Queer Blades: An Anthology of LGBTQIA2+ Adventure Fantasy

by Rick Hollon, L.P. Kindred, T.K. Rex

Swords, sorcery, and love! An anthology of LGBTQIA2+ adventure fantasy. Nine stories from nine acclaimed and upcoming authors.


"Aurum & Indigo" by LP Kindred
"My Favorite Shape of All" by T. K. Rex
"Queerano de Bergerac" by Jennifer Lee Rossman
"Sleep in Winter, Dream of Spring" by Rodello Santos
"A Doe in Crown Land" by Sarah L. Hawthorn
"The Story of Anas and Bali" by AJ Cunder
"Honey and Lilac" by A'liya Spinner
"In the Wake of" by K. A. Tutin
"Tower at the Edge of the Tide" by Laila Amado

Genres: Sword and Sorcery

168 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2021

Reviews

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nine stories. I found things to like in each of them. The only let-down was an inconsistency in proofreading.

My highlights, in ToC order:

‘Aurum and Indigo’ by L.P. Kindred (20 pp): A Shadow Lion psychopomp walks into a gay bar… sword & soul set in a fantasy-Chicago.

‘My Favorite Shape of All’ by T. K. Rex (33 pp): Excellence about a queen cursed to change into a different shape each day – from jaguar to random human to tree. How do you kill the king, or get to know a half-prince?

‘A Doe in Crown Land’ by Sarah L. Hawthorn (26 pp): A baker who has survived the Scatter of her people gets dangerously entangled with a poacher. ‘Lesbian cottagecore’.

‘In the Wake of’ by K. A. Tutin (54 pp): probably the one I enjoyed most. The serial deaths of Aspen and her gradual understanding with the pirate Joane, who killed her once.

‘Tower at the Edge of the Tide’ by Laila Amado (27 pp): Sword & sorcery as a mercenary is forcibly enlisted by a water mage to save a town.

Free as a pdf at: https://farthertrees.wordpress.com/qu...

[Sephy Hallow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of the stories in here are great, but others are genuinely difficult to even follow. A few stories struggle with consistent tone, others with pacing, and worst, some just don't feel like stories at all: nothing particularly happens, or there seems to be no point to the narrative, no character goals or resolutions or interesting conceptual musings, leaving this reader wondering how or why certain pieces were conceived. Most need a thorough edit; there's a lot of jumps in tense (some mid-sentence), missing words that make reading difficult, spelling errors and typos that could have been caught. I know that might sound nit-picky, but the overall experience is that not enough time and care went into this volume, and what's left is a frustrating mess that could have been so much better.