alive,” and “The Wedding After the Bomb.” I also enjoyed reading “Monsters Never Leave You” and “To Balance the Weight of Khalem.” Overall, super solid anthology!!

[Holly Bloomdahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories I loved. Most didn't do much for me, and a few had me wondering what the author was on. Very little romance, which actually delighted me.

[Cpt Hawk]

This was very good. I found myself marking down short stories for later re-reading and study, and in a number of cases I was jotting down sentences I found especially clever. Rarely, a couple stories felt heavy-handed or ill-balanced, or rushed at the end, but most of them in one way or another I thought were very enjoyable. 80% sure I want a personal copy of this book on my shelf.

[Anne V · Rating 3 out of 5]

A queer collection of stories rather than a collection of queer stories. Too many short collections of words without much story attached; or, where there is story, too many missing beginnings or conclusions or comprehensible characters.